Wii Unlock Plus is sort of the new kid on the block. This popular product launched in August 2009 and is looking to become the leading Wii product. The solution consists of a Members Area with Wii unlocking and homebrew guide, instructional videos, and several exclusive bonuses like a Homebrew Database, Wii Themes Club, Wii Cheats Handbook and Game Guide, and more. I have to confess that after doing my research for a solution to unlock my Wii last fall, I was torn between Wii Unlock Plus and MyHomebreware’s Wii Unlocker Ultra. From what I had read, it seemed like they both got the job done and both offered more extras than the other solutions. In the end, I liked what Wii Unlock Plus had to offer and decided to give it a shot.

Wii Unlock Plus guides you step by step with video tutorial and expert explanation all the way to make sure you do everything just right. While it might even get a little tedious at times for the technically inclined, I think this is probably just the thing that a newbie needs. Unlike some of the other Wii unlock solutions that provide less  software (or no software at all) and limited tutorials, Wii Unlock Plus really does provide everything you need. It also includes a lot of bonus extras that make it an even better deal. While I didn’t make use of it, others reviewers have commented that they actually do provide customer support.

So, in a nutshell, here is what you will need to unlock your Wii safely with no chip mod or any alternation using Wii Unlock Plus:

• The Wii Unlock Plus download and site have all of the software and instructions you will need
• Wii console (works on any model)
• Computer with SD card reader
• SD card
• Wiimote

Of the five solutions reviewed on this site, I think that you really can’t go wrong with Wii Unlock Plus. Check out the Wii Unlock Plus site for more information and testimonials, and if you have had a chance to try it out, please feel free to share your comments and evaluation below.

Homebrew Installer is a set of guides and tutorials which show users how to unlock their Wii. Like most of its competitors, Homebrew Installer is  not selling software; however, the solution does show users where to download the required software for free and how to use it. Homebrew Installer works  on version 4.2 and lower and does not require the Zelda game (for the famous Twilight hack). Homebrew Installer is supposed to be updated twice monthly, and customers receive unlimited updates. The Homebrew Installer team provide full e-mail support through its tech department,a nd promises to answer questions promptly. The only extra with Homebrew Installer is a Wii cheats guide.

Homebrew Installer seems to fall pretty much in the middle of the five solutions that we review on this site. It definitely does not have the features that the top two products have. It does provide you the tools that you need to easily and reliably unlock your Wii. We are not sure about the twice monthly updates, but – anecdotally at least – the folks at Homebrew Installer seem to provide better customer support than a couple of the other companies.

For more information and some customer testimonials, take a look at the Homebrew Installer website. If you have experience with this product, please share your thoughts and rate the solution in the comments section below.

Homebreware is a simple Wii unlock solution that gets the job done. The package includes several files. You simply copy those files onto an SD card (which is the Wii memory format). Once they have been moved to the SD card, simply insert the card and boot up the Wii console.

Homebreware claims that its software is updated regularly to ensure compatability with Wii system updates.  If you ever wish to uninstall the mod, the package includes a nice rollback features which allows you to return your console to it’s original settings with the click of a button.

With this package you will learn how to unlock the following features on your Wii:

• Play backup games
• Play imported games that are region locked
• Make copies of existing games (for back-up purposes)
• Play N64, SNES, NES and Sega Genesis games, as well as games from other consoles
• Play homebrew games
• Play DVD movies and Mp3s

Homebreware comes with a lifetime membership, entitling users to get all of the future upgrades for free and the package also includes the Ultimate Wii Cheats Guide.

This is another solution that does seem to get the job of unlocking your Wii done effectively enough. Compared to some of the other solutions, it comes with only one extra and the process is not as well documented as with some others. Finally, we have heard some complaints about a lack of good customer support. You should check out the Homebreware web site for additional information. In addition, if you have had a chance to use the Homebreware solution, you are welcome to provide your comments and ratings below.

The Wii Unlocker Ultra Guide and Videos this are the signature guide to unlocking your Wii in 5 minutes or less sold by Myhomebreware.com. This is definitely one of my top 2 picks among the five products reviewed here. First off, Wii Unlock Ultra has a really good guide.  It is really written with the average, non-technical user in mind. It is really was easy to follow along, and all of the pictures and detailed descriptions to unlocking the Wii are spot on.  I mean, you really don’t need any experience fixing or modding your Wii, because every single step is spelled out for you in sometimes too much detail (if you are a little more technically inclined).

The videos are also nicely done. You could ignore the guide and just use the nice high definition videos in the members area to unlock your Wii at your own pace. The unlocking videos go through the process of choosing what software to download depending on what Wii system menu version you have whether it is a 3.4 or 4.1 up until you completely unlock your Wii. There are also 5 video tutorials, all showing you how to do different things after your Wii is unlocked.

The other thing that sets this apart from most of the competitors are the application installation tutorials. Wii Unlocker Ultra actually shows you how to download the free applications that you can find on the internet and install them on your Wii.

Wii Unlocker Ultra is completely compatible with all Wii versions. They have two sets of software  to unlock your Wii, one for all system versions 3.4 and earlier and the other software for the latest versions of the Wii systems menu including 4.0 and 4.1.++

My Homebreware offers several extras with Wii Unlocker, including the following:

• Wii Games Cheats Guide – (this is the most updated Wii cheat book that gamers are using right now)
• Backup Wii Games Guide and Software – (shows you how to back-up all of your Wii games in a safe place just in case they get damaged)
• Wii Games Patching Guide and Software – (There is some games out there that you just cant backup, but this patching guide shows  how to get around these road blocks to back up any game)
• Wii DVD Converter Guide and Software – (enables you to use your Wii as a DVD player)
• Wii UNLOCKER ULTRA Elite Gamers Membership – (a one-stop solution for all Wii-related mods, cheats, guides, games, Wii updates, downloads and more)
• 60-day money back guarantee

This is a great solution with lots and lots of extra features. Please check out the Myhomebreware Wii Unlocker Ultra web site yourself for more information and some user testimonials. Also, if you have had a chance to use this solution, please share your experiences and rate it below.

Like the other solutions that we review here, BreWii is a set of guides and tutorials which show you how to unlock your Wii. BreWii does not sell the software to unlock your Wii; however, the guides do show you where you can download the software which you can use for free. The product is useful, and the guides and videos do a good job of showing you exactly how to unlock Wii consoles and play backup and homebrew games.

So, while BreWii certainly gets the job done, we have a couple of reservations about it. First, BreWii is the most expensive of the five solutions that we review here. Now, it’s only about $5 more, so that’s not really that big of a deal, but when you consider that the only extra is a Wii Cheats guide that you can find elsewhere (or at least something very similar), it just doesn’t seem to be worth the extra cost. Especially, when you compare the number of extras that come with some of the other solutions. Second, we have had a number of reviewers complain about the customer support.

Please feel free to check out the BreWii web site for additional information about this solution. In addition, if you have used this product and would like to share your experiences with others, please feel free to comment and rate the product below.

If you have begun to research how to unlock your Wii, no doubt you have seen lots of articles and ads for products that promise to help you unlock your Wii without the need for a modchip. However, when you visit the websites where these products are sold, it can be more than a little confusing about what exactly it is that they are trying to sell you. In this article, I am going to explain what these products are and then discuss whether they really do work.

What Is a Wii Unlock Solution?

I call these products “Wii unlock solutions,” because while some of the vendors may imply that they are selling software, what they are actually selling is a set of instructions along with links to the appropriate software. In addition, while the advertising for these products – like so many other downloadable products on the web today – shows pictures of books, DVDs and packaged software boxes, what you are actually purchasing is a set of downloadable products. Typically, this set of downloads consists of one or more eBooks in PDF format as well as one or more videos that provide you detailed instructions on how to unlock your Wii. In addition, you usually get membership to the web site, meaning that you can return for updates and additional downloads in the future. On the web sites and in the guides you will be given links to various sources for the free software that you will need to download and use to unlock your Wii. To make their products more enticing, many of these vendors also include extras such as Wii cheat guides and other related digital products that you can download. Typically, the vendors promise lifetime updates. Most also offer 60-day money-back guarantees.

Do Wii Unlock Solutions Actually Work?

While depending on what changes Nintendo might make to future versions of the Wii, this might change, it appears that the leading Wii unlock solutions do work. Now, this assumes that you carefully follow the instructions provided. The fact is that if you are tech savvy and do some research online, you can figure out how to do what is in these guides yourself. The actual hacks that these guides explain and the software applications that they are showing you how to download and use were mostly developed by Team Twiizers, a group of game hackers that that have created many hacks for the Wii including the Homebrew Channel, the Twilight Hack, and DVDX. What these vendors have done is created guides that “dumb down,” this how-to information so that less technically inclined people can do it themselves. Essentially, these solutions amount to “Wii Homebrew for Dummies” or “Wii Unlock for Dummies.”

Should I Purchase a Wii Unlock Solution?

Whether you should consider purchasing one of these solutions really depends on how comfortable you are with working with computers and software. Some folks will be perfectly comfortable researching the Wii hacks for themselves and working through the process of unlocking their Wii. Many others may find that these solutions are extremely helpful because they put all of the pieces together in one place and provide detailed instructions. The best of these guides go through the process of how to unlock your Wii in great detail both in print and videos, so even for someone who is a total newbie can have a lot of confidence in getting it right and not bricking their Wii.

Can the vendors selling these solutions really guarantee that you won’t brick your Wii or void your warranty or that they will always be able to keep up with future updates? The truth is that they can’t. No one can do that. However, for the typical, non-technical Wii owner who wants to unlock their Wii and experience the world of Wii homebrew, these solutions offer a relatively safe and painless approach to unlocking your console’s potential. To better understand what is in each of these solutions and how they compare, check out our reviews.

When you start exploring how to unlock your Wii, you keep coming across the term “Homebrew.” Now, some of you know what this means (and some are probably looking for information on unlocking your Wii because you know what homebrew is), but for a lot of people, this is a new term. Homebrew is simply the name given to original games, programs, and applications that have been created by gamers either writing code (games) from scratch or using an existing platform and modifying it to make it better or to add new features to a game. What is really cool about this is that since Wii homebrew is not licensed through Wii or Nintendo, you can find and download thousands of games and applications from the Internet.

The catch to all of this is that to be able to use Wii homebrew, you need to unlock your Wii. In the early days of Wii homebrew (way back in 2007) when the Wii console was first introduced by Nintendo, you would need to mod chip your Wii which took some technical skill and meant instantly voiding your warranty. For those who don’t know, mod chipping the circuit board requires tampering with the physical hardware. A modchip is a device containing simple firmware that is usually soldered or clipped onto a circuit board typically for the purpose of altering or circumventing the normal functions of a device. In a game console like the Wii, a modchip almost always serves to enable the playing of backup and/or pirated copies of game. So, this required some technical skill and not only would you void the warranty, but it was also pretty easy to brick (meaning kill) your Wii.

Now, thanks to Team Twiizers (a group of game hackers that that have created many hacks for the Wii including the Homebrew Channel, the Twilight Hack, and DVDX), you no longer need to physically alter your Wii console to use Wii homebrew.  This opens the doors to a lot more users and means you don’t have to void your warranty. Technically inclined and web-savvy folks can find these and other similar hacks on the web and use them to unlock their Wii consoles.

The great thing about unlocking your Wii is that with software compatible with homebrew you can easily backup all of your current Nintendo Wii games to regular old DVDs. So, now you can put your original games in a safe place and play from the backed-up games you just burned. You can also use emulators which are applications that turn your Wii into any machine you want, from a regular NES to a Super NES, Sega Genesis, Atari — you name it, you could do it. You can also play region-locked games anywhere, and you can even use your Wii to play DVD movies and MP3s.

Are you wondering how much all these emulators, homebrew games, and applications cost? They don’t cost anything. They are completely free for anyone to download and it’s legal if discouraged by Nintendo. However, the catch here is that you will have to find the files and instructions to help you unlock your Wii to Homebrew. If you happen to miss a file or not load the right software, the process can fail and you can even brick your Wii console.

To make this whole Wii homebrew experience accessible to a much wider audience, several enterprising guys sell solutions to unlocking your Wii with software. I call them Wii unlock solutions because they are not just a simple piece of software that you download and run. These solutions typically consist of guides as well as either the actual software required or instructions on how to find the software (the software itself is usually free and available on the Internet for download). Once you have found and downloaded the right software, the guides — usually both eBooks and videos — guide you through the process of unlocking your Wii.

There are at least a dozen of these solutions on the market, but the top 5 are probably BreWii, Homebrew Installer, Homebreware, Wii Unlock Plus, and Wii Unlocker Ultra. When you read the marketing copy and visit the web sites for these products, it is often a little hard to figure out which — if any — of them is going to work and what is included in the package. You will need to do some research and compare them to figure out which is best for you and which is the best value. I created Wii Homebrew Info to give you the tools to easily find out about these five leading solutions and pick the best one to get you quickly on the way to enjoying the world of Wii homebrew.

Do you want the inside scoop on the applications and guides designed to help you run homebrew hardware and software on your Nintendo Wii? Well you’ve come to the right place. As you may know, these solutions can enable you to run hardware and software that were not meant to run on your Nintendo Wii console. This means that you can now run games that were designed for other platforms and not for the Wii and even homebrew games that ordinary people are creating. It also means that you can play imported Wii games from other regions or make back-ups of your Wii games. This is the beauty of the unlocking your Wii, and as you may have found, homebrew software is increasing in popularity in among Wii gamers at a phenomenal pace.

Now, you have probably also found that there are a growing number of Wii unlock and homebrew solutions being marketed today, but it is hard to know what you should buy. I built this site to provide in-depth and objective reviews of the leading Wii homebrew and unlock solutions to help take the guesswork out of figuring out what you should buy.

Please take a look at our reviews and the comments and rating by our visitors. If you have had the opportunity to use one of these solutions, I urge you to take the time to share your experience and rate the solution.  So, I hope you find this site useful and find the solution that you need to unlock your Wii’s potential.