Game compatibility on Wii

Question

I have recently acquired my sister's Wii(PAL) from Australia. I live in the Philippines(which is an NTSC region). She sent me a NBA 2k11 with the Wii(PAL) and I was hoping if I could play any NTSC games for my Wii.

I was planning to buy Rockband 3 or Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock here(including the instruments) but I'm not sure if it will work. I've read about WiiFreeloader or something but I am confused as to what I actually need to do.

Some questions that are bugging me:

• I know only some of the games can be played in a PAL wii even after 'modding' it of some sort, but how do you actually mod it? Just download some software?

• They mentioned you might "brick" your Wii if NTSC updates get downloaded to your PAL Wii or vice versa. Will this render my Wii useless and is irreversible?

• I heard that if you DO get to make these things run, you won't be able to get further updates/firmware. So the thing is, if I DID get to play GHWoR, will I be able to download songs or am I stuck with being offline forever?

i hope these are not too specialized questions, but if they are, feel free to close this. I am also not sure if this is legal so close also if it is not.

Answer 1

Software-modding a Wii involves getting a copy of a game that contains a bug that can be exploited to run custom code. The first known hack involved a bug in Twilight Princess, for example, but the exploit doesn't work on Wiis with more recent firmware and other bugs had to be found. (I am not up on the current exploits, and being more specific would just make this answer out-of-date before long anyway.)

Bricking your Wii is unrecoverable without unusual technical skills. Bricking is also a risk you run any time you engage in soft-modding, so if you do decide to mod your Wii, do it only if you're willing to accept that you might destroy it.

Modding involves replacing parts of the operating system and firmware, so you can't update the firmware without losing the modding (and possibly having the update brick the machine in the process). However, the firmware has nothing to do with DLC like new songs and modding won't interfere with DLC. It's much more likely that a PAL game trying to access DLC servers in an NTSC region just won't connect properly, regardless of modding.