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Many people remember the Wii days fondly with its gimmick controls, memorable in-app music and homebrew friendly system. Ever since the discontinuation of the Wii Shop service back in January 30th, 2019, users could no longer purchase new titles through it, and were only left with the option to redownload already purchased titles.

Since then, a few homebrew developers have worked on a revival service, formerly known as "LaunchShop" to recreate the Wii Shop servers back when they were fully accessible. As of January 8th, 2024, this revival service has been rebranded into "RiiShop", and is now publicly available for Wii users in a WAD format.

The current open beta can be installed in homebrewed Wii systems as a WAD, and users can enter the Wii Shop menu and browse Virtual Console and WiiWare games, as well as Wii channels that were originally available, complete with what seems to be dummy Wii Points to redeem, but with nothing to do with them at the moment due to downloads not working on the current build yet. It's worth nothing that this will apparently work like a free Shop to download titles from, with no currency being involved.

As with any product in beta, expect some issues to pop up, and bare in mind that the public beta might not have download working, since many people online are reporting downloads not being possible as of yet.

 

[HiradeGirl]

This is very interesting. But also very stupid to be made public.

 

[BaamAlex]

for possessing illegal pictures.

Or fonts. That is enough reason for Nintendo.

 

[fst312]

If this is just linked to a website then I think it will last long, if it’s linked to Nintendo servers that’s a different story. Also are they us based because that 3ds website still exists and I don’t know where their location is but you would think nintendo would have went after that website but seems like they didn’t.

 

[linuxares]

If this is just linked to a website then I think it will last long, if it’s linked to Nintendo servers that’s a different story. Also are they us based because that 3ds website still exists and I don’t know where their location is but you would think nintendo would have went after that website but seems like they didn’t.

Well it's different if it's a pirate shop. Nintendo will take it down, even though you can't buy Wii games anymore.

If it's just linked to Archive.org I guess that's one way around it?

 

[Something whatever]

If they put custom games on there....that'll be hyped as hell

 

[ZeroFX]

The 3DS scene was strange…

The switch scene is on par, just go to any discord server of the most used homebrews or cfw, or even here, and behold the myriad of weirdos.

 

[chrisrlink]

if the devs are in russia good luck nintendo I can see more warez cropping up from them or another country with disregard for copyright (iirc cuba being another china is iffy cause of tencent but also wonders what side Japan will take with Taiwan as well (also a factor)

 

[JuanMena]

Nintendo released a Wii System update 4.5X.
This update prevents you from downloading games they prevents you from downloading anyways since 5 years ago.

The community is mad, stating that Nintendo has no right to cancel an already cancelled service.
It seems both the community and Nintendo forgot that WAD installers exists.
"But Wiimote won't connect to BootMii."
"I downloaded Wii Dev Menu 1.69."
"Now my Wii won't boot after installing FreeShop from Discord."
"Plis Halp."
"Huur dumb service. 6.9/10 - GBATEMP."

NEXT: Who's getting fired from the temp? It seems one staff member went missing and another one claims he's fearing for his life.
More at 9pm.

 

[DragonMals]

This feels like Piracy heaven and I'm not allowing myself to get this and to continue getting games through other means.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo finds out and the Ninjas come over to the developers house

 

[krikor991]

Damn, the wii shop brings back some good memories. Nothing will ever top the wii shop!

 

[a_username_that_isnt_cool]

FreeShop and CIAngel claimers when they figure out about hShop:

 

[JORGETECH]

Not going to discuss about the morality of piracy here. But let me ask you a question, where can I legally buy WiiWare and 3DS eShop games as of now? Oh that's right, I can't since they closed down the shops! The problem with this is that I don't trust Nintendo with their back catalog, they only cover the big stuff and forget about the rest like it never existed.

And before anyone comes at me saying: "You had plenty of time to buy those titles!". Imagine we did the same kind of thing with old movies and made them impossible to buy after let's say 15 years, "Oh you had enough time to watch Blade Runner, it was released in 1982!".

I'm not trying to justify piracy really, but I think governments should contemplate some way of enabling a second hand market for digital goods (I think there was some discussion in France about that) or we will throw away vast amounts of digital-only games to the dumpsters of history.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Are they really doing that?
This is just asking for Nintendo to shut them down real quick.
Well at least I got confirmation from that tho, guess I was just misreading stuff from outside the Discord

Wonder what they mean with "charging for other games is illegal"?

It's crazy how long Freeshop stayed up for, considering what it was.

 

[PopcornSweetie]

"Complete with the Wii Points redeem system which shows the current Points on the account, and the possibility to add more points through purchases (as originally intended)."

@ShadowOne333
You might wanna rephase this or completely delete this whole sentence since this is essentially false information...

As stated on their Discord faq (winch you clearly didn't read) They (Riishop) stated that the whole project will be free and they can't charge any money for it since it contains copyrighted material still owned by Nintendo. The Wii points are there just for show and do nothing. It is also not possible to add points. (I added the screenshots as a attachment, so yall can see it for yourself)

Good that you are reporting or something, but next time check all facts before making them up.

 

[orangy57]

Pretty sure the Wii Points are just locked to 1000 so that the internal system doesn't prevent you from downloading any WADs, also charging users for points would be ÜUUUUUUHUHUUÜBER illegal. That'd be the difference between getting a C&D/shutdown from Nintendo and getting legitimate prison time.

Also on the topic of Wii revival services, we'll miss you Larsen

 

[VashTS]

all they gotta do is allow custom routing for the download. should be easy and then no piracy.

 

[RetroNerdGamer]

What the hell is going on here...
Glad to know its free, because charging for wii points would... hoo boy.
But wow, y'all goofed up and went against your own rules here about piracy.

Either way, cool to see and can't wait to see it outta beta, unless Nintenja's get em.

 

[Deleted member 466238]

Huh? I thought this was illegal and against GBATemp's TOS. Am I having a fever dream or something?

 

[fst312]

Huh? I thought this was illegal and against GBATemp's TOS. Am I having a fever dream or something?

Well the download link isn’t here, so is it really going against their rules. Think about it like this, this is one of those rom hacks for example that you would need to provide your own rom. No one here is providing the necessary files to make this work.

 

[E1ite007]

From their Discord server:

View attachment 414288


Also from their Discord server:

View attachment 414287

This is straight up piracy lol.


Can work exactly like that. All contents are still on the CDN and you can generate your own tickets since the titlekey algorithm has been leaked. Which would be a great way to get ninja'd by Nintendo obviously.

Why ninja'd? NUSspli has been doing the same for almost 3 years now (with the titlekey algorithm working from within NUSspli, 4 years in total) and afak, there hasn't been any kind of legal trouble.