Wii U Gets a Surprise System Update, Modders Are Worried

Surprise! The Wii U isn't dead yet. By all commercial accounts the Wii U was a failure, and Nintendo has long ceased production or its ill-fated console, Wii U owners were surprised to wake up to a brand new system update this morning. It's been over a year and a half since the Wii U saw its last update, but today it's raised to new life in system version 5.5.2.

"Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience." Well that was sweet of them. If you're still using your Wii U, then you can look forward to a "more stable" experience next time you boot up. I don't even mean that in a tongue-in-cheek way, mind you. I own a Nintendo Switch and I still play my Wii U every week. I'm currently playing through Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and loving every second of it, and before my review copy of Splatoon 2 came in (see our review here), I was brushing up with the original Splatoon2. The Wii U is still a wonderful system.

This update is probably hiding more than the patch notes indicate, though. For some of you, playing on the Wii U is about to be a less-pleasant experience. Typically updates like this are less about improving stability, and more about sewing up some holes that users were exploiting in order to run homebrew and illegally downloaded games on their consoles. Modding the Wii U isn't always all about piracy, by the way, some people genuinely enjoy side-lading interesting software onto the console and modding their games. It's not condoned by Nintendo, of course, but it's certainly not illegal.

I've been out of the soft-modding scene for a while, and I have no idea what method the kiddos are using these days to get the most out of their Wii Us. If you've been enjoying your modded Wii U lately, then you may want to check and make sure that you still have access to your homebrew.