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WiiWiiU

Retiring the Wii

by Zachary Miller - November 18, 2012, 6:25 pm EST
Total comments: 11

The long, arduous process from Wii to Wii U.

I only had to sit in the Fred Meyer electronics department for an hour before I was able to buy my Deluxe Wii U, pick up my wife from the airport, and come home. My intention was to download the OS update and go to sleep, but being the slightly OCD person I am, that didn't really happen. I got the thing home at 1:00, and I didn't go to sleep until 3:30. The whole process was pretty brutal, and there were a few times I thought I was screwed.

First of all, I had to set up the Wii U in such a way that I would have access to my still-hooked-up Wii, since I was—at some point—going to do a system transfer. I set up the new system on a chair next to the TV. Did you notice that the Wii U comes with an HDMI cable?! How glorious is that? Anyway, I set up both systems so that they'd be on separate inputs and went to work. The setup process for the Wii U is extremely simple and reminded me of that for the 3DS. It then more or less forces you to get on the Internet and look for updates... which it found.

As you've probably read by now, the update process is brutally long. It took my system over an hour, during which time the missus and I caught up on TV shows. But then it wasn't quite done. It had to install the new patch, which was a far briefer process but still seemed to take forever. It was something like 2:00 a.m. at this point, and I figured I'd just do the system transfer (how bad could it be?) and hit the hay.

The system transfer takes you into the Wii U's "Wii Channel," which acts like a Wii within the Wii U. Everything is the same. The menu, the sound effects, and even the storage capacity (which we'll get to). The Wii U has a Wii inside of it, with all the baggage that carries. Long before I left the house to buy my Wii U, I'd organized my VC and WiiWare games on my Wii and downloaded the Wii U transfer app. The weird part is that you also have to go into the Wii U's Wii Channel and download the Wii U Transfer Tool... from the Wii Shop Channel. There were times I couldn't tell whether I was on my Wii U or my Wii. It was a little spooky.

What you do, then, is place an SD card into the Wii and activate the transfer tool. It sucks up all the licenses, save data, Mii information, shop history, any remaining Wii Shop Channel points, etc., and then asks you to move the SD card into your Wii U. The animation for this is, as it was in the 3DS, involves adorable Pikmin carrying data from one place to another.

Once it gets back to the Wii U, you go into the Wii Channel and select the Wii Transfer Tool and the whole process goes in reverse: the Pikmin appear once more, carrying data from the Wii to the Wii U. A rolling display shows what's currently being downloaded. At about 30 percent completion, my progress bar just stopped, and the Pikmin animation looped forever: "Downloading Donkey Kong Country" for about 10 minutes. I didn't really know what to do. Turning off the system was begging for a fatal error in the transfer. Because the Wii U was only a few hours old, the Internet held no solutions.

Eventually, however, an error message popped up saying there was a problem and I should restart the system. Well, the system was in hard-lock. I couldn't actually turn it off, so I was forced to unplug the thing, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in. Thankfully, when I again selected the Wii Channel, it prompted me to "continue the transfer" and things kept up as if there'd been no interruption. Things went smoothly that time, and by 3:00 a.m. all my data was transferred over.

Well, not ALL of it. Anything that couldn't fit on the SD card the first time was erased entirely, but because my download history carried over, I spent a little while re-downloading my other games. The funny thing is, though, that I could not save anything else to the "Wii System Memory" even though it's the Wii U. There's plenty more onboard space. I could, however, select the SD card. What this means is that the Wii U, in Wii mode, assumes it has the exact same amount of onboard space with which to save VC and WiiWare games. Everything else has to be put on an SD card. So I did that, but I thought it was pretty funny.

It's like somebody crammed two GameCubes duct taped together inside the Wii U! After all that, I left the living room in shambles—cords strewn about, remotes and booklets lying all over the place—and went to bed. Aside from adding to my friends List, I haven't even touched the system yet today!

Talkback

TeaHeeNovember 18, 2012

I am really considering just moving my Wii to another TV and not transferring anything.  I am not sure there are any advantages for me in having everything on 1 system.  So until they make the games playable on the game pad I will leave things as they are.

joshnickersonNovember 18, 2012

Quote from: TeaHee

I am really considering just moving my Wii to another TV and not transferring anything.  I am not sure there are any advantages for me in having everything on 1 system.  So until they make the games playable on the game pad I will leave things as they are.

That's my plan, besides, both systems are small enough you could just stack 'em. I guess it's like how the Wii treated Gamecube games... once you booted the Wii into Gamecube mode, it literally became a Gamecube.

AVNovember 18, 2012

Quote from: TeaHee

I am really considering just moving my Wii to another TV and not transferring anything.  I am not sure there are any advantages for me in having everything on 1 system.  So until they make the games playable on the game pad I will leave things as they are.

You know i thought about that too. However the Wii is a LAUNCH system (mine) and has crashed a few times every once in a while and sometimes is slow to launch stuff. I fear my Wii's days are numbered so the transfer was the only option or else fear I lose hundreds of dollars of content. I am not sure if I will keep Wii for Gamecube purposes or sell it and buy a gamecube.

I just went through the Wii->Wii U transfer process and loved the Pikmin carrying the data soooo much that the time just flew by!

GrabMyBoomstickNovember 18, 2012

Quote from: TeaHee

I am really considering just moving my Wii to another TV and not transferring anything.  I am not sure there are any advantages for me in having everything on 1 system.  So until they make the games playable on the game pad I will leave things as they are.

Yeah that has always been my plan from the start. My Wii along with my Wii retail games and VC titles are staying in my office along with my older 4:3 flat screen. The Wii U (when I get around to picking one up) is going in the living room to be played on my main LED that can actually take advantage of 1080p HD content.

Disco StuNovember 18, 2012

I think it's really hilarious that you return to the Wii U menu from Wii mode by launching it like any other Wii channel.  "Oh time to boot up the Wii U channel!'

AdrockNovember 19, 2012

I was thinking about doing a system transfer, but it almost doesn't seem worth it. I don't really like the way backwards compatibility is handled on Wii U compared to 3DS. I only have save files to transfer since I never bought any Virtual Console or Wiiware games. I could always just replay the games on the Wii U if I really want to have the save files on the new system. I've been meaning to replay a few of them, like Donkey Kong Country Returns and No More Heroes.

RasNovember 19, 2012

I've been planning on having my Wii sit next to the Wii U so I could use the GC emulator, but I'm not sure how two sensor bars would work and I won't feel like moving the sensor bar cable every time.  Maybe I should transfer my Wii stuff over, retire the Wii, and bring my GameCube out of mothballs.  Would the wireless controller I bought for my Wii work?  Its receiver plugs into the GC outlet. Yeah, it's basically a GC inside the Wii so it would have to work.

ToothsawNovember 19, 2012

Actually, you need only ONE sensor bar for both Wii and Wii U.
It's not that the remotes transmit something to he console, they just need two IR sources to triangulate position and orientation in respect to the TV. The cable that goes from sensor bar to the console is just power.
You could just let the sensor bar plugged into your Wii and use the remotes with the Wii U; the only problem is that the Wii must be powered on for the sensor bar to be powered too.

Kytim89November 19, 2012

Can games like SSB Brawl, Black Ops, Monster Hunter Tri, and Goldeneye be transferred over to the Wii U?

RasNovember 19, 2012

Thanks, toothsaw.  That's helpful to know.  I'll likely leave it on the Wii U and remember to have that on when I'm Wii-ing.

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