CycloWiz (second Wii modchip) reviewed January 31, 2007

After the Wiinja modchip, the CycloWiz was announced. MaxConsole was lucky enough to receive one of the modchips and obviously testd it to the fullest. The review states that the modchip is obviously of high quality and that the installation was easy. There’s also a LED to verify that everything is installed correctly. Wii and GameCube backups both worked and because of how the CycloWiz works it is completely invisible to the CPU and therefore it is highly likely that no firmware update will be able to detect it (and therefore disable online abilities or similar). The modchip only supports games from your region, it does not remove the much hated region code on Wii games. GameCube homebrew runs, so you can use GCOS to run other region GameCube discs.
Judging by how successful this review was, Wiinja is already slain. Over all it looks like Nintendo should have properly fixed the backdoors I mentioned in an earlier post. And now, not too long after the release, people are going to go insane with illegal copies of games. I, for one, could finally play GameCube imports (I can’t find PAL games that support 480p) and Wii backups. I don’t always play nice with my discs so scratches happen.
Update 1: All warranties will be void if you open up your Wii and alter it, and depending on terms, third-party cables/controllers/etc may void your warranty as well. The Nintendo warranty will be void after installing the modchip, so will all other purchased extended warranties.
In Germany we have stores that’ll instal a modchip and give you a warranty on that. It’s what I did so I could play my PS2 region free.
Theoretically you could remove the modchip once it has been soldered in, but this would be tedious because you’d have to heat up all the contacts at the same time till they liquify so you can lift the chip off the console. Don’t try to fool the manufacturer this way though, they’ll most likely notice the excess melted coil.
Update 2: Installation video posted on follow up post
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