Forget Virtual Console, try the Wii SNES mod

by Christopher Grant { Apr 24th 2007 at 10:27AM }

We've blogged about French case modder Kotomi before, but this one is special. It's not just a fresh coat of paint on an aging console -- a temporary elixir of gaming youth -- but rather a conceptual reimagining. Kotomi has crammed a Super Nintendo into the diminutuve and distinct stylings of Nintendo's latest console, the Wii. If you've been gobbling up Virtual Console titles faster than you can say "how many Wii points?" we'd recommend yard sale bounty coupled with a classic console. The Wii case? While not necessary, it has a certain je ne sais quoi, no?

[Via Wii Fanboy]

Tags: Kotomi, SNES, VirtualConsole

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Vidikron @ Apr 24th 2007 10:31AM

Nice. I'd like to have one of those.

Todd @ Apr 24th 2007 10:42AM

Very clever.

Zeruel @ Apr 24th 2007 10:45AM

uhhhhhhh......... what happened to that nintendo wii modchip article?

Zertoss @ Apr 24th 2007 10:54AM

Too cool! NES next please! Let's convert all the Nintendo consoles into Wiis with different colored LEDs. Then we convert all the Sega consoles, and then the PS1 and 2!

So where are all the Virtual Boy mods? :P

Steve @ Apr 24th 2007 10:56AM

I'm no longer interested in obsolete consoles. I'd rather wait and play them on the VC and screw around with clunky 15 year old cartridges that never seem to work. So even though I find this to be a phenomenal waste of time, its creation did take intelligence, creativity, and hard work. I'm actually more impressed that there's someone in france who has those attributes than I am the final product itself.

Jonathan Tran @ Apr 24th 2007 11:07AM

Considering the unemployment rate in France, I'd expect a lot more projects that take way too much free time to start coming out of there.

Expect a working magical Zelda boomerang to come out of Paris sometime this quarter.

iamdani @ Apr 24th 2007 12:30PM

Isn't that a NES and not a SNES?

Rootbeer @ Apr 24th 2007 12:28PM

I'd be more interested in the inverse of this mod -- cram the guts of a Wii into an SNES case.

arrrgh @ Apr 24th 2007 12:34PM

nnnope..its snes...unless Link to the Past was released on NES ...on an SNES cartridge...

Corbo @ Apr 24th 2007 1:12PM

It's a SNES cart but of the design found in the US. European and Japanese carts are different, basically closer to the shape of N64 carts than NES ones. It was used as a fairly simple region lockout. There was a slimmer rerelease of the console that came out in America and Japan, which probably explains why a French modder was using a US model; much easier to fit in a Wii case.

Anyway, very neat looking little gadget with more than a little potential for mischief. I know a few people who I reckon could probably be convinced to try jamming a SNES cart in their Wii.

2kings @ Apr 24th 2007 2:40PM

if i could mod a wii into somthing it would be a dreamcast

then i'd have every nintendo game :D wuahhaha!

NekoMode @ Apr 24th 2007 3:18PM

I am LOL-ing @ this "Nii"

Tom @ Apr 24th 2007 9:19PM

A SWiis?

Defenestrator2.0 @ Apr 24th 2007 4:02PM

NI! NI! NI!

Rob @ Apr 24th 2007 5:18PM

I live in Europe and to me that looks like a NES game- the SNES carts over here are very different to that, but then again I have had a couple of imported SNES games from the states (SF2 etc.) and the carts do look like the one pictured, but if it is called 'Nii', would that not signify it was a NES?

Corbo @ Apr 24th 2007 5:56PM

*bangs head on desk for not referencing Monty Python first*

@Rob
The actual French blog post refers to it as a "Nintendo Super Nii" and I think, though I'm not sure, that above that little "Nii" logo at the bottom is "super", in a kind of curly handwriting font. Plus, though my French is extremely limited (bonjour and bonbon are pretty much my entire vocabulary), you can see SNES and Super Nintendo mentioned clearly.
It always seems odd to me how console names are never really varied in different languages (as far as I know). I mean, Playstation and Gamecube are quite possibly meaningless terms to non-English speakers.