Nintendo Wii Console Gets Modded Into A Slick Ryzen Gaming PC
The original Wii console (not to be confused with the Wii U) is one of the most popular game consoles of all time, and Nintendo's fourth-best selling console ever at 101.63 million units, trailing only the Game Boy (118.69 million units), Switch family (146.04 million units), and Nintendo DS (154.02 million units). It's also now old enough to considered a candidate for cool modding projects, as is the case here.
PC and tech enthusiast Matt Berman posted a neat YouTube video on his Tech By Matt channel detailing how he turned a partially broken Wii console into a legitimate gaming PC with Ryzen hardware inside. Near the beginning of the video, Matt explains that he purchased the Wii on eBay around a year ago for $10 or $15, and to the best of his recollection, it only had a busted disc drive.
The Wii arrived in otherwise good condition, with a clean outer shell and ability to power on. Even though it was a mostly working Wii, however, the point of the project was to turn it into a gaming PC, which meant gutting the internals.
It also required figuring out exactly what kind of PC setup could fit inside the chassis, and if any physical modifications would be required. What he eventually settled on was a Minisforum mini PC powered by a Ryzen 7 7735HS APU.
That's a Rembrandt-R chip based on Zen 3+ with an 8-core/16-thread configuration clocked at 3.2GHz to 4.75GHz, with 4MB of L2 cache and 16MB of L3 cache. For the graphics, it sports an integrated Radeon 680M GPU with 12 cores, 768 shaders, and a 2.2GHz clock speed.
While not a beastly part by today's standards, the Ryzen 7 7735HS is a perfectly capable chip for lighter weight gaming in a small form factor (SFF) setup, and more than powerful enough for loads of retro gaming via emulation. The challenge, of course, is getting system inside the Wii and the layout just right.
Adding to the challenge, Matt wanted to wedge a GameCube controller adapter into the mix. Cramming all of this inside the Wii meant having to bust out a Dremel tool and trimming various bits. He also had to 3D print custom parts and pieces, including a custom motherboard tray.
This was quite the project, which you can check out in its entirety above, and it turned out great. Kudos to Matt for taking this on, and sharing the process. He also shows the custom mod in action and talks a bit about the actual gaming performance in a handful of titles.
