Legitimate method for saving/restoring installed games on Wii after the shop is shut down in 2019

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Nintendo is planning on shutting down the Wii shop services in 2019.

After March 2018, you can't buy points anymore, and after January 2019, the channel itself will cease working. This also means that the only legitimate way to redownload stuff you've purchased will go away at the same time – effectively making the Wii a disc-only console.

As someone with multiple pages of purchased Wiiware and virtual console titles, this is concerning. If my console dies, my games die with it.

I want some way to back all this stuff up in such a way that I can restore them if my console ever dies. Unfortunately, it seems like all the ways to do this are at best unofficial, at worst go straight into piracy.

After 2019, the "unofficial" bit won't matter anymore, since the console won't have any way to talk to Nintendo's servers, and so there's no risk of negative consequences to my Nintendo account.

Nintendo's FAQ doesn't give any good answers here, and I fear they don't exist.

Is there a way to do this that doesn't take me into piracy territory? If I have to mod the console, that's fine, but I'd prefer some kind of application that could dump my games onto the SD card and modify them so they work with the new console.

Question note: This is not a duplicate of this question. That was answered in 2010 and it is likely the situation has changed sometime in the intervening 8 years.

Best Answer

As long as you have an external storage medium with enough storage for the games, it's possible. You can keep the games on this medium, and then you can use the method here to play them off of the medium.

Put your SD card into your computer
You need to download the D2X CIOS INSTALLER
Extract it into the apps folder of your sd card.
Extract D2X-V10-BETA53-ALT.ZIP to your sd card or usb device into the folder /apps/d2x-cios-installer.
(I used D2X-V10-BETA52.ZIP there)
Put your SD card into your Wii, and turn it on
Open the Homebrew Channel and launch the D2X cIOS Installer
Your cursor will be on the cIOS D2X Version. Use the D-Pad to change it to the newest version (all the way to the right).
Move down, and change the IOS Base to 56
Move down again, and change the IOS to slot 249.
This version is only used by the Wii when checking updates. Set the version to maximum (65535).
You are now ready to install, so press A to continue. You will land on an overview with the available cIOS slots. The slot you just selected should be blinking. Several other slots may be highlighted in red.
Press A to start the installation.
Wait for the progress to complete.
Once it finishes, you will land on another IOS overview screen. Your freshly installed cIOS should be highlighted in a green color.
Press the A button to go back to the configuration screen.
Next, you want to configure the second cIOS. This time, use base 57, and slot 250.
Again, press A to install it and wait for the process to finish. Once everything is installed, press B to exit the application.

This method does assume you have a modded Wii (which is simple enough to do anyway) and you know how to use homebrew. If you do get stuck, you can always ask for help, just mention what you have tried and what the problem is.

If you didn't want to be reliant on homebrew, you can follow the method here. (This only works when moving to the same console)

Insert a compatible SD Card into the SD Card slot on the front of the Wii console.
Access the Wii Data Management screen.
Select "Channels."
Select the channel you wish to move, then select "Move."
Select "Yes" to move the channel to the SD card.

To do the reverse, you can follow this method.

Insert a compatible SD Card into the SD Card slot on the front of the Wii console.
Access the Wii Data Management screen.
Select "Channels," then "SD Card."
Select the channel you wish to move, and then select "Move."
Select "Yes" to move the channel to the Wii console.

To me, this method is the easier of the two, and will be possible now. This method also is considered "official", so it wouldn't have any chance of getting your account banned.

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