Thread: Requesting some opinions on a problem: Drivekey and NTSC-J games

Welcome to the forum

I have a PAL Wii with DriveKey, too. I have tested a large number of games under 3.4E, 4.0E and now 4.1E. My experience is that all in-region games (PAL/EUR) work fine. Most USA/NTSC games I have tried work fine, too, with a few exceptions (WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Ghostbusters and a couple of others). The Korean version of WarioWare: Smooth Moves didn't work. I haven't tested any Japanese games.

From my own experience and other user reports it seems that DriveKey (and perhaps other modchips, as well?) is 100% region free in the sense that it can start playback of all games no matter which region the game is from. However, technical limitations in the Wii itself result in some out-of-region games not working - they show up it the disc channel, but they hang when you try to start them. Most user reports relate to playing PAL/EUR games on a NTSC/USA Wii or vice versa, but it may be the same issue you are experiencing with the JAP games.

If you search this forum section you will also come across a few reports about other Japanese games not working.

Generally, a quick fix is to download another a version of the game from the same region as your Wii, but I realize that this is not possible with many of the Japanese games.

It is somewhat hard to troubleshoot the issue though, as it seems that some of the cases are due to DriveKey blocking out-of-region updates from the game discs (to prevent bricking the Wii), but in your case it seems that this is not the problem. You could try updating your Wii to 4.1E (DriveKey is not affected by the update), but most likely it will not solve the issue. Also, in some cases the problems seem to be caused by scrubbed games (although my own experience is that scrubbed games work fine) or bad burns (I haven't personally had any of those, either).

Wrt the jumpers, I don't think you should worry too much. For some reason the DriveKey team has changed the design of the chip 3-4 times already (trial-and-error manufacturing?), so it could very well be one of the slightly changed models you have.

I see. Thank you very much. So what you mean to say is that it's pretty common at this stage, yes? Maybe a new firmware update from Drivekey team can fix it, hopefully. Speaking of which, have they released any yet? How will one update the Drivekey? Through DVD, or the JTAG cable?

By the way, does the Wasabi series have the same problems? Especially Wasabi Zero. I snooped around a bit and, admittingly, I'm a bit inclined towards the Wasabi series now, because the team seems to have released firmware updates. I guess it'd be unfair to judge Drivekey at this point though, since it's a fairly new product. So, I suppose I'll wait for now. I just hope the updates won't go stale at a still-early point, like the R4 team.

Thank you very much for sharing your time for this thread.

(P.S: I just found out that Arc Rise Fantasia and Harvest Moon: Animal Parade are getting localized for US. Thank god. ^o^ If Drivekey can run the US versions, that is.)

Originally Posted by CoNS [Only Registered Members May View Links| Click here to register]

However, technical limitations in the Wii itself result in some out-of-region games not working - they show up it the disc channel, but they hang when you try to start them.

By the way, if you don't mind, can you explain what you meant by "technical limitations", please? A console's hardware is quite enough to run its own games smoothly most of the times, isn't it?

I see! So there's a possibility of hardware and/or firmware differences in the three Wii region versions. I kinda thought so, because it's kinda like a game crashing on your PC because you don't have what it needs, hardware or software.

Thank you for your help. I'll try other methods. I found out about USB Loader a few days ago, but I thought I didn't need it, since mine was modded already. To use USB Loader, I'll just need an external Hard Drive hardware-wise, yes?

Originally Posted by Infinix [Only Registered Members May View Links| Click here to register]

So there's a possibility of hardware and/or firmware differences in the three Wii region versions.

Actually there are four Wii region versions: (1) Japan; (2) Europe and Australia; (3) USA and Canada; and (4) Korea.

Originally Posted by Infinix [Only Registered Members May View Links| Click here to register]

I found out about USB Loader a few days ago, but I thought I didn't need it, since mine was modded already.

Yeah, if you have a modchip you would think it should not be necessary to softmod your Wii to play games... But again, it might be necessary in order to play those few problematic out-of-region games. It's worth a try.

Originally Posted by Infinix [Only Registered Members May View Links| Click here to register]

To use USB Loader, I'll just need an external Hard Drive hardware-wise, yes?

Yes, or a large USB stick.

Yeah, I just noticed that yesterday. The video cable thing, that is. I tried to run Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility in 50Hz, and it's more or less fine. But when I tried it on 60Hz and EDTV/HDTV settings (in the Wii settings), it just hangs up after just showing a picture of Harvest Sprites. I tried those 3 JP games with those settings too, but they didn't run. Maybe it's more on the part of firmware than the video codecs...

If you wanna try out those 3 games, try torrentz.com, or just google in case of Negima. I don't care about the other 2, but not being able to play Arc Rise Fantasia is a big letdown for me. I'd be really glad if anyone can try any of these on their Wii and see if it runs or not.