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Reverting the Firmware

When I got my Japanese Wii I don't know the firmware installed, but it was automatically updated by first Mario Kart (japanese game) and then Summer Athletics. The latter, unfortunately, put European firmware on my Wii and semi-bricked it. After I'd fixed this (see how to unbrick your Wii) I put the Wii online and inadvertantly managed to upgrade it to 3.4J. Although this isn't in itself a bad thing, version 3.4 is not recommended for people that wish to hack the Wii. It breaks the Homebrew channel, and also includes an option for auto-updating the Wii in the background. This option can be disabled but with Japanese menus I'm not confident that I'd get the right option! 3.4 also includes an update that prevents the Trucha hack. This is a way of signing DVDs so that the Wii will run them and allows, amongst other things, the Freeloader software to remove any region restrictions on your Wii.

Therefore, I decided to downgrade the firmware back to 3.2J (3.3 should also work, but 3.2 has more testing with Homebrew).
 

To downgrade the firmware there's a handy guide to the process here.  This is what I did:

You'll need an SD card in order to hack into your Wii.  On the front of the Wii is a flap which opens to reveal an SD slot - this allows us to transfer a modified Twilight Princess save game onto the Wii.

  1. You'll need to install the Homebrew channel (this requires a copy of Zelda: The Twilight Princess plus an SD card)
  2. Download the Wii Fix Tools Full (linked to from the guide above, or download here).
  3. After unzipping, put the apps and wad folders onto your SD card.  These folders are analysed by the Homebrew channel when it starts up and will be presented to you in the list.
  4. Follow the steps given in the link above.  These steps will first modify the Wii to enable us to load new firmware onto it, and then download new firmware from the internet.  If your Wii is not connected to the internet then you won't be able to downgrade the firmware.