Long Term Nintendo Wii U Owners Experiencing Bricked Systems

[T0@st]

It has been reported by multiple users across several online communities that their Wii U consoles are no longer functioning properly. The error codes 160-0103 and 160-2155 are the dreaded indicators of memory corruption. It has been discovered that the NAND Flash within the Wii U's internal eMMC is prone to failure. According to details gleaned from teardowns of the console's hardware, Nintendo has implemented either Toshiba or Samsung flash storage boards for the various revisions of the console. There has been an uptick in the rate of bricked Wii U consoles across recent months, but the problems seem to have occurred as far back as 2015, according to archived posts on the GBA Temp forum. It is speculated that leaving the Wii U inactive for long periods of time can lead to the memory corruption issues.



It will be interesting to observe whether any official solution will be outlined and implemented in the near future. Nintendo ended technical support and repairs for the system many years ago, and the Wii U Nintendo eShop is set to shutdown on March 27, 2023.
It is notable that the console remains the sole legal platform to play HD remasters of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on. A personal favorite of mine, Xenoblade Chronicles X, is yet to get the Switch port treatment. It seems that it will be eternally tied to the Wii U ecosystem, outside of emulation - for example via Cemu on PC.
I am tempted to dust off and power up my 2012 vintage Wii U Deluxe Edition 32 GB model this weekend, to discover whether I have not won the NAND lottery.



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[sam_86314]

I had this happen to my Nexus 7; failed eMMC bricking the system.

Fortunately with the Wii U, Cemu can run nearly all of it's games better than the Wii U can.

Though this is still no excuse for poor repairability. Interesting how regular Wiis don't appear to be failing in this way.

 

[Guwapo77]

Damn, now I'm going to have to dig through some boxes in storage to see if I have an affected unit.

 

[chrcoluk]

Nintendo do seem aggressive in their shutdown of old systems.

The equivelent would be PS4 and Xbox One consoles getting shutdown which would probably be big news if it happened.

I own a WII-U but pretty much didnt use it, the treatment of the console by Nintendo prevented me from buying a switch. But given it seems certain games are exclusive to the platform, I wonder if I should purchase them before the cutoff point and indeed see even if the console still works.

 

[Ravenmaster]

The Wii U came out in 2012. If an eMMC memory device lasts over 5 years its done its duty. If the eMMC memory device is dying after 11 years then its gone above and beyond.

 

[ZoneDymo]

The Wii U came out in 2012. If an eMMC memory device lasts over 5 years its done its duty. If the eMMC memory device is dying after 11 years then its gone above and beyond.

great, now...any way to repair it easily?

 

[TumbleGeorge]

great, now...any way to repair it easily?

Yes, use CEMU and emulate Wii U on a cheap android phone.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The Wii U came out in 2012. If an eMMC memory device lasts over 5 years its done its duty. If the eMMC memory device is dying after 11 years then its gone above and beyond.

eMMC doesnt have a built in timer. If it is not being written to excessively there is no reason flash memory should be dying like this. Become corrupted? Yeah, without power that is normal. But be bricked? That is cheap, lazy design.

 

[Klemc]

2012 ! A revolutionnary console

 

[Calenhad]

great, now...any way to repair it easily?

eMMC is soldered on the motherboard. So, no not really.

eMMC doesnt have a built in timer. If it is not being written to excessively there is no reason flash memory should be dying like this. Become corrupted? Yeah, without power that is normal. But be bricked? That is cheap, lazy design.

We are talking SD card technology, not the most robust flash memory on a good day. My guess is that data corruption is all it takes to brick a console anyway.

 

[BorisDG]

Thankfully no issues with mine.

 

[bobsled]

The Wii U came out in 2012. If an eMMC memory device lasts over 5 years its done its duty. If the eMMC memory device is dying after 11 years then its gone above and beyond.

Why is 5 years good enough? Simply creating ewaste because products are shoddy isn’t acceptable.

 

[Tartaros]

I imagine at some point in the future someone will do a mod to solve or prevent this problem, it's disheartening.

 

[Ferrum Master]

It happens all the time. Not sure someone had to make an article out of it. It applies to electronics in general with the bathtub curve.

Every NAND dies at some point especially mobile oriented. It rans out of overprovisioned area and that is it. It has been like that for around 3 decades and applies to every NAND based device.

There is a reason routers use NOR and or SPI flash. Early mobiles had a hybrid combo memory having multiple memory types in a single chip, very conventional, just defined by specific address regions. Just keeping the filthy user data in non important NAND areas, but even then around 2000 the overprovisioning area was present and people knew NAND is really not meant for long term stability.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The Wii U came out in 2012. If an eMMC memory device lasts over 5 years its done its duty. If the eMMC memory device is dying after 11 years then its gone above and beyond.

Nonsense. eMMC flash is the same as any other flash memory, durability is determined by the number of write/erase cycles. Additionally, if it goes without power for extended periods of time, it can(but doesn't always) lose it's data. If eMMC flash serves as firmware memory location and becomes corrupted, only a reflash can restore it. Currently there is no way for users to factory flash the WiiU firmware. The eMMC flash is not the root of the problem and should effectively last 20+years with moderate use.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Nonsense. eMMC flash is the same as any other flash memory, durability is determined by the number of write/erase cycles. Additionally, if it goes without power for extended periods of time, it can(but doesn't always) lose it's data. If eMMC flash serves as firmware memory location and becomes corrupted, only a reflash can restore it. Currently there is no way for users to factory flash the WiiU firmware. The eMMC flash is not the root of the problem and should effectively last 20+years with moderate use.

You forgot that mobile nand is a different animal, due to massively lover voltages it is more prone to data loss. It is what it is. Consumer grade, desktop ones, yes... you are right, but not the low power devices.

 

[qlum]

Nintendo do seem aggressive in their shutdown of old systems.

The equivelent would be PS4 and Xbox One consoles getting shutdown which would probably be big news if it happened.

I own a WII-U but pretty much didnt use it, the treatment of the console by Nintendo prevented me from buying a switch. But given it seems certain games are exclusive to the platform, I wonder if I should purchase them before the cutoff point and indeed see even if the console still works.

Maybe. but the wii u was not a very popular system, the better comparisons here would be the ps vita on which sony initually planned to close the store in 2021. Both systems sold about equally well and are of a similar age.

 

[chrcoluk]

Maybe. but the wii u was not a very popular system, the better comparisons here would be the ps vita on which sony initually planned to close the store in 2021. Both systems sold about equally well and are of a similar age.

Makes no sense to me,it may not have been as successful as the original WII but that doesnt excuse the treatment of it.

 

[qlum]

Makes no sense to me,it may not have been as successful as the original WII but that doesnt excuse the treatment of it.

I agree it should not be treated poorly, but it has been just as successful as the PS Vita so that makes for a fairer comparison.

 

[teamtd11]

This reminded me to turn on my WiiU. Fortunately it is still fine. Also took the oppitunity to upgrade the memory stick I used for extra game storage to a old Sata M.2 SSD in a USB enclosure and moved all my games onto it.

 

[Mussels]

This happened a lot to phones from that era too, if the NAND wasnt used semi-regularly the data would corrupt
i'm unsure if they had to be actively used with new writes, or just powered on to prevent the corruption


There was a big deal with samsung phones and custom ROM's back then, being able to use SD cards as replacements for the inevitable failure of the eMMC flash - over the years almost none of the phones still worked with the stock NAND, the xda forums on the phones are almost exclusively about people trying to get them working with external storage now

 

[lexluthermiester]

You forgot that mobile nand is a different animal

You're right, that is true. However, the flash that Nintendo used in the WiiU was not the low quality crap. Remember, these failure are not the flash dying, just losing data. IF reflashed with a factory firmware, they would be fine.

This happened a lot to phones from that era too, if the NAND wasnt used semi-regularly the data would corrupt

True. A firmware reflash would recover most of those phones & tablets.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

Note to self: Never "collect" a brand new unopened WiiU unit.

 

[Klemc]

Note to self: Never "collect" a brand new unopened WiiU unit.

In fact, it should be tried !

 

[Tartaros]

Note to self: Never "collect" a brand new unopened WiiU unit.

It's the 32X all over again xD