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Nintendo Kawaii Progress (Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii)

72 points by bpierre 2y ago

bpierre 2y ago
Exact URL: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/post-69587 https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/po...
bri3d 2y ago
For background on some of the cool stuff here: This isn’t a new PCB with Wii components transplanted, it’s something even weirder - OMEGA refers to a strategy for physically cutting the original Wii PCB in a way that allows it to still work. Then, relocated features are applied using flex PCBs soldered in just the right places. And, it’s all a big community thing - each board is designed by a few different people and it all comes together into a ridiculously small Wii. The “Thundervolt” flex overlay provides all of the necessary VReg tasks for battery power. The AVEflex relocates the factory video encoder. NANDflex provides storage. And finally a custom dock/riser board provides I/O and charging. The use of flex boards over the OEM motherboard is a really wild and interesting approach that seems to work really well - while there are custom Wii motherboards like Vegas, it’s easier to build the flex-enhanced style setups and since they stack so well, they end up smaller anyway.
- xattt 2y ago
  I didn’t think that plain-old flex cable rerouting was even possible, given potential issues with timing with high-speed signals. Yet somehow, this still works.
  - ZiiS 2y ago
    There are 243Mhz signals from the PowerPC to the SoC and 486Mhz signals to the RAM. OMEGA leaves these unchanged (basically dictating its final size). The remaining signals are slow enough by modern standards that flex cable works.
Nursie 2y ago
It's amazing as a technical achievement to get the board so small and still functioning... Literally cutting the mainboard, rewiring some of the features on flex-dughterboards etc to come up with something so small, shows a deep understanding of what's going on on the mainboard from the mod commununity. It seems a bit of an odd contender for the title of smallest, without the dock it can't do anything and the dock doubles the size, plus this has no wiimote capability. Shortstack seems much more complete. As someone who isn't part of that community though, I guess it's not up to me :)
- mmmlinux 2y ago
  Yeah i agree on the dock thing. this is like showing a SoC and being like "yeah its the smallest computer ever. to use it you have to put it on a motherboard, but that doesn't count."
- Kirby64 2y ago
  The dock is up to you, though, no? If you really wanted a super super tiny thing you could remove most of the GameCube ports and cut down the size a ton. It wouldn’t be much bigger than the dockless variant.
  - Nursie 2y ago
    There isn't a dockless variant, that's sorta what I'm saying. I suppose you could design a new dock with fewer ports, and it would be even less functional... ? You'd still need at least one gamecube controller to control the unit because it doesn't have bluetooth for wiimotes. I think I'd be more impressed with the form factor if it was useable as-is, with (micro?) HDMI, usb-c power and wireless, even if it was a bit bigger. (don't get me wrong I'm massively impressed with the technical achievements!)
RajT88 2y ago
I look at stuff like this, and I just imagine the amazing things console manufacturers could do, miniaturizing and making mobile their past generation game consoles. There's prior precedent for this FWIW - GameGear was (basically) a mobile 8-bit Sega Master System, and PSP was basically a mobile PSOne. I guess modern game companies don't see revenue potential there, which is too bad. The soft modded PSP's which load PS1 ISO's off a memory card are suuuuper cool. An Xbox One in a Steam Deck form factor with decent battery life is probably doable. I imagine what's missing is either A. the ability to manufacture it cheaply enough to be profitable or B. The inability to sell new games for it, because everyone would just use their existing library, or C. Both.
- szszrk 2y ago
  > the soft modded PSP's which load PS1 ISO's off a memory card are suuuuper cool. Which is what killed it. Why buy anything if modded version had "free" games, faster storage, better load times, capacity, battery life... Piracy went of the roof with PSP.
  - Woshiwuja 2y ago
    [dead]
  - RajT88 2y ago
    What killed it is all the games were watered down versions of console games. PSP games were really unsatisfying on average, for no obvious reason. I own one with a bunch of games, and tried (hard) to really scratch the gaming itch when I was traveling for work all the time with it. I gave up and started lugging an Xbox 360 with me sometimes... The game to date I've played most on PSP is the PS1 version of FF7 (which I bought from the Playstation store, fwiw). The DS had way more piracy and was a runaway success by all accounts. Consider this: Nintendo has a history of understanding what gamers really enjoy; Sony has a very inconsistent history of this. Read these two articles from the perspective of Sony selling ~83 million PSP's, and Nintendo selling ~154 million DS's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_Portable_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStati... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_DS_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_... Getting back to my argument... If Microsoft could figure out how to make a profitable Xbox One portable at a 300-400 dollar price point, make it digital-only (maybe with some option to import a game off a disc from your console), they'd sell a gajillion units. My dream of a portable game console is playing Left4Dead for hours on end stuck in an airport. Still not doable - thanks to limited battery life of the Steamdeck-like portables.
Refusing23 2y ago
But how do i then insert my games? its half the size of a disc, and there's no disc player on the dock so digital only? gotta rip all my games!

72 points by bpierre 2y ago

Exact URL: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/post-69587 https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/po...

bri3d 2y ago

For background on some of the cool stuff here: This isn’t a new PCB with Wii components transplanted, it’s something even weirder - OMEGA refers to a strategy for physically cutting the original Wii PCB in a way that allows it to still work. Then, relocated features are applied using flex PCBs soldered in just the right places. And, it’s all a big community thing - each board is designed by a few different people and it all comes together into a ridiculously small Wii. The “Thundervolt” flex overlay provides all of the necessary VReg tasks for battery power. The AVEflex relocates the factory video encoder. NANDflex provides storage. And finally a custom dock/riser board provides I/O and charging. The use of flex boards over the OEM motherboard is a really wild and interesting approach that seems to work really well - while there are custom Wii motherboards like Vegas, it’s easier to build the flex-enhanced style setups and since they stack so well, they end up smaller anyway.

xattt 2y ago
I didn’t think that plain-old flex cable rerouting was even possible, given potential issues with timing with high-speed signals. Yet somehow, this still works.
- ZiiS 2y ago
  There are 243Mhz signals from the PowerPC to the SoC and 486Mhz signals to the RAM. OMEGA leaves these unchanged (basically dictating its final size). The remaining signals are slow enough by modern standards that flex cable works.

Nursie 2y ago

It's amazing as a technical achievement to get the board so small and still functioning... Literally cutting the mainboard, rewiring some of the features on flex-dughterboards etc to come up with something so small, shows a deep understanding of what's going on on the mainboard from the mod commununity. It seems a bit of an odd contender for the title of smallest, without the dock it can't do anything and the dock doubles the size, plus this has no wiimote capability. Shortstack seems much more complete. As someone who isn't part of that community though, I guess it's not up to me :)

mmmlinux 2y ago
Yeah i agree on the dock thing. this is like showing a SoC and being like "yeah its the smallest computer ever. to use it you have to put it on a motherboard, but that doesn't count."
Kirby64 2y ago
The dock is up to you, though, no? If you really wanted a super super tiny thing you could remove most of the GameCube ports and cut down the size a ton. It wouldn’t be much bigger than the dockless variant.
- Nursie 2y ago
  There isn't a dockless variant, that's sorta what I'm saying. I suppose you could design a new dock with fewer ports, and it would be even less functional... ? You'd still need at least one gamecube controller to control the unit because it doesn't have bluetooth for wiimotes. I think I'd be more impressed with the form factor if it was useable as-is, with (micro?) HDMI, usb-c power and wireless, even if it was a bit bigger. (don't get me wrong I'm massively impressed with the technical achievements!)

RajT88 2y ago

I look at stuff like this, and I just imagine the amazing things console manufacturers could do, miniaturizing and making mobile their past generation game consoles. There's prior precedent for this FWIW - GameGear was (basically) a mobile 8-bit Sega Master System, and PSP was basically a mobile PSOne. I guess modern game companies don't see revenue potential there, which is too bad. The soft modded PSP's which load PS1 ISO's off a memory card are suuuuper cool. An Xbox One in a Steam Deck form factor with decent battery life is probably doable. I imagine what's missing is either A. the ability to manufacture it cheaply enough to be profitable or B. The inability to sell new games for it, because everyone would just use their existing library, or C. Both.

szszrk 2y ago
> the soft modded PSP's which load PS1 ISO's off a memory card are suuuuper cool. Which is what killed it. Why buy anything if modded version had "free" games, faster storage, better load times, capacity, battery life... Piracy went of the roof with PSP.
- Woshiwuja 2y ago
  [dead]
- RajT88 2y ago
  What killed it is all the games were watered down versions of console games. PSP games were really unsatisfying on average, for no obvious reason. I own one with a bunch of games, and tried (hard) to really scratch the gaming itch when I was traveling for work all the time with it. I gave up and started lugging an Xbox 360 with me sometimes... The game to date I've played most on PSP is the PS1 version of FF7 (which I bought from the Playstation store, fwiw). The DS had way more piracy and was a runaway success by all accounts. Consider this: Nintendo has a history of understanding what gamers really enjoy; Sony has a very inconsistent history of this. Read these two articles from the perspective of Sony selling ~83 million PSP's, and Nintendo selling ~154 million DS's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_Portable_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStati... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_DS_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_... Getting back to my argument... If Microsoft could figure out how to make a profitable Xbox One portable at a 300-400 dollar price point, make it digital-only (maybe with some option to import a game off a disc from your console), they'd sell a gajillion units. My dream of a portable game console is playing Left4Dead for hours on end stuck in an airport. Still not doable - thanks to limited battery life of the Steamdeck-like portables.

Refusing23 2y ago

But how do i then insert my games? its half the size of a disc, and there's no disc player on the dock so digital only? gotta rip all my games!