Arguably, the Wii was one of Nintendo’s oddest yet most successful gaming consoles, mostly thanks to the novelty and ingenuity of its “Wiimote” controller, the ancestor of today’s Joy-cons for the Switch. Like any other Nintendo gaming machine, it had a number of titles under its belt, including a few notable exclusives that took advantage of that unique controller design. Of course, its time has long passed, and the Wii is nothing more than a footnote in video gaming history, or so it would seem. It’s unsurprising to hear that it is now the subject of no small amount of mods and DIY projects that try to give the historic console a different flavor, and one of the oddest and most adorable is probably this perfectly named “Kawaii” mod that shrinks the book-sized machine down to portable keychain.
Designers: WeskMods, Mackie Kannard-Smith (Yveltal)
Despite its odd controller, the Wii itself wasn’t exactly that distinctive in terms of its design. It came as a rather plain, compact box that had just enough room for important hardware, which included a cooling fan and an optical disc reader. Remove these two, however, and you can probably cram the console into a tiny box, or at least most of it. That’s exactly what the Kawaii project did, a play on the Japanese word for “cute” and the Wii name, turning the large boxy console into a cute keychain accessory.
Kawaii is only 60mm x 60mm big and 16mm tall, not that much larger than keyfobs. Its body is CNC machined from aluminum and has these wavy fins on one side that do more than make the small box look eye-catching. They also function as a passive cooling system since the Kawaii doesn’t have room for any fan of any size at all. Obviously, there’s no space for an optical disc reader either, but that’s not the only thing missing from this tiny console.
It doesn’t have any direct power source or any ports for that matter, leaving it pretty barebones save for the main board that runs the whole show. To actually make it useful, you have to connect it to a dock via pogo pins, and then you’ll have power, video out, and USB ports for controllers. The dock itself is just a little larger than the keychain console, but it’s still a portable setup, presuming you have a way to power it up or connect it to a display.
Sadly, the adorable Kawaii won’t fulfill your dreams of playing Wii games on the go, at least not the ones that need a disc or use a Wiimote, since there’s no Bluetooth connectivity in there either. That leaves you mostly with downloaded games that work fine with a USB controller, and there’s not much of those going around at this point. Still, it looks like an interesting journey to design a cool-looking console you can hang your keys on, one that preserves the spirit of novelty and playfulness of the Wii, even if it doesn’t exactly have its defining features.
The post Nintendo Wii mod transforms the iconic console into a cute keychain first appeared on Yanko Design.
ModRetro Chromatic measures 5.2x3x1.2 inches, and weighs feather light at 6.2 oz. For connectivity, the device has been provided with a USB port and 3.5mm headphone output, and to celebrate its launch, it will come preinstalled with good old Tetris, free of charge. The custom-designed lithium-ion battery, rechargeable through console, provides the Chromatic 24-hour battery life, which can be enhanced on the move with 3x AA batteries.
The rear bottom of the handheld has leather padding for comfortable holding during long gaming sessions. The body shell is done in a titanium grey finish contrasted with the signature Teenage Engineering color scheme in orange, black and white. I personally like this one better compared to the earlier concept. Which one do you fancy more to one day join the TE line-up?
