Wii U rises from the dead for first update in years

By Eric Abent/

Here's some news approximately none of us were expecting to hear today: the Wii U has received a firmware update. Most of us probably thought that Nintendo had put the Wii U behind it, content to move on from that failure and focus all of its efforts on the much more successful Switch. This firmware update shows us that Nintendo is still paying some attention to the old console, though admittedly, the firmware update the Wii U has received isn't anything major.

The folks over at Nintendo Life spotted the firmware update, noting that this is the first time the console has been updated since September 2018 – nearly two and a half years ago. What do Wii U users get in return for such a long wait? An update that offers "Improvements to system stability and usability."

Nintendo has always been pretty vague with its patch notes and it seems to be no different here. The company did elaborate a little bit, noting that "Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience," but that still isn't very specific.

Over on Twitter, Nintendo dataminer OatmealDome dove into the update to see what changes it contained. They say that the update changes some of Nintendo's SSL verification code, but beyond that that, it looks like it doesn't do anything significant. It also doesn't break homebrew, which is good news for those of you keeping a Wii U around to play homebrew games.

So, just like that, the Wii U has popped back up in the news cycle. It wouldn't be surprising if this turned out to be the last firmware update the Wii U receives before Nintendo pulls the plug, but for now, the beleaguered console hobbles on.

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