Sorry, Jim. We can’t do anything about the region locking of gifted Virtual Console games (send them to me, Nick), but we can help you to listen to your favorite MP3s on the Wii again. We know how you love to do that.
The newest Nintendo Wii Photo Channel update may strip the Wii of MP3 support in favor of AAC, but for those 11 of you that are dying to have your MP3 functionality back, there’s a bit of good news from Nintendo customer service.
If you updated to Photo Channel 1.1, but have decided you prefer Photo Channel 1.0 (for instance if you’d rather have MP3 compatibility instead of AAC), going back is easy. All you have to do is select the Wii button from the Wii menu, choose Data Management, and select “Channels.” Select the Photo Channel icon and confirm you wish to delete it. After that, Photo Channel 1.0 will automatically be available again from your Wii menu. If you ever change your mind, simply go back to the Wii Shop Channel and re-download Photo Channel 1.1!
The only Wii consoles that won’t be able to “roll back” are the ones that came preinstalled with version 1.1 (December 2007 and on); they’re stuck with AAC.
