A few weeks back, a string of reports surfaced from Wii U owners that their consoles were no longer working after several years without play.

Now, the homebrew community appears to have discovered the true reason behind these Wii U failures, and it has nothing to do with not playing the console at all. As summarized below by dataminer Oatmealdome, the issue is related to one specific brand of NAND chip used by the Wii U, which is dying faster compared to the chips manufactured by other brands. So long as your own Wii U does not possess a chip made by this manufacturer, it should be safe from running into this issue.

[Wii U]

There’s been talk about Wii Us dying after not using them for a long time.

Judging by compiled statistics, not using a Wii U for a while has nothing to do with it.

What’s really happening is that Hynix NAND chips are dying faster than chips from other manufacturers. 👇 https://t.co/UpepwKQ4ty

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) March 18, 2023

If you want to check what type of chip you have, you can either

a) open it up and inspect the physical chip on the board, or

b) run the “mdinfo” homebrew (https://t.co/VI9wQAFOPw)

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) March 18, 2023

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.