Update [Tue 24th Sep, 2024 14:20 BST]: The Kawaii is making amazing progress, with physical prototypes now showing up online.
"The ninjas can't stop this portablizer," says YveltalGriffin. "I received the anodized aluminum prototype shells from @Ding earlier this month. In person, they actually look better than the renders."
Original Story [Mon 29th Jul, 2024 11:35 BST]: Modders @WeskMods and @YveltalGriffin have cooked up something pretty special – a Wii console which is small enough to fit on your keys.
The Kawaii began life as a challenge to create the smallest functional Wii. It boasts a machined metal unibody measuring just 60x60mm, magnetic pogo pin connectors for power, AV and controller connectivity and even a special dock for unlocking GameCube controller support. It's passively cooled, too, so there's no internal fan.
The planned specs are as follows:
- 60x60x16mm CNC'd aluminium chassis (passively-cooled) with laser-etched artwork
- Undervolted OMEGA trim with Thundervolt
- 12-pin magnetic pogo pin connector (MagSafe-like)
- Internal breakout PCB for SD-USB, input protection, and video mixing
- Dock with USB-C power input, x4 GCC controller ports, composite/component video output, & stereo audio output
- Six acrylic windows with RGB LEDs for peak aesthetics
- Keychain loop
As you can see, this is now effortlessly the smallest Wii in existence, even beating the likes of the Short Stack.
"The final Kawaii shell will be machined from aluminium and anodized in a variety of gorgeous colours," says Yveltal Griffin. "The back will be laser-etched with the project logo and dope-looking fake compliance markings."
Wesk adds that at least 30 units will be needed for the first batch. "The more units purchased, the cheaper it'll be per unit." You can fill out this form to register your interest. Wesk has since posted an update which says "the EOI form went absolutely nuclear with responses. The form was pretty much just for our own metrics on if we could comfortably hit the initial batch purchase amount and things like the most popular colours. With the information gathered, we've closed the EOI form."
Another update has been posted to the project which shows the unpainted test cases direct from the factory.
Yveltal Griffin is keen to point out that this project is for the CNC aluminium shell only, and that customers will "still need to do a lot of advanced modding and PCB assembly to build a functional Kawaii." This includes trimming the Wii board down, assembling a Thundervolt PCB, ordering and assembling the Kawaii internal PCB, ordering and assembling the Kawaii dock PCB and wiring everything together.
"Kawaii will be a challenging build, and there won't be a full kit you can buy, or even a step-by-step assembly guide," says Yveltal Griffin. "For folks who want to get their feet wet in the world of portablizing, the Noldendo Wii Micro and the Ashida are much better introductory projects."