I don't know myself [as I haven't updated, nor do I have any imports...] but apparently it only checks for the Twilight hack, and deletes it, from what I've heard around the net.

You know if it wasn't for Nintendo being a gigantic fag about this I probably would have never gotten around to checking this out. Seriously this is the easiest way to do homebrew on any console out there. It's like the Wii was friggin built with homebrew in mind.

I was able to install the Homebrew Channel on my friend's Wii in about a minute. All I had to do was insert my SD card, delete his Twilight Princess save data, move the Twilight Hack to his Wii from the SD card, start up Twilight Princess, move Link backwards, and press the 1 button three or four times to confirm that I wanted to install the Homebrew Channel. Super easy.

I've got Quake (which works fucking beautifully with the pointer/nunchuk combo), SNES emulation, NES emulation, GBA emulation, Genesis emulation, Master System emulation, Tetris, Asteroids (up to 4 players), a region free loader of sorts, and motherfucking SCUMM VM. I was playing Starfox, Klax, The Secret of Monkey Island, Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Earthbound, Yoshi's Island, Sonic 2, River City Ransom, and even fucking Fantasy Zone all easily and performing perfectly from my Wii.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't install the Homebrew Channel (and if you don't like it, pshaw, then you can just remove it like any other channel). You can buy a two gig SD card for like ten or twenty bucks.

YouTube Video

There is so much that this thing has to offer that Nintendo will probably never deliver on itself. The homebrew scene is working on USB harddrive support (not that it's necessary for most homebrew) and there's even a media player based on XBMC but with better support for newer formats like the mkv container and subtitles for all of you anime nerds and perhaps even high definition media that will obviously be scaled down to fit the Wii's video output. 1 SD card slot, 2 USB ports, easily accessible, and widely available - it's a homebrewer's dream come true.

So, while we're on the topic of Homebrew Channel and the like... Does anyone know if there's something out there that allows you to load/transfer GCN saves from your SD Card?

You can probably do something like that with the Gecko Loader hardware thingy. Go explore a bit on the wiibrew.org wiki. I recall seeing something about that but it seemed like it was a bit buggy or not really worth the trouble. Might be wrong though.

Does the Homebrew channel brick your Wii, or make it unable for you to connect to the Nintendo mothership for Wii updates, etc.? (Like how MS bans 360's from Live that have been modded?)

No, it doesn't. You'd have to be a real jackass during its installation to fuck it up. Like intentionally pulling the power cable out slightly and ejecting and inserting the SD card repetitively. It's super easy. If you have the latest firmware update then you can use the latest Twilight Hack if you have the second to latest firmware you might want to consider upgrading your firmware or using an older Twilight Hack.

One thing I might recommend though if you're talking from a tinfoil hat's perspective is to not install the Nintendo Channel as it sends Nintendo stats on what channels and games you play and any channel's playtime that is on the system will get sent to them including the Homebrew Channel. Plus the Nintendo Channel is pretty fucking useless honestly and this is just one more reason not to use it.

Actually you can opt out of sending "anonymous" data to Nintendo while still using the Nintendo Channel... you just won't get to download (crappy) DS demos.

I use it from time to time because I'm lazy to search the videos on wii.com/youtube.com. :tpg:

Forgot about that. Well I'd say those crappy DS demos are probably one of the few things the Nintendo Channel has going for it. If turning off anonymous data gets rid of that feature then the Nintendo Channel is just taking up space. More reason to ditch the thing.

Thanks for the tip on the Nintendo channel. I might just flip to the Homebrew channel. It just isn't the same playing ROMs on a PC, but now since I have a classic controller anyway...