Up-Close with Kawaii, a Modder’s Dream Device That Fits an Entire Nintendo GameCube Console on a Keychain

Modders shrank a normal Wii motherboard to a fraction of its original size while retaining all functionality, allowing you to play games exactly like the original. Tito from Macho Nacho Productions just posted a detailed look at the Nintendo Kawaii project.

At first glance, you can see how small this thing actually is, measuring only sixty millimeters wide, sixty millimeters tall, and sixteen millimeters thick, but it is still a fully functional gaming console. You can attach it to your keys with a small keychain loop and carry it around with you all day. The outside casing is composed of CNC-machined aluminum, giving it a very smooth finish, and they’ve added some subtle etched artwork and some goofy compliance labels to give it some individuality without clutter. When you turn it on, six soft-glowing RGB LEDs illuminate it from the inside, adding to its charming appearance.

The trick to making it this compact was using an Omega trim, as they began with a Hollywood-2 Wii Mini board and simply chipped away at all of the non-essential pieces until they were down to the bare requirements, yet they still managed to fit all of the functionality in there. The chip relocation job was arguably the most difficult, as they had to shift crucial components to new spots on the tiny board, which took some time. They ended up with two flex boards, one for the video output chip and another for the NAND memory chip. They’ve also created a bespoke power module called Thundervolt that not only gives electricity but also reduces the voltage to the CPU, allowing it to run cool and efficiently; brilliant stuff. They based all of their ideas on open-source designs supplied by the project’s crew.

A small microSD card is used for internal storage, and games are loaded from it using homebrew software. Of course, the trimmed-down board leaves no area for a disc drive. The output options are very standard; composite television, 480p component, and stereo audio all plug into this single connection port. When you pull out the corresponding magnetic dock, you can plug in four GameCube controllers at once. The dock itself connects via pogo pins, so there are no cables dangling everywhere, making for a really nice solution.

Getting games to run on this machine is shockingly simple, as all titles run at full speed, with no software techniques to aid them; the original Nintendo hardware is doing all the heavy lifting. The controllers continue to respond exactly as they did when you had a large, cumbersome console on your television. Of course, because there is no active cooling, it gets a little warm after a while of play; nevertheless, an external fan protruding out the side helps a lot, though it is a bit of a trade-off for the significant size reduction.