Topic: Wii to Wii-U system transfer. Mario Kart Wii License?

I got a Wii-U a couple years ago and transferred the data from my Wii using the system transfer app. The only things I really had on my Wii was Mario Galaxy saves and Mario Kart Wii tracks unlocked and gold cupped. I thought everything was fine because my Mario Galaxy was right where I left off...but not Mario Kart...

A couple days ago a friend came over and wanted to play Mario Kart Wii. I haven't played MKWii since I got my Wii-U with MK8. I popped in the MKWii disc into my Wii-U and saw it had no saved data. No license or anything so we couldn't play all the tracks. Is there a way to fix that or do I have to re-race all the cups?

What do I do?

Hello Dreamliner,

I am not sure if I can help but try some things:

• Check if you have the same SD card in the WiiU as you had in the Wii
• Try playing the game on the old Wii. Is there a difference?
• Check in the Data Management if there is a save file.

You definitely need the SD card from your Wii since that's where the save games are usually stored. Just put it into the SD slot of your Wii U and you should be fine.

The save should have transferred and been deleted from the old Wii. Normally you can not transfer Mario Kart Wii saves between consoles except for this system transfer method. My game saves always stayed on my system memory and not the sd card and since you didn't have much on the old wii this should have been the case. The SD card should have been used in the transfer process but it shouldn't be needed unless you were saving stuff like games to it.

I would say check data management on the old Wii and on the Wii U....maybe the transfer process wasn't fully completed. Do you have other saves that transferred that you see on the Wii U virtual Wii? Your old Wii should be wiped clean if the transfer was done.

@Dreamliner I haven't done a system transfer, so YMMV, but what I had to do to get my Wii save data onto my Wii U was first load the Wii game on my Wii U to get it in the system (it didn't work if I didn't do this step first), then manually copy the save file from the SD card using Data Management.

@gcunit That doesn't work with Mario Kart Wii saves as they are console locked. Homebrew or system transfer are your options for moving Mario Kart Wii save file.

@blaisedinsd I stand corrected - I've just tested this and you're right. I wonder why that is...

Because it was an online game. Animal Crossing City Folk is the same way. They don't want you duplicating your identity on more than one console.

@Chandlero @blaisedinsd @blaisedinsd

I finally got around to checking out my old Wii. Gosh, I never really used it. I went into Data Management and saw Mario Kart Wii, Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy.

I swear I did the system transfer as my Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess stuff was moved over.

I've been using my Wii U and don't really want to screw anything up. I'd imagine I'd just be better off (safest) re-racing MKWii on the WiiU if I really wanted it. Right?

Sounds like maybe you just transferred the saves of Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess instead of doing the transfer process.

The transfer process is a bit slow and cumbersome and you probably would have remembered watching the Pikmin animations of moving all your stuff from one console to the other in a space ship.

You need to the transfer process if you have digital purchases you want to transfer or if you want to move protected console locked saves like Mario Kart Wii and Animal Crossing City Folk. If you don't care about those things then not much reason to do it I guess.

If you did it now I believe it would overwrite your possibly newer saves for Galaxy and Zelda TP with the older ones from the Wii. That's the only thing that might cause screwy stuff if you did the transfer.

Only you can answer if you want to start over on Mario Kart Wii or do the system transfer....you could always play Mario Kart on your old system if you want.