Topic: Changing your Wii Country questions. Please help!

Hi my Wii is currently set to Australia and I want to change it to the UK for a few things unavailable in Australia. But I have some questions about what happens after changing the country.
1. Do you lose your Wii points? (I'm fairly sure you do)
2. Do you lose your VC/WiiWare games?
3. Can you still redownload a game if you delete it?
4. Can I buy a Nintendo points card in Australia and use it on the UK set Wii?
5. What are the prices for wii points with a credit card in the UK?
Thanks for your help!

1. You keep your Wii points. If you have any pending gifts, you will lose them so make sure you accept all gifts before changing your country.
2. You keep everything you have bought.
3. As long as you don't clear your Wii Shop data you can re-download anything you have bought.
4. Probably.
5. I think it's £7 per 1000 Wii points if bought by credit card.

There is on problem, I encountered it myself and had a lot of trouble with Nintendo:
If your Wii is broken and your country setting is set to a foreign country, your local Nintendo repair service CAN'T transfer games to another console. So if your Wii is broken, you might have to send it to the UK.

I got my content back after I did go through a lot of trouble (calling Nintendo Benelux, sending emails to Nintendo UK, etc.). Please set the country setting to your own country if you want no risk.

If its any help, I've changed my Wii from US to Canada several times (was sending a gifts to a friend).

1. Do you lose your Wii points? If its in the same market region, the answer is definitely NO.
2. Do you lose your VC/WiiWare games? No. You are using the same Wii memory unit and motherboard. Unless you are changing to a different market region (games are coded differently by market region), than the Wii Shop should still be able to recognize it.
3. Can you still re-download a game if you delete it? You can re-download games as long as they are from the same market region.
4. Can I buy a Nintendo points card in Australia and use it on the UK set Wii? To the best of my recollection, NA codes work anywhere in Canada/USA/and maybe Mexico. PAL codes work in EU/AU/? I do not live in the PAL region so I am unsure as to what other countries accept the PAL codes.
5. What are the prices for Wii points with a credit card in the UK? Again, I do not live in the PAL region so I am unqualified to say.
Hope this helps!

@shinesprite I already answered all of those questions. In far fewer words too.

Also don't confuse changing market region with changing country on the options screen. You can't switch between market regions without buying another Wii from the other region. Try it - you won't be able to select Australia or United Kingdom on your NA console.

As for differences between AU and EU stores, switching country may cause problems for those games if the Wii has region detection for WiiWare/VC games. It probably doesn't. No guarantees though.

Thanks very much for your help. I am only changing the country to download a few things that aren't in Australia's shop then I'll change it back. I was most worried that the Wii Shop would delete my account history and I wouldn't be able to redownload games. But I think Wii points are locked to the country they're bought in because I have a few Wii points codes off UK's club nintendo and they don't work in Australia.

Let us know if you can still play the EU-only games after you switch back to Australia. This would be helpful to know.

I changed the country to the UK and went on the shop channel. I lost my 300 points but the shop warned me I would. I still have my account history and I'm currently downloading a demo Australia missed out on. Will edit later to tell you if it works after returning to Australia.
EDIT: All is fine. The games still work after changing back. I think I will go back to the UK because it is so much better than Australia's shop and Nintendo channel!

Hi, I am also thinking about changing my country. Does anybody know if there is a limit to how many times you can change it?
Thanks for your help!

Wow this topic is quite old. To answer your question there is no limit.

I'm in the UK and I changed my region to Australia a while back to download Axelay off the VC (has never been made available to Europeans for some reason) , then back to the UK....here's my experiences....

1. Yes, you lose any existing Wii points on your account. You do get a warning on screen though before you connect to the Shop Channel for the first time after changing regions so it's up to you to click on 'yes' or 'no'.
2. The VC/Wiiware games that you've already downloaded will be fine, the only thing is that if you delete them off your Wii or SD card for any reason, then you won't be able to redownload them unless you change your Wii back to the region that you originally downloaded them from. In the case of WiiWare games, you won't be able to access the online instruction manuals for those games once you've changed the region unless you change it back.
3. I just answered that for you
4. No. You'll have to buy the points online with a credit card. Different region points cards are incompatible. Your bank will likely charge you a bit extra for a foreign transaction. When I downloaded Axelay from the Australian VC, I bought 1000pts online, and was charged about £8.20 or thereabouts, as opposed to the £7 I normally pay here.
5. 1000 Wii Points = £7, but you'll pay slightly more as you're buying them from the other side of the world.

Hope that helps.

Thank you so much!

Basically all your questions have been answered, I have to use the Brazil store because Nintendo doesn't have available a store for my country, REALLY NINTENDO?! 4 YEARS LATER???! REALLY??!!! but never had an issue with any of my country settings.

Hi, I know this topic is old, but I just bought a UK nintendo points card for my Australian Wii- am I correct in assuming it won't work? I haven't tried it in case I can send it back for a refund
Thanks!

Going by what's mentioned in this topic, I assume it probably won't work if you have your country set to Australia, but if you change your country to the UK, it will. You'll have to spend the points while your country is set as the UK, though, as you'll lose all your current points when switching between a European and an Oceanic country.

You guys are talking about changing the country settings. Are you talking about when you go to the Options screen and do it that way (as if you were changing the time, date, etc.)?

Hey look, it's my topic come back from the dead again!
@quint_10
Your UK points card won't work on your Wii while it's set to Australia. However if you go into your Wii Settings and change the country to the UK and visit the Wii Shop you can use the UK card then. You will lose any points you have on your account after making the change though. And again you will lose your unspent points if you change it back to Australia without using them. Nothing else is affected though.

@tendoboy1984
Yes we are talking about changing the country settings through the Wii Options screen just like you were changing the date or time.

thanks for your replies, I look forward to testing it out when I get home and will keep you posted
want to try motoheroz I hear it's good

Hey. I want to check an other country. Thought I'd try a place that would have english, because I'm from the US. I can't tell where to go though, as I didn't find one for england or EU in gen. I don't really know where some of the places, mentioned on my wii, are from.
I know some wiiware Eu has had for a while, but we don't yet. Plus things like flowerworks are half the price that they are here (though I don't know how much my credit union will charge for me to get 1000 if I decide to do so.)

That would be because your Wii is from the NTSC region (US and Canada) and Europe is from the PAL region. Nintendo has region locked the Wii so you can't access any PAL Wii Shop or play any PAL Wii game.