Connecting Nintendos wii to my mac. possible?

Question

Connecting Nintendos wii to my mac. possible?

At the moment Im online by way of 3G mobile broadband modem ( a usb modem that uses 3g mobiletelephone tech).

My question is, is it possible to use my mac as a "router" and "forward" the intenet connection to my LAN(eathernet) capable Nintendo wii so I can go online with my wii.

the modem by its self is definietly not compatable with the wii...i think

thanks

powerbook G4 15", 1,5Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Apr 21, 2007 4:44 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 21, 2007 5:10 AM in response to elin hansdottir

Why not simply buy a dedicated router? For all of $15, you could buy a multi-port router and hook it up the way that Nintendo should probably explain in the Wii's documentation.

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Answer 2

Apr 21, 2007 7:17 AM in response to Stanley Horwitz

yes a router is what would be best, but my situation doesnt allow for that at the moment (dont ask) , hence the need for help with this kind of wierd troubleshooting.

....unless your suggesting that i try to hook up the 3G modem to a router and from there to the wii?

Message was edited by: elin hansdottir

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Answer 3

Apr 21, 2007 7:54 AM in response to elin hansdottir

Have you tried looking at the Sharing preferences in the System Preferences (under the apple menu in the upper left corner)?

There are three tabs: Service, Firewall, Internet. Choose the Internet tab.

You can select the "Built-in Ethernet" to share from your computer, and also check the "Built-in Ethernet" in the list below to share to other computers, and then start sharing. Since you said your Nintendo Wii has ethernet, just connect your computer to the Wii with an ethernet cable. (It does not have to be a crossover ethernet cable, it can be any ethernet cable, your PowerBook G4 will figure out that part.)

I haven't tired it with the Wii, but I have tried it to share an internet connection from my PowerBook G3 (Pismo) to an MS Windows XP computer a couple of years ago and it worked well. If you have issues connecting to the internet with the Wii, you might consider turning off the Firewall to see if that helps. Hopefully you won't have to turn it off, but if you do then maybe you can figure out what ports you have to open so you can add them to the Firewall list.

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Answer 4

Apr 21, 2007 8:50 AM in response to Community User

Azqi has answered the question perfectly. I just want to point out that the Mac actually becomes a NAT router in this case. If the Nintendo does DHCP it should work. If not, its IP address will need to be in the 192.168.2/8 network and the router set to 192.168.2.1.

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Answer 5

Apr 22, 2007 1:02 AM in response to elin hansdottir

double post

Message was edited by: elin hansdottir

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Answer 6

Apr 22, 2007 1:03 AM in response to Community User

cool! sounds good

I had the wii connected to a proper router before (when i had one) and it was super easy to setup
Ill try this out and post the results

thanks azqi and phil

powerbook G4 15", 1,5Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Message was edited by: elin hansdottir

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Answer 7

Apr 29, 2007 7:14 AM in response to philsmith_

ok...I tried the same thing with an xbox 360.(wii still untested)

the xbox finds the connection and considers itself "wired". IP isnt working tho.
after test xbox explains :

-are devices sharing the same IP number -( not that i know of)

-if you are using router or gateway, verify that it is configured to assign IP
addresses to networked devices (DHCP enabled) -( how do I find that out? the mac should do that right? )

-Are you connected directly to a modem?...gives multiple reasons for connection failure ...ISP stuff , PPPoE settings, static IP address (im not connected directly to a modem, am i, the mac is in between , right?)

-if your console is connected to an "ad-hoc"? network it will probably not pass this test. If your IP address is assigned automatically and your ad-hoc network does not include a DHCP server, this does not indicate a problem. The test is properly reporting that a DHCP server could not be contacted
-(dont know what ad-hoc is?)

so this doesnt seem to be working.....any ideas or details im missing?

"If the Nintendo does DHCP it should work. If not, its IP address will need to be in the 192.168.2/8 network and the router set to 192.168.2.1. "

whats the "192.168.2/8 network" and how/what router do I have to set to 192.168.2.1.

?

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Answer 8

Apr 29, 2007 7:21 AM in response to elin hansdottir

well i think the wii is more promising (its just seems simpler) ... this 3G modem is dodgy ..im wondering if the blockage is with it...bottom line im still not online thru my mac

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Answer 9

Apr 29, 2007 9:56 AM in response to elin hansdottir

No details? 🙂

Well, a few pages turned up online when I searched with Google: wii internet Mac . You can highlight those three words (in Safari) and then right-click on them to choose "Search in Google". (Simply right-clicking on a single word will give you same option, but only for that one word.) Or just type them into the search field in the upper right corner of Safari's window.

You might try browsing through these other discussion forums for the Wii (and look for others):

http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board?board.id=internet
and
http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message?board.id=internet&message.id=9 34

This one is if your Mac is connected with Ethernet to the internet and you want to use Airport to wirelessly share it with your Wii. If your internet is being broadcast wirelessly already, then you don't need to use your Mac to share it. The Wii has wireless capabilities, as you probably know.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=253444

And here's another one:
http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/onlineWirelessRouterTroublesh ooting.jsp

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One note about that last one. Later on the page it refers to a MAC address. As you can tell by all the letters being capitalized, "MAC" is an acronym and it stands for "Media Access Control". It is not the same as "Mac" which is the shorter name (i.e. nickname) for Macintosh. So don't get confused like others who ignore the difference capitalizing makes. It should be obvious, like the difference between Apple and an apple, Windows and a window. 😉

Other info about MAC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC#Computerscience_andtelecommunications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
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Answer 10

Apr 29, 2007 10:29 AM in response to elin hansdottir

Oops, I was dyslexic. That's 192.168.2/24. Your Mac does do DHCP if you share one interface's Internet connection with another. If there's no DHCP and machines have self-assigned IP addresses (in the 169.254/16 network), that's considered an ad-hoc network. It's useless for your setup.

To verify your Mac's setup as a DHCP server, you need to run /Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager. Find the property /config/dhcp/subnets/192.168.2 and examine the details within.

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