How to Watch BBC Iplayer in the US on a Wii

Last Updated on November 29, 2023

There’s lots of little fancy media streaming devices out now, but for many people looking for something quick and simple to watch online stations like the BBC Iplayer on their TV screen – then a good option is the Nintendo Wii.  Many people already have these and they stream media as well as most commercial devices.

Watch BBC Iplayer
But of course just like your computer most of these online channels are restricted to the country they are broadcast from – so you need to be in the USA for Hulu, the United Kingdom for BBC Iplayer and so on.

It’s of course easy to bypass these blocks using a security program like Identity Cloaker on a PC, you just click on the country you want to be in, but can you use the same functionality on other devices such as the Nintendo Wii?

Well the simple answer is yes ! In fact you can switch the location of your Wii to any country where they have a server based – e.g. France, United Kingdom, USA, Canada or Australia for example – so use a US proxy site or a UK one depending on your needs.  This also works for some of the other commercial VPN/proxy services,  just ask their support desks for help.

So here’s how it works for watching BBC Iplayer on a Nintendo Wii in the USA by using Identity Cloaker.

Obviously you’ll need to connect your Wii to the internet first, which is fairly straight forward. If you’re actually in the UK then all you need to do is go to the shopping channel from the main screen and download the BBC Iplayer channel and that’s it.

For Anyone Outside the United Kingdom – it’s slightly more complicated as you won’t be able to see that channel available.   First of all change your country settings –

Wii Options> Wii Settings> Country> Change to UK

This  is what controls what’s in the shopping channel – when set to the UK you’ll be able to download BBC Iplayer, you can change it back after if needed.

However this won’t fool the BBC Iplayer website if you’re not in the UK, because it will check your IP address when you try and watch anything.  To do this you have to hide your real address and connect using a server based in the United Kingdom.

wii-connection-setup

I will do this using my Identity Cloaker account as follows –

  • Go to the Wii System Settings Page and select the Internet connection tab.
  • Select  the connection you are using and scroll down to proxy server settings.
  • Enable the Proxy Server and select advanced settings
  • Pick one of the IP address of an Identity Cloaker UK server and use Port 4040
  • Input Your Identity Cloaker –  Username and Password
  • Save Settings and then Watch the BBC

You can get the IP address and your username/password from the Identity Cloaker support team or it’s listed in the members area.  If you’re using a different service just contact their support for the same information – as long as they accept authentication in this manner then they all should work.