Games

An Interview With the One Person Really Mad Pornhub Is Broken on the Wii U

Lots of people enjoy pornography. Not everyone does so on an abandoned video game console with a broken web browser.
A photo of Nintendo's Wii U console.
Photo courtesy of Nintendo

People turn to places like Reddit for help with lots of problems, including games. Most of them are pretty innocuous. And then, every once and a while, you find a genuine surprise:

“After yesterday I can’t load pornhub,” asked user Hundred_eyes0423 on the increasingly abandoned Wii U subreddit last week. “The videos won’t even load to the point [that] I can click on it.”

Pornhub, one of the most popular platforms for watching pornography (although far from one of the most responsible or ethical), appears to no longer work on the Wii U. I, uh, tested this myself and Hundred_eyes0423 is correct. It’s broken.

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The website itself loads, but none of videos will play. It’s a conundrum, albeit in an age where almost every other device features a functional web browser, a pretty strange one!

“No one gonna be checking your wii U browsing history,” said one user. “Pretty sneaky.”

In just about every conceivable way, the Switch is a better gaming machine than the Wii U. It functions as both a handheld and a home console, and the game library is enormous. But one thing the Switch doesn’t have is a web browser or any other applications, like Netflix. So if you want to play Nintendo games and surf the Internet, your best option is, weirdly, still the Wii U. But since Nintendo has largely left the Wii U behind, it means the device is no longer getting software updates and parts of it are breaking—and that includes the web browser.

What’s a horny person with a preference for the Wii U Game Pad to do? Well, I sent a message to Hundred_eyes0423 on Reddit and asked if they’d talked to me. They agreed.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

VICE Games: We live in an age where Internet browsers are available on most of our devices. Why exactly are you watching Pornhub on your Wii U?
Hundred_eyes0423: I am mainly using the Wii U, because it is able to switch between tabs easily. This works well for me because I have doujins [hentai] in the tabs while the video is playing.

When did you first notice Pornhub stopped working on the Wii U browser?
I first noticed it wasn't working about two days ago.

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Talk me through that moment when you realize it doesn't work. What happened?
I realized that Pornhub wasn't working when I went to the bookmark that had my account, and found that I was locked out. When I went to login I found that I was unable to press the button.

At some point, at least, Pornhub was working on the Wii U. What was that experience like? Walk us through the Wii U PornHub experience.
The experience was great as the gamepad was not too big or too small. While it could only play up to 720p it was a small price to pay for the comfort.

You could have kept this information to yourself. You published it to Reddit. Talk to me about your motivation to go public about your habits.
The main reason why I decided to post it is to see if anyone else was having this issue. I had also wanted to see if anyone was able to find a solution to the issue.

Are you surprised at the reaction people have given you about your life choice?
I am not surprised as I knew that this was Reddit, and was already aware that I would get flamed.

You're looking for solutions. Have you found any?
I have not found any solutions. The alternatives are [redacted].

Those other sites still work with the Wii U?
Yes, they currently work.

So is that the plan for the future, if you need to—you know?
Yeah, that is the only option unless, Pornhub resolves the issue.

Be honest: when's the last time you cleaned the Wii U's GamePad? Like, really cleaned it.
The last time I cleaned the GamePad was about two days ago.

Follow Patrick on Twitter. His email is patrick.klepek@vice.com, and available privately on Signal (224-707-1561).