For years, the Nintendo Wii hacking scene has been finding ways to cut up and rearrange the Wii motherboard to fit into smaller and smaller bodies. We've seen a Wii-in-an-Altoids tin, a Wii-in-a-Game-Boy-like body, and a pack-of-cards-sized Wii.

The Nintendo Kawaii might be the smallest yet. It's a keychain-sized Nintendo Wii that's designed to feature a stripped down motherboard stuffed into a tiny metal case that slides into a docking station when you want to connect it to a TV.

Developers YveltalGriffin and Wesk say this DIY project has been under development for over a year, but it's inching closer to completion now that the first aluminum prototype shell has arrived, along with some of the printed circuit boards for the Nintendo Kawaii and the dock.

Since the heart of the system is a trimmed down version of an actual Nintendo Wii board, the system should be fully compatible with Nintendo Wii games, no emulation required. There's also a Bluetooth module for connections to wireless controllers. But since the hardware is squeezed into a 60 x 60mm (2.4″ x 2.4″) case, there's not a lot of room for things like video ports or power inputs.

So the developers added a 12-pin magnetic connector that allows the keychain-sized console to be attached to a dock with support for USB Type-C power input, GameCube controller ports, and composite and component video outputs as well as a stereo audio output.

YveltalGriffin says that there's still some assembly and testing required before the project is finished, but the build logs in the BitBuilt forum show a device that already looks so sleek that it almost could have been a real Nintendo product.

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