Streaming from a Wii U – Via an Xbox One (no capture card)

I recently got a Wii U, and in doing so, realised that I have no idea how I can stream my gameplay, and don’t really have the budget to get a capture card at the moment.  So, how could I get this done?

I found little-to-no help online, for this very specific problem, but I had come up with a solution that I wanted to try, and only found one video claiming to have done what I was thinking of, but no evidence of the set up at all, just a video of a Wii U game being streamed……..great.

Note that this is a very specific issue, and I already have a PC and Xbox One. There would be no need for the Xbox if you just had a PC, Capture Card and Wii U.  I’m literally just avoiding buying anything else, and using what I have.

It’s a convoluted method, but one that would work (I expect) for other consoles, through the Xbox One (providing there is a HMDI connection).

The idea

I have an Xbox One, the Xbox One has a HDMI-in port and the ability to broadcast to a Windows 10 computer.  Surely, it would broadcast whatever I was playing on the Xbox One?

Step one

I ran the Wii U through the HDMI-in, switched it on, and chose the TV app (it thinks I’ll be watching TV through the Xbox).  Low and behold, it was playing on my TV via the Xbox! Step one is a success!

Step two

My first thought was to try the Beam and Twitch apps to stream straight from the Xbox One, but it doesn’t stream the “TV” app because it doesn’t recognise it as a game.  No dice.

So, back to the original plan.  I turned on my laptop, and went to the Xbox app, selected “stream” (I’ve done this before to play games through the laptop, but I wasn’t sure it would let me stream the “TV” as it were).

It worked! I was playing the Wii U on my laptop via my Xbox One. There was minimal input-lag, for anyone wondering.

Step three

This was the bit that would be the make or break, and the bit that I had no experience in doing before.

First problem, where do I stream to? One platform was my focus at this point.  I chose Beam, because I’m still working on earning “sparks” to be able to create a team, and figure that every little helps.

I had to do a little research on how to stream to Beam, and ended up using OBS-FTL.  I’d say that this took the greatest amount of time to figure out.  I read as much information as I could on the setup from the pages that were linking the download, and fumbled my way through.

Ignoring the “scenes” and overlays etc, I found it a real struggle to initially pick up the Xbox App, even though it picks it up specifically.  As such, I ended up choosing to just stream the whole screen, meaning I had to full-screen the game, and minimize everything else.  Whilst not really a problem, it’s a nuisance.

Ok, so it was showing on my screen, within the screen of OBS-FTL.  I needed my Beam stream key (provided in your Beam account), and then I was ready to test it!

Step 4

It took a few attempts at the settings and window selections to get an image “live”, but I did it!  It lasted just a couple of minutes, and I found some real lagging issues, which made it unbearable to watch/listen to.

I found the best thing to do was drop the Xbox stream settings on the laptop, to low.  Then I was able to keep the FPS etc consistent through OBS-FTL.

Lo and behold, it was working!

TL;DR

Long story short, if you have a device you want to stream, you can do it through and Xbox One and a Windows 10 computer, without having to buy an additional capture card.

There are a few things I still need to tweak, and I really need to understand “scenes” etc.  Being a noob at PC streaming, this is a whole new world to me.  However, I’ve got the means to do it now, and I’m pretty happy with my initial results.

OBS-FTL provides a wealth of options for you to tweak, which is great! However, it’s a little daunting to look at in the first instance.  Use those online guides!

How it came out

I haven’t downloaded all the videos from Beam, but my Zelda one is below:

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