If you care to open up your Nintendo Wii, there are now several mod chips available giving you several new capabilities on your Wii.

Metku reviews the Wiinja Wii mod chip which adds the following features to your Wii: Non Swap / Direct Boot, Boots Own Region WII Backups Directly, Boots Own Region Gamecube Backups Directly, Boots Imports Gamecube Backups by SWAP, D2B Drive Support and Improved Read Method, Includes AudioFix, MultiDisc/MultiGames, Support DVD-R and DVD+R (Burn +R on DVDROM Booktype), Universal EUROPE/USA/JAPAN Wii Console Supported and Stealth Mode.
Metku reviews the Wiinja Version 2 and shows in a video how to install the chip in your Wii. Note, you definitely void your warranty doing this. In theory a Nintendo Wii is just $249.99. It is though still not that easy to find it for that price.