Super Smash Bros. Brawl Conspiracy True
Super Smash Bros. Brawl has given a handful of Wii owners problems. These problems range from stuttering graphics to a complete read disc error. Nintendo originally claimed that this was due to dirty lenses on the Wii. Nintendo asked people to ship the Wii to them for a free cleaning and also warned that people should not try to clean the lenses themselves. In an article I wrote yesterday, I dismissed several conspiracy theorist that said Nintendo was hiding something, but it looks like there really is more than meets the eye.
Nintendo has officially confirmed that in “a small number of cases” the Wii’s in question have a defective reader that has to be replaced in order to read the double layer that Super Smash Bros. uses. Nintendo has stated that this seems to “mostly” happen to “older consoles, purchased around launch”. There have been reports, at least one anyway, of a brand new Wii having this problem.
This definitely answers some questions I asked in my last article, including the important question: How is Nintendo planning on stopping dirty lenses from happening in the future? People seem to be suggesting that this “cover-up” is a black eye for Nintendo, but the way I see it, it is much better for them to replace a defective lens and fix your Wii permanently then for the Wii to have some type of critical cleanliness problem.
I mean, if lenses were dirty after only a year or so, what would happen to all the Wii’s after two years, or five years. This would be a permanent recurring problem that apparently requires you to ship your console off. That would be a serious black-eye, and I actually find it comforting that it isn’t all being caused by a dirt problem. As long as Nintendo is willing to fix everything free of charge, I don’t really care too much.
One question people have been asking is what happens if they’ve installed an unauthorized modification. On one hand, the instillation supposedly voids your warranty, but on the other hand, if the unit is defective Nintendo should fix the problem, with or without a warranty. One problem that users with a mod face is this: often times, Nintendo will probably simply replace the defective unit. But replacement means that your several hundred dollars in purchase and instillation are down the drain. Nintendo might argue that this is why the modification are unauthorized and that they aren’t going to go out of there way to convenience you. Gamers might say otherwise though.
No reports yet of anyone with a modification having a problem, nor is there any news about what Nintendo would do in that case. It is plausible, but just speculation, that the modification made to a Wii may actually fix this issue. All Wii mod chips change the way the Wii reads discs, and it may, in a bizarre turn of events, actually prevent the problem from happening. Like I said, no news or proof about this either way, I’m just throwing out possibilities.
We have yet to see whether Nintendo will be handling this crises well. Hopefully they will learn from Microsoft’s mistakes with the Xbox 360 and resolve all problems thoroughly and quickly.
