How To Keep Your Wii Alive

It’s been a while since I wrote about our Wii, hasn’t it?  In general that means things are going swimmingly:  the Wii and its pocket partners, the 3DS and the DSi, are used as incentives and rewards for Kyle and Brady, and are taken away as punishment.  Our family continues to receive super cool boxes of stuff from Nintendo, including these fun wall decals:

We’ve played Mario Sports Mix, Mario Party 9, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn.  One of those games came with a box of Kirby-shaped cake pops.  Listen.  I’m not a paid brand ambassador, but I will work for cake pops.*

The brand managers at Nintendo do a fantastic job of keeping me, the mother in our family and the person who controls what gaming equipment and paraphernalia come into our house, engaged and excited about products for my children’s age bracket. I’ve visited their home office in Seattle and socialized with other #nintendoenthusiasts at events around the country. I’ve played with their games and devices before they were available to the public.

But all that special treatment wouldn’t mean a thing if this one simple fact was not true:

The games are fun to play.

I actually like to play the games with my kids. My favorite is LEGO Star Wars, and I like the other LEGO games too. It’s fun to wander around an imaginary world, smashing stuff. It’s kind of a stress release, too.

So when our beloved Wii console started getting sick a few months ago, we were all in denial. “It’s this scratched up game,” we said, and tried to clean the disc and re-play. But eventually the console gave up completely. It kept telling us the discs were not recognizable.

Sigh.

We tried a lens-cleaning kit, but that only helped for about a day. The only thing left to do was weigh our options: repair or replace?

To my surprised delight, the repair was easy and cheaper than replacing. Using the Nintendo support website, I opened a repair ticket with a facility that is so close it’s on Stewart’s way to work. He dropped it off on a Thursday and picked it up on Monday. The total cost was $82, and it came with a full 1-year warranty, so the console is like new.

Since our family is on a budget, I had to consider the repair cost seriously. That was an unforeseen expense. But I knew eventually we would want to have that Wii working again, since the kids did receive a new copy of LEGO Star Wars for their birthday. The original disc was indeed scratched beyond all recognition.

We’ve had the console since late 2009. It should not have broken even three years later, but what I did not know is that it is not advisable to just walk away from the device when you’re not playing it. You should actually exit the game, eject the disc and place it in its case, and shut the console off. This saves the device from unnecessary wear and tear.

Now if I can figure out what will save Mom from unnecessary wear and tear…

*That was a joke.  I will not actually work for cake pops.  But!  I will play for cake pops.