WiiFix: The Wii Hospital

My Wii broke. Specifically the GameCube memory card slot A. I verified this by using the card in other ports and systems without an error, but everytime it visits the Wii in slot A, the system asks to format it. Tired of this, I called Nintendo, arranged a repair, and bid bon voyage to my Wii for the next few weeks. The good is the repair is free but there are downsides.

First downside - the console may not be able to be repaired. This means potential loss of large amounts of data - there are a few games, like Super Smash Bros Brawl that have their saves locked and uncopyable to SD for some asshat reason I cannot determine. Should the console be replaced - POOF! Not to mention, my Internet Channel favorites go, and worse - Miis. You can certainly placed your cherished Mii on a Wiimote and copy back later, but at the expense of loss of editing. Hey Nintendo, you need to get your data transfer abilities down and stop locking saves to the console! Did I mention I'd also be getting a new friend code for the console, meaning I'd have to get everyone to re-register me? (And some of you didn't make it easy).

Second downside - the repair time. Nintendo has started to slow their repairs down to multiple weeks versus a week or less prior. Part of this can certainly be chalked up to increased hardware penetration but this follows in the cascade in changes made by the Big N over the last two years (post coming soon on this). Two to three weeks isn't terrible, so I guess I'm just whining too much.

Either way, I will be able to enjoy GTA 4.

WiiWare: Now with 100% More....fun?

Nintendo of America has finally managed to release a new channel for the Wii - the Everybody's Nintendo channel. First I was excited about the channel and then I realized it's just stealthy way for Nintendo to collect usage data on their console and market to you. How lame is that? Digressions aside, one of the videos on the channel was a WiiWare video, intended to drum up interest in the upcoming feature. I was sorely unimpressed. Most games look fairly...well...boring. The only things that grabbed my passing interest were the Dr. Mario Online RX and the Final Fantasy title. Dr. Mario holds little interest because I've played it before and as for the Final Fantasy title.... Sorry, but the WFC has provided crappy service at best, so I'm hardly going to actually PAY to use it. No sir, the two remotely interesting titles have mitigating reasons to keep me from playing. If this is what Nintendo is going to offer for their original software downloads then I'm certainly glad I didn't go popping out for an SD card recently, my internal space will be plenty enough.