Skippy B. Coyote

That certainly makes good logical sense, just playing games off an external hard drive and enjoying them that way since the future doesn't look good for playing them off the original disc, but it still sounds depressing. Like it would mean the defeat of all my collecting efforts and take all the purpose and excitement out of the hobby for me. A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. I guess I just need some more time to think about it before deciding what to do.

Not really my style I don't think. For me the whole point of collecting games for any system is to be able to play them off the original physical media, so a system modded to play games off a USB drive would kinda defeat the whole purpose of collecting. I don't buy games to look pretty on the shelf, though it's totally fine if that's your thing. It's just not how I like to collect and play.

Alright guys and gals, times for an update. The eBay seller (who has thousands of sales under their belt and 100% positive feedback) who sold me the refurbished disc drive that started giving me "The disc cannot be read" errors after 3 days of use did send me a replacement disc drive at no charge. I installed the new drive and it played Wii games perfectly, but every time I tried putting in a GameCube disc the drive it just made spinning noises then dropped the GameCube disc to the bottom of the drive after a few seconds and gave no on-screen indicator that I ever put any disc in the drive at all. Then it would take a good dozen or so tries to eject the GameCube disc, and when it did the disc came out at the very bottom of the slot like the drive hadn't grabbed onto it at all. I notified the seller and they suggested that it sounds like the logic board on the replacement drive had failed and the disc reading lens on the original drive I was sent had failed, so if I knew how to solder I should try de-soldering the logic board from the original drive and install it on the replacement drive. Fortunately I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron and there were only 6 points that needed de-soldering to remove the logic board from a Wii disc drive, so I swapped it over this afternoon. What I ended up with was a disc drive that gave me "The disc cannot be read" error messages every time I tried putting a Wii game disc in it, and when I put a GameCube game disc in it the same thing as before happened. It just makes some spinning noises for a few seconds then drops the GameCube disc to the bottom of the drive and takes a dozen attempts to eject it. Since that didn't work I then tried soldering the logic board that I took off the replacement drive onto the first drive I was sent and what ended up happening then was that the drive would read and load Wii discs properly with no error messages, but every time I tried putting in a GameCube disc the drive tried spinning up then quickly shot the GameCube disc back out after a couple seconds. And I do mean "shot", it launches GameCube discs back out about a meter across the room! At this point I think I've exceeded my maximum frustration threshold trying to repair this Wii and am feeling ready to just junk it and call it a loss. I'm not sure if I just have awful luck or what, but I'm pretty fed up with how flakey and unreliable the Wii's slot loading disc drive is and if this is what trying to collect and play physical Wii games is going to be like in the years ahead I just don't want to have to deal with it. And that really sucks, because I love the Wii game library and I've had a ton of fun hunting down and collecting games for it over the past year, but it's like a bad relationship or something. I love it but it's totally flakey, high maintenance, is always demanding more money I don't have, and I can't see it changing anytime soon. So… I don't know what to do. I might liquidate my whole collection of Wii games and just take the money and buy games for other systems that I can actually keep working, or I might not. What I do know is that there sure as heck aren't any thrift stores around here with Wii systems for $20, all the Wii systems available locally are a good $50 or $60 barebones, and eBay prices for tested and working systems don't look any better. After these past few weeks I wouldn't trust any Wii's disc drive to keep working any farther than I could throw it, and I sure as heck don't want to plunk down $50 or $60 on something that could very well break down next week.

Modern televisions that work with all light guns designed for CRT TVs. The light gun games on the NES, Genesis, and original PlayStation are the only reason I still use a CRT TV for gaming.

Just a heads up that for the Ghost Manor scores I ended up getting listed twice, once for 374850 and later down the list for 151751. I'll take the 374850 score please.

Yet again there was no modern gaming done in my household this past week, but I did finally get my Wii working again and I've already started in on a game for it tonight so I'll definitely have some time to contribute next week.

Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters (Sega Genesis) Lethal Enforcers (Sega Genesis) Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (Nintendo Wii)

That train will come back around at some point, you probably just got burned out on 80's stuff for the time being; it happens to me all the time. I'll get really enthused about a certain console or computer or some other retro thing for a while, then something else will capture my interest and I'll kinda stop caring about the thing I was fixated on before. When that happened I used to sell whatever I had lost interest in because it didn't seem all that important anymore, but I've learned my lesson about that and hold onto them now because that passion and enthusiasm always comes back a few months or a year down the line. So I wouldn't worry about it too much, I think a lot of people system hop and your interest in 80's stuff will very likely return once you've taken a break from it for a while.

Mo' Sega, less problems. Atari 2600 Space Invaders - 36 minutes Track & Field - 91 minutes PlayStation Resident Evil 2 - 523 minutes Sega Genesis Castlevania: Bloodlines (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 239 minutes Growl (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 41 minutes Lethal Enforcers - 139 minutes Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters - 29 minutes Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 22 minutes Sub-Terrania (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 8 minutes Thunder Force II (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 25 minutes Thunder Force III (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 40 minutes Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 59 minutes Super Nintendo Super Castlevania IV (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 108 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,360 minutes (22 hours 40 minutes) [1,360 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Sega Genesis: 602 minutes PlayStation: 523 minutes Atari 2600: 127 minutes Super Nintendo: 108 minutes It was another Sega heavy week around here this past week, and yet again 100% of my household's gaming time was eligible for the classic gaming tracker! I had a few Wii games lined up to play for Halloween, but when my Wii's new replacement disc drive that I installed last week failed just 3 days after I installed it my Halloween gaming plans had to be scrubbed. Instead I ended up playing Castlevania: Bloodlines and (for the first time) Super Castlevania IV via emulation, and the misses joined me for some Zombies Ate My Neighbors as well. They were all wonderful games and I'd have a tough time choosing whether I like the Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo Castlevania game better, as they each have their strong points and weak points, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Super Castlevania IV on the SNES simply because it gives you unlimited continues and the Castlevania: Bloodlines on the Genesis only gives you 2 continues. On the flip side, there's a good reason Super Castlevania IV gives you unlimited continues; since it does it crazy difficult in the later stages and I think I prefer the Castlevania: Bloodlines' mellower difficulty in the later stages. I spent the remainder of the week after Halloween playing random Genesis games that I was curious about trying out about (Growl, Thunder Force II & Lightening Force, and Sub-Terrania), then late in the week I got copies of Lethal Enforcers I & II in the mail and spent some time enjoying them. They're both excellent games and I'd be hard pressed to choose which I like better. The original Lethal Enforcers has a great late 80's or early 90's theme that really appeals to me, though having to replay a level if you accidentally shoot a civilian makes it super tough. I was stuck on level 2 for probably an hour before I managed to memorize where and when all the civilians pop up, though fortunately once you get past level 2 the civilians are few and far between; and the ones that do pop up are good about announcing their presence so you don't accidentally shoot them. Once I got past level 2 I breezed through levels 3, 4, and 5 all the way up to the final boss; who promptly demolished me in seconds because I didn't know that you had to shoot off parts of the boss in a specific order. Great game, but definitely watch a gameplay video or read a strategy guide before taking on that final boss; since the game doesn't exactly give you time to figure it out on your own. Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters was a ton of a fun as well, and thankfully you don't have to replay the level if you accidentally shoot a civilian in this one. There's a lot more weapon variety and destructible environments in Lethal Enforcers II too, though the difficulty does feel a bit higher than the original and the bosses are serious bullet sponges that take hundreds of shots to bring down. I wasn't able to get very far in this game on my first try, but it was a ton of fun so I know I'll be coming back to play it many more times in the weeks to come. The only other games I played this past week were a few Atari 2600 High Score Club games, and oh man was I in for a surprise with Track & Field. I had no idea just how much of a workout playing that game was going to be! After playing for 45 minutes I was pretty well drenched in sweat and huffing and puffing like I had just run an actual marathon, and 3 days later my arm was still sore. I just feel lucky that I didn't break my joystick while playing! As far as the misses' gaming time this past week went, outside of playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors with me on Halloween she stuck to Resident Evil 2 on the PlayStation all week. She did two full play throughs of the game, playing Scenario A with Claire then Scenario B with Leon, and had as much fun playing it as ever. Resident Evil 2 is one of those games that she seems to play through at least once a year, and I can't say I blame her since it's definitely a timeless classic of the survival horror genre. Looking ahead to next week I'm not sure what she'll be playing, but I do have a couple childhood favorite Genesis games that I picked up on eBay coming in the mail so it looks like it'll probably be another Sega heavy week for me next week. I did get a second replacement disc drive for the Wii in the mail today, and if this new one doesn't fail immediately like the last one did then I might have to get in some Wii gaming time too. That's all for this week, so until next time and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

Sony HB-101 with Phillips Discoverer Space Helmet TV.

Oh that is just sweet! Any idea what the activation force required for the tactile switches is going to be? Generally speaking around 50g for joystick contacts and 20g for button contacts is about ideal, but I know some people like more or less resistance.

So, uhh... anyone else wake up with their upper arm on fire the next day after playing Track & Field? It's been 2 days since I played and my arm is still all messed up, so I think I'm done for this round on account of injury.

Definitely! Those pink guns are darn expensive though so I'll probably be sticking with the solo Justifier for time being. It'd certainly make the bullet sponge bosses in Lethal Enforcers II a lot more fun to fight with dual pistols though, so if I happen to stumble on a pink one at an affordable price someday I'll pick it up.

Bang bang!

I took another crack at Track & Field as well as the bonus game for the week. Playing Track & Field is one heck of a workout, and the bonus game… well, that game is bull****. Track & Field (Game 1, B/B Difficulty, Arcade Setting): 72,990 Bonus Space Invaders (Game 16, A/A Difficulty): 630 I've just been using an Atari Flashback wired joystick and wiggling it left and right like my life depends on it. For the Long Jump, Javelin, and Hammer events try your best to stop the angle at 45°. For the High Jump event I've been starting my character's jump between 75° and 80° then adjusting it down to 30° or so once they're over the bar.

I got my Harmony Encore in the mail last week and it works great! The new cartridge label is very nice looking and seems like it should be pretty durable. My OCD-ness about condition was a touch aggravated by the sloppy cut in the casing around the Mini-B USB port, but other than that it's great.

I always liked Gravitar and similarly styled games, I just suck really badly at them. I tried Sub-Terrania for the first time a couple days ago and couldn't even get past the second level!

I had never played Track & Field before this morning so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect going into it, but holy hell this game is rough on the arms! For now I'm just happy to have completed all the events, and if you'll excuse me I think I need to go put an ice pack on my right shoulder. Track & Field (Game 1, B/B Difficulty, Arcade Setting): 68,820

Thank you very much for all the replies everyone! Doing a Google search for Wii disc drive failure error messages makes it seem like everyone and their grandmother (sometimes literally their grandmother) have had their Wii's disk drive go belly up, but reading the replies here makes it sound a bit less common. To give you some background information, I do live in a garden level apartment so there's always a lot of dust floating around, but fortunately I'm very comfortable opening up and working on all my consoles so I keep them nice and clean inside. In both cases of drive failure I opened up the system and cleaned the disc drive's laser eye with 90% isopropyl alcohol on a q-tip to make sure it wasn't dust buildup causing the problem, but it did not solve disc reading problem. When it came time to replace the drive I had no trouble at all disassembling the Wii to install a new disc drive in it, since the drives are very much self-contained "plug and play" affairs. Just open the system, take out the 4 screws that secure the corners of the disc drive to the system chassis, unplug two ribbon cables from the drive, then plug the two ribbon cables into the new drive, screw it down, and it all goes back together easy as pie. And to answer atarilovesyou's question, nope, you don't lose your save data when you swap the disc drive. The Wii's save data is contained within either the system's internal flash memory or an SD card at your preference. As far as options for replacing my Wii with an entirely new system, that's really not something I want to do. Not because I have any sort of personal attachment to this particular Wii, but because it's been soft modded with a variety of custom configured emulators and homebrew software and modding a new Wii to do all the things that this one does would take a good 6 or 8 hours worth of work that I just don't want to have to do again. So I'd much rather stick with the same Wii system and just replace the disc drive than buy an entirely new system that I'd have to mod all over again. For the time being I don't have any plans to rush off and sell my Wii collection because of this, but it certainly is a bit disheartening and has put a damper on my enthusiasm for the Wii at the moment. For now I'm just waiting to hear back from the eBay seller who sold me the refurbished disc drive that died after 3 days to see about getting it replaced or refunded, then I'll figure out what to do from there after that matter is taken care of.

I decided to start this thread to try and get a better idea of what the reliability of the original Wii's disc drive is going to be like over the longterm by asking you, my fellow AtariAgers who currently own or have previously owned an original Wii, if you've ever had the disc drive in yours fail and stop reading discs? This subject has been on my mind quite a bit lately since the original Wii that I got at launch just had it's disc drive fail a couple weeks ago. It didn't seem like too big of a big deal at the time, since all mechanical devices will break down eventually and I felt like 12 years was a pretty good run for slot loading disc dive that got used on a nearly daily basis. I just ordered a replacement refurbished Wii disc drive online, installed it in 20 minutes or so, and it was good to go again... until 3 days later when the replacement disc drive failed. So I suppose what I'm trying to figure out at the moment is if I'm just having a temporary run of bad luck or if Wii disc drive failures are going to be a common and frequent enough occurrence that I might want to reconsider collecting for this system. The Wii has been the main system I've been collecting for over the past year or so and I've amassed a pretty substantial library of 65 games for it, but I really don't want to have to deal with frequent hardware repairs and am starting to wonder if I might be better off focusing my collecting efforts on cartridge based systems without moving parts due to recent events. So what do you guys and gals think? Have you had the disc drive in your Wii fail before and do you think this is going to be a regular occurrence, or am I just having a run of bad luck?

No problem at all! I figure it wouldn't be a fair competition if only a few people knew how to play the game.