Super Smash Bros. Brawl utilizes a double-layer disc which has a large memory capacity. A very small percentage of Wii consoles may have trouble consistently reading data off this large capacity disc if there is some contamination on the lens of the disc drive. Nintendo has specialized cleaning equipment that can resolve this problem. (Please do NOT attempt to clean the lens yourself, as you may damage the system.)

Hit the jump for the mini FAQ on the issue:

"How can I get this fixed and how long will it take?"
If you are experiencing disc read errors, please utilize the form below to request a repair order. Nintendo is upgrading inbound and outbound shipping to expedite the total repair process. Specific repair times will be provided as you fill out the repair form below. There is no cost for the repair or shipping. Please note: returning the game to the retail store will not solve the problem. So we encourage users who are experiencing issues with playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl to utilize this repair order process.

"What if I have Virtual Console games or other stored data on my Wii console?"
Due to the nature of this particular issue, you should not lose any of your stored data. In some rare cases you may have to re-download your Virtual Console games from the Wii Shop Channel, but there is no cost to doing so.

Repair Form [Nintendo, thanks to everyone for the tip]

Wired's GeekDad teamed up with the blog-free GeekMom to get their equally blog-free GeekChildren a Wii this Christmas. But once they set things and started playing one of the remotes went all funky.

GeekDad, living up to his name, tried to fix the remote himself. He put in new batteries, tried re-syncing all of the remotes, tried resetting the remotes. None of that worked, so he called Nintendo's call support. After checking out the Wii Sensor the friendly Nintendo lady went into Angry-Dad-With-A-Broken-TV mode:

Friendly Nintendo Help Desk Lady: "Okay - I want you to take the remote, button side down and smack it into the palm of your hand two or three times."

Russ: "You've got to be kidding"

Friendly Nintendo Help Desk Lady: "No sir, do it hard enough that I can hear it across the phone line but not hard enough to damage the remote"

Russ: "You're sure?"

Friendly Nintendo Help Desk Lady: "Yes, sir."

The thing is, it worked. See, this just shows you that if all else fails try violence.

Crazy (real-life) Wii Remote tech-support call.. [GeekDad]

My Red-Ringed Xbox 360 Elite showed back up at my house when I was in Leipzig. The majestic black console was cloaked in bubble wrap, stuffed between two pads and placed in a box along with a letter of apology from Microsoft.

The letter apologized for the inconvenience of having to ship my console off to have it repaired and said they were going to give me a free month of Xbox Live Gold membership. Sure enough, there was a plastic card taped to the bag protecting the Elite good for one free month.

Of course I'd prefer that Microsoft get to the bottom of their RROD issues, but this certainly is a step in the right direction.

Rumor has it that a spike in Xbox 360 returns, both valid and not so much, have lead to an increase in the return time for repaired Xbox 360s.

I've heard that the turnaround time for Xbox 360 repairs has skyrocketed to as long as six weeks and if you do the math, that could mean that some loyal 360 fans may be console-less when the Halo 3 launches. Talk about bad juju.

This new service lets you register your Xbox or Xbox 360 console, setup a repair, and track the status of the repair, all online. This new site lets you create In-Warranty or Out-of-warranty repairs, and even gives you a $5 discount for Out-of-Warranty repairs.

If you are in need of the site's services you can go directly to http://service.xbox.com. Sounds the only thing it doesn't do is actually package the thing up for you.

New Site Now Online for Xbox Repairs in US [Gamerscore Blog]

Our polls are so far from scientific that when they finally conclude I hate to call the numbers they vomit up results. But I suppose that there could be a shred of information found in the faux statistics.

Our latest poll was launched at the request of a Kotaku reader who wanted to know just how many people have their Wii Remotes slip from their hands and how many of those slippages result in broken straps.

To try and pluck some sort of facts from my silly questions, I tallied up the total votes for just the first three questions and used those to get percentages.

As of this morning, about 76 percent of the Wii owners who answered our poll said they have never had their Wii Remote slip from their hand while playing a game. But of the 24 percent who have had their remote slip from their hand, a quarter of them, or 338, had the strap break.

To put it another way, about six percent of the 5,700 or so Wii gamers who answered our poll have had their strap break on them. Personally, I think the fact that the strap is breaking so often, when put to the accidental test, shows that Nintendo needs to redesign the things, that or a third-party should jump on this and come out with a quick, but sturdy fix. Brian Crecente

I haven't had a lot of time to really mess around with the Xbox 360 wireless headset since Microsoft sent it to me. I've just been too busy with the dual console launches. But last night I tried using it for Gears of War and it wouldn't work at all.

I'm going to recharge it and try again tonight.

Apparently those who have gotten it to work have had issues with the microphone disconnecting and way too much background noise. While the mic issue is going to have to be fixed by Microsoft, Teksuo Hikari came up with a fix of his own for the white noise.

Simply remove the little foam filter from your standard wired headset (or any other, just make sure it's got a snug fit) and slip it on the end of your wireless mic. Now, you may immediately notice that the filter may cover up two of your channels lights. If this is a problem, just take a pair of nail clippers and carefully cut out a small hole, big enough to read the first channel.

While this may leave your second channel light covered (and ideally it should, to help keep it from slipping off), many of you will probably be using the first. If not, simply click the sync button to move down to the second channel. Once you're done, you'll be back on live, enjoying the freedom of a wireless headset, while screaming "How ya like that, bitches?!" with the voice quality of a wired set.

Mods FTW! Brian Crecente

White Noise Fix for Xbox 360 wireless headset [RedAssedBaboon, which I own]

An eBay user has four mustard-yellow NES repair carts, one grey one, plus a Legend of Zelda NTF2 cart up on eBay for the next five days. Starting bid is $850, no bids yet.

Siliconera has this to say about the rare carts:

Back in the NES era, Nintendo had official World Class service centers. These repair shops had a couple of yellow cartridges that ran diagnostic programs on a damaged NES. Unfortunately, if a NES suffered from blinking light syndrome the carts were rendered useless, since the cure for fixing the irritating flashing red light is replacing the 72 pin connector. Even though the cartridges are largely useless (except for the joystick test at the end) many collectors want them because they were not released to the general public.

Apparently these are from actual Nintendo service centers, some of them are in good shape and others have label damage. All apparently function, but $850?! Eliza Gauger

More here [Siliconera]

Chances are if you've ever owned or played a NES, you've experienced the blinking screen or have had trouble playing your games. The cause for all these problems is bad electrical connections between your game cartridges and the NES console caused by dirt, corrosion or broken copper contacts.

With a little patience, you can restore your NES and games to a like-new condition. This guide will help you disassemble your console and show you the areas you need to focus on when cleaning and reconditioning. No electronics skills are needed to follow this guide.

This article by a mysterious benefactor named Josh Boudreau is truly philanthropic, and will hopefully stay up forever. Step-by-step instructions, including photographs, that make it gloriously easy to get your cute little NES back in action.

And because this post is pretty short, I'll also tell you that this image is what I found when I Googled "Broken NES". He is apparently an electronic music dude. I tried to listen to his stuff but all his links were broken.

NES Console Repair [Kfoo.net, via Aeropause]

I was walking through one of the halls when this little cherry-red number caught my eye. I do a fair amount of damage to the CDs that have the misfortune to end up in my car, so a better disc repair device than the hand-cranked jobbies seemed like a good idea. Then I saw the price: $995. That's a lot of copies of Dark Side of the Moon.

Turns out there's a big market for professional-level disc repair. All the DVD and game rental shops, all the used CD stores, all the video game stores give you five bucks off a game if you turn in eighteen, they need to at least try to get the ferret claw marks out of the poor abused discs you turn in. The "Disc-Go-Devil," as it's called, is actually one of the lower-end professional machines. DiscGoTech makes massive disc repairing monsters that can clean up to 225 discs an hour. Our scientific simulations say it would take over two thousand stoners with hardwood floors to screw up discs at that rate.

DiscGoTech [Official Site]

This is what it sounds like when an Xbox 360 game cries.

The folks at Llamma sacrificed a Quake 4 disc so you can hear the terrible cry of a 360 having it's way with the game disc the machine was meant to play with.

The end result: Two nasty rings of death on the disc. Ouch.

Is it just me or does that sound make you involuntarily shudder?

Fortunately, the Lamma peeps already have a fix for the game scratching problem. Nice work guys.

[Llama]

If you ve had the misfortune of turning your lovely PlayStation Portable into a shiny brick with the help of some evil homebrew software, don t lose heart. XboxRepairGuide.Com is selling replacement PSP motherboards. The $99-board comes with v1.5 firmware and allows you to run homebrew software from a memory stick, so you can brick your handheld a second time. Maybe you should just buy a gross of these suckers.

PSP Motherboard [Xbox Repair Guide]