So finally Super Smash Bros. Brawl was officially released in North America yesterday on March 9th. You rushed out bright and early to your local game store and snag yourself one of the first copies. Not being able to stand the suspense you rip open the packaging and pop it into your Wii. Instead of being greeted with the intro screen, your screen shows a disc read error. You panic and try to eject and reinsert the game again, same conclusion. No need to worry because you aren’t alone. Apparently, some North American gamers have been experiencing the same problems in which Japanese gamers had experienced a month earlier. Nintendo made an official statement that since SSBB is on a dual-layered DVD, a small percentage of Wii consoles may experience DREs due a dirty laser lens. A dirty laser lense? I don’t know about everyone but I’m not buying that excuse…every other console I’ve owned have had no issues with Dual-layered discs…especially not because of a “dirty lens”.

However, Nintendo’s solution is to have Wii owners who’ve been experiencing Disc Read Errors to simply ship their console to Nintendo and they’ll clean the lens for you and ship it back at no charge. Nintendo strongly advises Wii owners NOT to clean it themselves because you can easily misalign or damage the lens. I honestly think that there is something else behind this problem than simply a “dirty lens”, I suspect that some units may have faulty lenses altogether and are replacing them to cover their tracks. Nevertheless, for those who are able to play SSBB, good for you, and for those who can’t, since you’ve already waited this long, what’s another couple of days? (though I understand it’s Spring Break here in Canada, but what can you do?)

-Stephen