Brawl Doesn't Work With Some Wii

Looks like Super Smash Bros Brawl is having some problems working on a few Wii out there. We've only received a handful of complaints about this here at Kotaku, but it's a big enough problem that Nintendo already has a site set up to deal with the problem in North America.

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:

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.

Xbox 360 Repairs Slow to Crawl

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.

Microsoft Starts Online Site for US Xbox Repairs

Poll: Wii Remote Strap Has 24 Percent Fail Rate?

Wireless 360 Headset Fix

Batch of NES Diagnostic Carts Start at $850

How to Repair Your NES Without Blowing Anything or Anyone

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.

Xbox 360 Game Scratch Fix