Nintendo almost ruins Christmas

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Nintendo designs their machines so that they are difficult to disassemble. Little did I know, this would almost ruin Christmas. Photo courtesy of news.cnet.com
Nintendo designs their machines so that they are difficult to disassemble. Little did I know, this would almost ruin Christmas. Photo courtesy of news.cnet.com.

On a frigid December morning, my boyfriend and I took on a task we would later regret.

Several weeks back, his family’s Nintendo Wii had stopped reading the discs inserted into the console. With the release of the new Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword quickly approaching, he and his two brothers were in complete dismay.

Knowing that they would receive the game for Christmas, they needed to act fast. What could they do? They did not want to purchase a new Wii, but Shawn would not give up on their Wii console.

He looked up countless videos on YouTube and researched all the ways to disassemble the machine. A new problem arose. He did not own the tri-head screwdriver needed to remove the screws holding the console together.

Shawn’s dad, who is a handyman, was stumped. He owns every tool known to man, except the tri-head.

After more research, Shawn found out that Nintendo, the company behind the beloved Wii, uses special screws on its machines to prevent people from breaking apart the consoles.

Shawn and his family searched high and low for this tri-head screwdriver. None of the home improvement stores in the area carried this tool. He even checked GameStop, a store in which Nintendo sells countless games and machines. No luck.

Eventually, they found the unusual screwdriver online. After paying two dollars and waiting the 3-5 business days, the much-awaited screwdriver had arrived.

Busy with work, Shawn had not been able to find the time to disassemble the Wii to take a look. That is, until today.

When I arrived at Shawn’s house, his dining room table had been transformed into a surgeon’s table.

An array of tools strewn across the tablecloth accompanied the shiny, white Wii console, ready to be taken apart and examined.

Grabbing his laptop and pulling up Google to click on the link he had bookmarked a few weeks back, another crisis arose.

The video he had come across was no longer available. Frustration set in as he realized he would have to search through countless links that would be of no service to him.

Sensing his frustration, I took over the task of finding a new step-by-step video to help us take apart the console.

After several minutes of clicking and x-ing out, I found it. Although the video quality was poor, the young boy with the Indian accent proved himself to be a true techy.

By following his directions, we were able to disassemble the console and clean out the insane amount of dust that had piled up inside the disc reader.

He then reassembled the console. After much trial and error, the machine looked good as new.

We brought the machine upstairs, hooked it up to the TV and inserted a disc into the slot. Not even 5 seconds later, a horrible sound escaped from the machine. It was clunking and clicking and I was sure the console was eating the disc.

An error message then popped up on the TV screen saying the disc could not be read. We had been unsuccessful in our mission to repair the defective device.

Slightly frustrated and disappointed that we failed at our task, we unhooked the broken Wii, overcome with the feeling of defeat.

But little did we know, Shawn’s mom, an avid yard sale attendee, had stumbled upon a fully-working Wii at a yard sale shortly before Christmas day.

Christmas had been saved and they could now look forward to playing the much-awaited game. We hooked up the functional Wii to the TV, and continued to play Zelda as if nothing had happened.

The original Wii console is no longer in service at Shawn’s house, but in the end, everyone is happy with the used, yard sale-bought Wii console. It does not matter where the machine came from. All that matters is that Shawn and his brothers can play Skyward Sword whenever they desire.

 

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