Support NeoGAF

[MarkMe2525]

So after years of procuring a few select Wii U games from flea markets and thrift stores, I finally made the leap and got me a Wii U for Father's Day. I cannot put into words the disappointment I have felt since yesterday afternoon. Nintendoland, Super Smash, Mario Maker, Super Mario U all appear to be in good to excellent condition, but give me a "invalid disc" notification when inserted into the console.

So of course something is wrong with the Wii U... right? I thought so and I contacted the seller. He was gracious enough to allow me to exchange.... same behavior. I found it odd that both these Wii U's would read all my 'Wii" games and Hyrule Warrior Wii U, so I dug a little deeper. It appears that Wii U disc's suffer from accelerated disc rot . When you hold these disc's up to a bright light, you can numerous "pin holes" of light that pass through. Every disc I own (besides Hyrule Warriors) exhibits this defect.

I have come across a competing explanation that states these are manufacturing defects, but it does not seem probable that 4 out of 5 discs would have a defect of this nature. It greatly lowers my confidence that my disc based game collection will age with me gracefully through the years and has greatly motivated me to procure digital backups of my library. Has anyone else had this issue? I have disassembled and cleaned my lens with no beneficial effects, has anyone else solved this problem for themselves? Is this our physical future?

 

[fart town usa]

So after years of procuring a few select Wii U games from flea markets and thrift stores, I finally made the leap and got me a Wii U for Father's Day. I cannot put into words the disappointment I have felt since yesterday afternoon. Nintendoland, Super Smash, Mario Maker, Super Mario U all appear to be in good to excellent condition, but give me a "invalid disc" notification when inserted into the console.

So of course something is wrong with the Wii U... right? I thought so and I contacted the seller. He was gracious enough to allow me to exchange.... same behavior. I found it odd that both these Wii U's would read all my 'Wii" games and Hyrule Warrior Wii U, so I dug a little deeper. It appears that Wii U disc's suffer from accelerated disc rot . When you hold a these disc's up to a bright light, you can numerous "pin holes" of light that pass through. Every disc I own (besides Hyrule Warriors) exhibits this defect.

I have come across a competing explanation that states these are manufacturing defects, but it does not seem probable that 4 out of 5 discs would have a defect of this nature. It greatly lowers my confidence that my disc based game collection will age with me gracefully through the years and has greatly motivated me to procure digital backups of my library. Has anyone else had this issue? I have disassembled and cleaned my lens with no beneficial effects, has anyone else solved this problem for themselves? Is this our physical future?

That sucks. Softmod it and play the games off an HDD. WiiU is awesome and home to some fantastic gems.

 

[Guilty_AI]

If you want to preserve media, digital DRM-free is the way to go.

Take your disks and burn copies into an HDD or something, you'll likely be able to play them with console hacks in the future, or at least emulators.

 

[phant0m]

“Physical forever!!”

Ask all the people with physical PC games with SecuROM or other anti-piracy measures that can’t be activated anymore.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

So after years of procuring a few select Wii U games from flea markets and thrift stores, I finally made the leap and got me a Wii U for Father's Day. I cannot put into words the disappointment I have felt since yesterday afternoon. Nintendoland, Super Smash, Mario Maker, Super Mario U all appear to be in good to excellent condition, but give me a "invalid disc" notification when inserted into the console.

So of course something is wrong with the Wii U... right? I thought so and I contacted the seller. He was gracious enough to allow me to exchange.... same behavior. I found it odd that both these Wii U's would read all my 'Wii" games and Hyrule Warrior Wii U, so I dug a little deeper. It appears that Wii U disc's suffer from accelerated disc rot . When you hold a these disc's up to a bright light, you can numerous "pin holes" of light that pass through. Every disc I own (besides Hyrule Warriors) exhibits this defect.

I have come across a competing explanation that states these are manufacturing defects, but it does not seem probable that 4 out of 5 discs would have a defect of this nature. It greatly lowers my confidence that my disc based game collection will age with me gracefully through the years and has greatly motivated me to procure digital backups of my library. Has anyone else had this issue? I have disassembled and cleaned my lens with no beneficial effects, has anyone else solved this problem for themselves? Is this our physical future?

Disc rot is a thing. There was a guy on Youtube that went into it deeply. He went into what goes into these discs and how the material breaks down over time, even if stored carefully. He even broke down a time frame of when the discs will start getting ruined. I wish I could remember the channel, but that's what I have for now.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Sounds like a band name

 

[Magic Carpet]

I'm curious about the Switch carts logevity. And if it will be an issue.
I've had several usb thumb drives go bad over the years.
Granted they were being used to play music in my car. And it can get extremely hot and cold in my car.

 

[Bloobs]

 

[Loomy]

While this is a thing, it's more likely than not the previous owners handling them poorly. If you take care of your discs, they'll outlast you.

 

[Guilty_AI]

“Physical forever!!”

Ask all the people with physical PC games with SecuROM or other anti-piracy measures that can’t be activated anymore.

NFS MW, Driver, Test Drive Unlimited... i have all these disks and none work anymore dues to this... but i can still run the games no problem if i use "alternative" versions.

 

[MarkMe2525]

That sucks. Softmod it and play the games off an HDD. WiiU is awesome and home to some fantastic gems.

I'm in the process now. It sucks that the exposure that many of the best ROM sites have received (due to iPhone allowing emulation) have resulted in the most reliable ROM sites to purge much of its content. Now I'll have to wade through the malware and pop-up ladden sites and torrents that are left, to find backups.

Edit: is the discussion of legitimate backups, of discs you own, against the rules here?

 

[MarkMe2525]

While this is a thing, it's more likely than not the previous owners handling them poorly. If you take care of your discs, they'll outlast you.

I'm very picky with my disc selection. All five disc's "look" to be in good to excellent condition.

Disc rot is a thing. There was a guy on Youtube that went into it deeply. He went into what goes into these discs and how the material breaks down over time, even if stored carefully. He even broke down a time frame of when the discs will start getting ruined. I wish I could remember the channel, but that's what I have for now.

Please link if you happen to recall the creator.

 

[Guilty_AI]

While this is a thing, it's more likely than not the previous owners handling them poorly. If you take care of your discs, they'll outlast you.

Lies, i always kept my disks in their proper packaging, never left them laying around for no reason and always stored the boxes in the proper places. Some still suffered at the hands of time regardless, quality of the disk itself probably plays a role here.

 

[LordCBH]

Since you own the games, I’d suggest hacking your Wii U and just downloading the games for now.

But yeah, disc rot sucks and I don’t understand why the Wii U discs are so susceptible to it. My copy of XCX is completely unplayable.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Miyamoto never liked CDs to begin with. He always preferred the cartridge.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

I'm very picky with my disc selection. All five disc's "look" to be in good to excellent condition.


Please link if you happen to recall the creator.

Trying to find it, now, but I don't see him in the images. He is a younger dude with glasses and with chin to shoulder length hair. I also recall it's not just wii U discs. What happens is the material begins to 'flake' and break off the disc, naturally IIRC.

 

[The Shepard]

I've played loads of old PS3 games past few years and my PS3 recognises every one of them and that consoles way older than the Wii U. It must be Nintendo cheaping out on the disc format for the Wii U and going with something different than blu ray. Scary shit if your a collector for that console.

 

[Drew1440]

Some Wii U models can also have issues with the NAND wearing out (Internal Storage), it's highly recommended to softmod the console and rip your backups to an external USB hard drive for full longevity of the console. For the Wii U there is also homebrew software that lets you download games from the eShop servers, if you find you cannot play your physical copies of games. Whilst it shouldn't be used for piracy, it's useful if your discs cannot be used.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

I've played loads of old PS3 games past few years and my PS3 recognises every one of them and that consoles way older than the Wii U. It must be Nintendo cheaping out on the disc format for the Wii U and going with something different than blu ray. Scary shit if your a collector for that console.

For what it is worth, I do not think we have explored this topic enough. Not on GAF and probably not on most other places.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I wouldn't be surprised if low quality discs were used. It's kinda the same with games from old 1990s-2000s magazines - some discs aren't readable or they struggle, while discs from the retail PC releases from the same years can still work flawlessly.

The best way is to just mod the console to avoid launching games from discs.

 

[The_hunter]

Some Wii U models can also have issues with the NAND wearing out (Internal Storage), it's highly recommended to softmod the console and rip your backups to an external USB hard drive for full longevity of the console. For the Wii U there is also homebrew software that lets you download games from the eShop servers, if you find you cannot play your physical copies of games. Whilst it shouldn't be used for piracy, it's useful if your discs cannot be used.

How hard is it to mod a wii u? Not asking how, but the difficulty of it.

 

[MarkMe2525]

I've played loads of old PS3 games past few years and my PS3 recognises every one of them and that consoles way older than the Wii U. It must be Nintendo cheaping out on the disc format for the Wii U and going with something different than blu ray. Scary shit if your a collector for that console.

I have a decent collection of PS1, PS2, PS3, Dreamcast, 360, and Wii discs. No problems with disc rot on any game in my collection, so I agree. Nintendo had to have cheaped out somewhere in the materials they choose for their Wii U games.

How hard is it to mod a wii u? Not asking how, but the difficulty of it.

Looking into it now. So far, doesn't seem anymore complex than the Wii, but we will see when I get into it. The console that gave me the most problems by far, was the PS2. I don't know if the PS2 is always as difficult to mod or I was using bad info. I ended up having to find an image of a modded PS2 HDD and completely copy that to my HDD.

 

[Meicyn]

Disc rot is why my copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga doesn’t work on my Sega Saturn after disc 1. Meanwhile, my much older copy of the Shining Force 2 Symphonic Suite is holding up just fine.

Life’s a bitch.

 

[cireza]

Quickly checked my Wii U games, 4 of them have a single spot close to the center of the disc. Not sure if this is an issue yet or not considering their location.

Concerning SEGA-CD and Saturn (US), I have always been wary of the foam insert. These things are abrasive. I never let them inside the case.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Quickly checked my Wii U games, 4 of them have a single spot close to the center of the disc. Not sure if this is an issue yet or not considering their location.

Concerning SEGA-CD and Saturn (US), I have always been wary of the foam insert. These things are abrasive. I never let them inside the case.

I would imagine the pinhole's location is relevant to its operation. The few I saw discussing this topic mentioned you don't want these defects near the edge of the disc.

 

[nush]

While this is a thing, it's more likely than not the previous owners handling them poorly. If you take care of your discs, they'll outlast you.

Not in this case, despite the low install base people back in the day were reporting this on brand new games. So far I've only had it with one used game.

 

[BlackTron]

So, you thought the silver lining to buying all those Wii U games that got ported to Switch anyway might be collector value. Think again!

 

[Quantum253]

Dang, that sucks! I'll have to go through my WiiU collection now. Hopefully all is well, but it sounds like a common problem that doesn't seem to be mentioned often when buying WiiU disc's

 

[Quantum253]

So, you thought the silver lining to buying all those Wii U games that got ported to Switch anyway might be collector value. Think again!

That certainly dampers any value held on WiiU, especially NIB if you cannot confirm the disc is actually in playable condition. At that point your buying the box and CE content

 

[6502]

Lucky to have avoided rot on all my purchased retail games, only cd/rw and the odd second hand games have suffered, some people don't treat these things correctly.

 

[BlackTron]

That certainly dampers any value held on WiiU, especially NIB if you cannot confirm the disc is actually in playable condition. At that point your buying the box and CE content

I'm one of those suckers with a stack of like 10 WiiU games, so this sucks. Never really worried about anything because they're all barely handled and bought new by me. Oh well

 

[BennyBlanco]

Wii U discs are so weird. That smooth edge thing they did is probably why they don’t last.

 

[Quasicat]

I was really big into laserdiscs from the 80s to the early 2010s. What always frustrates me is when people blame how the disc is handled, when at least for laserdiscs, it was the manufacturer. It didn’t matter who produced the movie, because they were pressed in a handful of facilities in Japan and the United States. One disc manufacturer that everyone avoided Was Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation. If you bought a movie that was manufactured from this company, there was a very high likelihood that disc rot would happen. What caused it was the cheap glue that was used to assemble both sides of the plastic disc together; air would get between the platters and would eat away at the aluminum substrate.

I kept my discs in perfect condition, in a temperature and humidity controlled environment, and still a handful of movies from a whole range of movie companies had disc rot.

It’s very likely that Nintendo was the only manufacturer of Wii U discs due to the security involved creating anti-copy discs, this could make it more likely for these games to suffer this problem.

 

[DGrayson]

Edit: is the discussion of legitimate backups, of discs you own, against the rules here?

no

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I got the "invalid disc" error when I would GameFly Wii U games from time to time back when they were new. I don't think it's disc rot.

 

[Hunter 99]

I tested my wii u a couple of months back and my games still worked fine on mine.might need to check all the discs though now and see if all are working and if they have the holes or dots...
Shame though,wanted to keep hold of my collection but could be a sell now....

 

[MarkMe2525]

no

Thanks for the clarification

 

[Hudo]

If you spin them really fast, you can use them to decapitate people.

 

[Dr. Claus]

While this is a thing, it's more likely than not the previous owners handling them poorly. If you take care of your discs, they'll outlast you.

Yep. I still have discs from consoles that supposedly have the *worst* Disk Rot chances possible. Thousands of disc based games. All of them are perfect and work just fine. Take care of your things and they will last your life time and beyond.

 

[mitch1971]

Digital VD

 

[The_hunter]

I checked my WiiU discs, they also have pinholes but they all work.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Unfortunately every single physical man made object in the world has an expiration date. Sucks that you experienced that OP, especially with video games. I have lost several games to this and a shit ton more music CDs. Over the next 50 years, all disc based media will probably be non-existent.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

For the people supporting physical, go ahead. There's pros and cons to physical and digital.

But one negative point to physical is all the clutter of consoles and potential of broken hardware or media. Why not buy those games as BC on modern consoles or if it's available for Steam download if you enjoy them that much?

 

[MarkMe2525]

I checked my WiiU discs, they also have pinholes but they all work.

Yeah, I got unlucky in the area that degraded. Some areas are worse than others. They are ticking time bombs.

 

[Shadowstar39]

I've played loads of old PS3 games past few years and my PS3 recognises every one of them and that consoles way older than the Wii U. It must be Nintendo cheaping out on the disc format for the Wii U and going with something different than blu ray. Scary shit if your a collector for that console.

Yep, I have bought a ton of wii, ps2, ps1, xbox360 and Xbox games from flee markets, mom and pop game shops, and antique stores, recently, and all have worked fine. My ps3 games on the shelf work too. Never owned a wii u so no idea about it's issues.

 

[Iced Arcade]

All disks will eventually suffer disk rot unfortunately.

 

[Punished Miku]

I have a ton of Wii U games. Now I'm going to have trouble getting to sleep tonight.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Yep. I still have discs from consoles that supposedly have the *worst* Disk Rot chances possible. Thousands of disc based games. All of them are perfect and work just fine. Take care of your things and they will last your life time and beyond.

The evidence doesn't support this conclusion. There are other variables besides the handling of the disks, most importantly, the materials used when pressing the disc. You literally have people in here describing that great care that was taken with their discs, and they still became unreadable.

 

[Dr. Claus]

The evidence doesn't support this conclusion. There are other variables besides the handling of the disks, most importantly, the materials used when pressing the disc. You literally have people in here describing that great care that was taken with their discs, and they still became unreadable.

Mate, I have the same discs they have. Mine are still in good condition as are tens of thousands of others who have the games.

 

[Vick]

I've played loads of old PS3 games past few years and my PS3 recognises every one of them and that consoles way older than the Wii U.

I have a decent collection of PS1, PS2, PS3, Dreamcast, 360, and Wii discs. No problems with disc rot on any game in my collection, so I agree.

Age means very little in this case, just had a blast with a '97 PSX game and right after a '03 PS2 one with no issues whatsoever.

They still look great via component on the plasma, too.