Topic: will my Bricked wii come back with no games?

My Wii is acting crazy. I got it at launch and I've babied it like crazy, I'm very gentle but I think it's just seen it's day or didn't like the last update. Yes I'm irked since I don't use any illegal stuff, and I'm a very dedicated Nintendo guy, but I'll probably have to pay for the repair anyway. (and I'm suspicious about the last update because I've since gotten a cryptic message about corrupted Mii's too). Anyway, now it seems to be frozen and dead, and I've tried everything already.

Now that I've come to terms with it being pretty much dead my real concern now is that if I send it to them to fix they'll probably clear it out and put in some new fancy motherboard or whatever into it and all my VC and WiiWare games will be lost, and that stuff costs a lot of money. I don't really want to loose it, you know? Does anyone know if thats true, or have experience with Nintendo repairing a system? Like has anyone sent a Bricked Wii to them and know what they do about that? Do they save that content or give you any credit for it? I hope so.

If your Wii is repaired, then it should have the same ID# it uses for the Wii Shop Channel. Therefore, you should be able to redownload games if you didn't get them back.

The funny thing here is... Since your Wii is a launch console, if you had used the "illegal stuff", or BootMii to be exact, rumor has it you could probably have saved your Wii yourself from being bricked... And not lost anything... Funny how it is, isn't it?

Have you tried pressing (+,-, and A ) when you first try to turn it on? It's like a safty mode. You have to hold the buttons till it starts on its own. Do this when it first tells you to press A (hold + and - before you hold down A.)

Edit-The safty mode does appear someone at this site taught me how to do it. I forgot to say thankyou though (so if you're reading this thanks.)

Honestly, the best thing to do now is to call Technical Support. I can't remember what I had that "broke" but they told me I could fix it myself by hitting it in a certain spot (no joke) and it started working again. Though I don't think this will be the case for you but tech support can help you with the best decision to make for your Wii

Well your shop games are safe for sure because all you buying history is linked to an online account. The thing you have to worry about are game saves. I have sent my Wii in twice and both times, every game save I had was wiped out along with miis, address book, etc. And that happened with only minor problems for repair. The cold hard truth is that all your saves will likely be lost. To cushion the blow I would move all the saves you can to an SD card(games with wifi cannot be transferred). Sorry dude. I too have done nothing illegal with my Wii. It just really sucks that this stuff happens.

Thanks for all the advice, guys. @bboy2970 was it an expensive affair getting factory repairs after warranty was out? Am I looking at more than $100? I don't ming losing saves as long as I don't loose all the WiiWare games.

Your Wii Shop purchases will be safe, not because it's linked to an online account, but because it's linked to your actual Wii. They can detect which games you've downloaded even if your Wii is toast. Nintendo will do everything it can to preserve save data and Miis but don't count on it. Repairs are $75 without a warranty.

It comes out to $85 because there's shipping too.

I had problems with mine not too long ago (also a launch system with nothing illegal on it) because it was getting errors that mentioned "corrupt system memory" and it wouldn't even boot all the way to the main menu. I was able to get in through maintenance mode and I backed up as many of my saves as it would let me, but everything else was lost because they replaced it with a different system instead of repairing it. The only thing they bothered to transfer was the link to my Club Nintendo account so I can redownload all of my games.

@MulijoStpho, so even with a new system did that link to your Club Nintendo account let you re-download you games without charging you over again or did you even have to buy them again? My understanding is that it's the system itself that holds the link to the DL games purchase and not the N-club link, but it'd be great if I can at least retain my previously bought games. I can live with making new Miis and replaying some levels again. (not to mention erasing the sad, sad records from Wii fit)

If it's bricked I highly doubtfully that they are able to transfer that contents of the internal memory along just like my own bricked wii but the shop channel account can be transfered to the new Wii thou meaning you can redownload them.

I have heard Nintendo do transfer saved files but it a bricked Wii is unalble to load up a game disc it will never load up the service disc which has the transfer file function.

When my Wii was bricked all the files were lost.
Unforntally for me my Replacement Wii had stoped reading discs & I had to send it back the I got it back 6 days pater with a new drive unit & it works like a charm since.

I've had to send my wii in for repair before. You'll lose all of your save files, and when you get the new wii, there won't be any downloaded channels on it, but you can go to the shop channel and redownload everything for free.

Awesome! Thanks Toddr, thats all I really wanted to know. I could care less about my save files, I don't have any vigorous save files and I'd welcome the chance to replay all of World of Goo, and Swords and soldiers, and stuff like that, as long as I don't have to pay full price for them again. It's not like my "Everybody Votes" files was really life changing content or anything.

It's funny, as much of a Nintendo nerd as I've always been, I've gotten so much more busy in my life that I probably fit into more of a "casual gamer" group now, that I know lots of us love to hate. So the Wii Ware games are so much more appealing to me now than retail stuff. Pick-up and put-down titles, and local multiplayer puzzlers that I can play with all my non-gamer friends (which is basically everyone). I just don't know anyone anymore who loves videogames so I have to carefully chose games that people will actually tolerate (no smups, adventure, nothing very complex at all, unless it's just for me).
Having to pay for them again would really piss me off, so as long as they can hold on to those, I'll gladly pay the fix fee since I feel like the Wii has totally given me my moneys worth since launch. I guess that makes me kind of a yuppie, or casual gamer now even though I wish I had time for bigger games. I'm really glad my generation fits so snugly into Nintendo's marketing scheme, though, because it's followed my life perfectly from the original NES launch when I was like 10 or something to the current target of people my age now. Anyway, thanks for the advice guys. now I just gotta find like 80 bucks and mail this doorstop back.

I wouldn't worry about losing your shop stuff; relinking is the minimum. You may get back the same chassis but a new system board, though this will result in a new serial number since that's tied in. At first I thought I had a new Wii, but I was assured they didn't swap out the machine, but just cleaned it up and swapped the board.

Having the SD solution will make this experience a lot less painful than it was for me. If you backed up your save games (where possible) you'll probably need to load the game disc before the system will let you copy the data back, so expect to do a lot of disc swapping before everything is restored.

I sent in my wii into be cleaned before I went on holiday after finding out SBB didnt work.I was horrified to find out on return id lost the lot,my downloads and save files.After sending several emails they informed me that they had given me a new wii,like it was a good thing.Then I was told id have to be patient.I didnt even look at my wii for 2 months,then out of the blue I recieved an email to check the shop channel.To my surprise,there was 17000 wii points in my account.

That's a sobering story, wiiwii. Nintendo should have this down to a science. I can understand losing save files if the Wii is dead as a doornail. But under no circumstances should someone have to call up Nintendo about having lost access to their WiiWare and VC purchases, regardless of whether they ship out a new Wii or not. Nintendo should assume everyone has hundreds of dollars worth of WiiWare and VC games on their console (whether they do or not).

But I'm glad to hear that, after 2 whopping months, they finally credited your account for the WiiWare and VC games you'd lost.

I don't think that is illegal is it the homebrew channel isn't anyway

Illegal or not, I'm just saying I don't happen to have any software that has ever had the slightest hint that it could brick my Wii, which I've heard about HomeBrew channel. I actually considered trying it recently but I use Macs and nothing ever seems to work with Macs, homebrew wise. I guess just thinking about it killed my Wii. Nice to know that N followed up eventually. I almost prefer the points option to keeping my save files then I could get some of the Duds that I gambled on early on (I'm looking at you, Critter Roundup). Oh, and does anyone know if it's true that Launch Wiis don't play the double layer discs. I haven't tried SSBB (I know, I know, I need to), but I may want to get the Metroid Trilogy, so maybe I should ask them to fix that while I'm at it.

Don't worry, they fix it for you. My Wii recently gave out (same problem as you, but I use homebrew (which I love), but not only will they replace your circuit board, they also replace the disc drive mechanism (Source: repair papers from Nintendo).