So how did my experience turn out? I decided to trade in several games to get in on a promotion to get Smash at Gamestop for only $9.99. First Gamestop I get to around my house has no extra copies; apparently they only had enough to cover pre-orders. Who actually pre-orders? And I got this game on Monday; it was released Saturday. They should already received their second shipment already. Anyways, had to go to a second Gamestop in the local area which had the game in-stock. Traded in my games and headed home to test the game out. Popped in the disc into the Wii and apparently it prompted a “disc unreadable” message. Not freaking out yet; I decided I need to update the console as it HAS been collecting dust for the past 3 months. After waiting for the system to update; still a no go.

Still the optimist that I am; I knew it was not my console but the disc must have been a defect. Took the game right back to Gamestop to have it exchanged; easy service; no questions asked. With my second sealed retail Smash Brothers Brawl game, the result was the same. The disc was just unreadable; now I am beginning to be pissed off at both the disc and the console. So I decided to research and what do I find out?

Apparently I am not the only one who’s Wii console cannot read the Super Smash Brothers Brawl game. How unfortunate but Nintendo is so nice that they want us to send in our Wii console to have the lens on the disc drive cleaned. Here is their dedicated support page. Hog-wash; how does that even happen? I hardly played the system and at best it was only to play Wii Sports. I seriously doubt the lens on my Wii console is dirty and I did not want to send it in as well since I have Wiikey installed so I can play imports.

Thus this led me to research on Wiikey and then it all made sense. Long story short; the retail version of Super Smash Brothers Brawl will not work on your Wii console if you have Wiikey installed. So now I have to wait for Wiikey to provide us with a working firmware update; or the alternate solution after hours and hours of research is simply to back up my retail disc and play it on a copy.

All in all; I was about to send in my Wii console or get a third copy of Smash because I was so frustrated with both when it was Wiikey. It isn’t illegal to play imports now, is it? Too bad there is no manual toggle off button but if you look on YouTube; you’ll find video on how to corrupt your Wiikey so you can play retail version of Smash. Smash on brothers!