While it’s quote common for a succeeding system to get games from its predecessor, we don’t really see the reverse process happen. Well, it seems that nobody told one curious kid, who ended up giving a repair technician quite the operation when they had to fix a damaged Wii U disc tray that was filled with none other than Switch game cartridges.
The story comes from Jose A Cruz, who goes by “@Cruzlink2” on Twitter. There, he shared some images of a disassembled Wii U console that was stuffed with a handful of different Switch game cartridges, thus blocking access to the tray and ruining its functionality.
The various cartridges can clearly be seen in the images above, all having ended in varying positions inside the console after their insertion.
Considering that the cartridges are not as thin as the discs that are meant to be in there, the console owner’s kid must have had to use a good bit of force to wedge them inside.
Children seem to have an amazing ability of messing things up in spectacular fashion. True, inserting foreign objects inside of a console’s disc slot is nothing new, but it is amazing to see just how many different ways a child can come up with “experimenting” to see how something works. And, considering that various game cartridges ended up in this particular Wii U, it seems that the guilty party must’ve been very pleased with themselves when the first one made it inside. Thus, as kids do, if they get one reaction, they’ll most certainly keep repeating the process, which seems to be exactly what happened here.
So, despite the electronic carnage here, what came of this poor Wii U? As it turns out, she pulled through the operation.
Jose posted a quick clip in a follow-up tweet showcasing the repaired disc tray and subsequent test that confirmed it was fixed.
There’s no clear explanation as to whether or not the disc tray had to be completely replaced or if it was just a matter of repairing any damaged components, but either way, the point is that the console was still salvageable.
Well-known gaming tech YouTuber, Spawn Wave, also chimed in on this thread. Having worked as a console repairman himself in the past, this particular situation reminded him of similarly having to fix several original Wii consoles that found themselves victims of getting stuffed with Nintendo DS cartridges.
Clearly, a child’s curiosity has no limits. Even though the shape of the cartridges are totally different than the disc slot, all the kids who’ve done this must think: “I’ve seen dad push things in here, so I’m gonna try it too.” Moral of the story: if you want to keep your consoles safe from your kids, it’s best to keep them well out of reach.
On a related note, the Nintendo eShop for Wii U and 3DS will soon be shutting down. Once they do, purchasing digital Wii U titles will become impossible. So, any remaining units with a functioning disc tray will become more and more rare over time. Best preserve them while you still can.
Source: Nintendo Life
