My Wii plays GameCube games fine, but Wii games get errors often... ?

Ok, maybe I got scammed. Last weekend I bought a used Wii off Craigslist. I was able to get it really cheap, but it didn't come with "ANY" games, and also didn't have the nunchuk. So, when I brought it home, I didn't have a single Wii game to try in it. I did try a bunch of GameCube games, and they all played perfectly. So, I really didn't think anything of it. Then, a couple of days later, I ended up buying Wii Sports and Wii Play from a dude on Craigslist. Got both for $18. Played both games on the Wii, and at first, they seemed to work perfectly fine. But then, I started getting these errors, where the Wii would tell me to eject the disk, turn off the Wii, and check the owners manual or something like that.

So, I would eject the disk, turn off the Wii, and try again. Sometimes the games would work, sometimes they wouldn't. Then just last nite, I got Super Mario Galaxy from some dude off Craigslist for $16. Tried that in the Wii, and couldn't get it to play at all. Same error messages.

Whenever I try a GameCube game, it works flawlessly (at least it seems to), but with Wii games, I'm getting these repeated error messages. The system is no longer in it's warranty period, and I'm not the original owner anyways, so I don't have receipt or proof of purchase or anything like that. I only payed $90 for the Wii, but I'm still pretty disappointed. Tonight, I also scored a second Wii-mote, and my first nunchuk for $35. ($25 for Wii-Mote, $10 for Nunchuk).



Wii system (all hookups, but only one wii-mote, no nunchuk, no Wii Sports) - $90
Wii Sports - $8
Wii Play - $10
Super Mario Galaxy - $18
Extra Wii-Mote - $25
first nun-chuk - $10
Wii Component cables from monoprice x 3 = $21


Grand Total = $182


So far, I've invested $182 into this thing, and I probably could track down the guy that I bought the Wii from, and get my $90 back, but then I'm back at square 1 trying to get a Wii again, and I would still have all these extra accessories and stuff.

Considering the fact that this Wii is having trouble playing all 3 Wii games, but plays GameCube games perfectly, I'm thinking that it must be some type of problem with the laser or something. Are there two seperate lasers in the Wii? One for GameCube games, and one for Wii games? I'm not sure what I should do exactly. I thought about trying a laser lens cleaner or something like that, but not sure it would work. Do Wii's play audio CD's ? I think the laser lens cleaner thing works with any audio cd player.

Well, I was telling a friend of mine about the predicament I'm in with this Wii having a crapped out laser, and he explained that I should softmod it, and just put my games on a USB thumb stick.

I decided it would be worth a try, so I went thru the whole softmodding process, and put my 3 games onto the thumb stick. Everything works perfectly! Obviously, I could copy tons of illegal games onto the thumbstick if I wanted to, but I'm only going to copy games that I actually own. I'm not sure if playing my games like this is actually technically legal, but from a moral standpoint I feel like I'm not doing anything wrong since I own the games and have them sitting on the shelf.

This just seems like the easiest way to get around the messed up laser. Also, the side benefit is that I can have all my games on the thumbstick, and not have to swap disks everytime I want to play a different game. So it's pretty cool from that standpoint. The only issue I might run into, is that a new game is released, and I go and buy the retail copy, but then somehow I'm not able to get it onto the thumbstick and play it from there. I guess I'll just cross that bridge when I get there.