Wii Optical Disc
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Nintendo optical discs are physical media used to distribute video games on three of
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
's consoles that followed the Nintendo 64. These are the GameCube Game Disc, Wii Optical Disc, and Wii U Optical Disc. The physical size of a
GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...
Game Disc is that of a miniDVD; the
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...
is based on DVD format, and Wii U Optical Discs are based on Blu-ray format. To maintain backward compatibility between generations of game consoles, GameCube discs are compatible with the first model of the Wii, and Wii Optical Discs are compatible with the Wii U. A burst cutting area is located at the inner ring of the disc surface. All official discs and their formats were manufactured and developed by Panasonic. In 2017, Nintendo discontinued disc-based media in favor of game cards for the Wii U's successor, the
Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...
, although it would license several more physically released Wii and Wii U games for many more months, with the last one being a port of '' Shakedown: Hawaii'' to both consoles in the summer of 2020.


Format


GameCube Game Disc

The GameCube Game Disc (DOL-006) is the game medium for the
GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...
, created by Matsushita/ Panasonic, one of the ten founders of the
DVD Forum The DVD Forum is an international organization composed of hardware, software, media and production companies that use and develop the DVD and formerly HD DVD formats. It was initially known as the DVD Consortium when it was founded in 1995. H ...
, and later extended for use in the backward compatibility mode of the first model of
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...
. The GameCube is Nintendo's first optical disc console, after mainly
ROM cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electroni ...
based platforms. The GameCube Game Disc is a 1.46 GB, 8 cm miniDVD-based technology which reads at a constant angular velocity (CAV). It was chosen by Nintendo to prevent copyright infringement of its games, to reduce manufacturing costs compared to Nintendo 64 Game Paks, and to avoid licensing fees to the
DVD Forum The DVD Forum is an international organization composed of hardware, software, media and production companies that use and develop the DVD and formerly HD DVD formats. It was initially known as the DVD Consortium when it was founded in 1995. H ...
. GameCube Game Discs do not use the Content Scramble System found on normal
DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-r ...
discs, as Nintendo was not satisfied with its level of security. The GameCube is not able to be used as a general DVD player, except for the Panasonic Q which is a uniquely customized GameCube with DVD capability that was released only in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Some GameCube games with large amounts of data span two discs, such as '' Resident Evil 4'', '' Baten Kaitos'', and ''
Tales of Symphonia is an action role-playing game released for the Nintendo GameCube on August 29, 2003, in Japan. It was published by Namco and is the fifth core product of the ''Tales'' series. The game was localized and released in North America on July 13, ...
''. Some multi-platform games that fit on single discs for PlayStation 2 and Xbox had certain features removed in order to fit on GameCube Game Discs. Full-motion video (FMV) scenes and audio clips have higher compression or lower quality to fit on a single disc.


Wii Optical Disc

The Wii Optical Disc (RVL-006) is the physical game medium for the
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...
, created by Panasonic. Nintendo extended its proprietary technology to use a full size 12 cm, 4.7/8.54 GB DVD-based disc, retaining the benefits of the GameCube Game Disc, and adding the standard capacity of a double-layer DVD-ROM. Wii Discs always include a partition with files to update the Wii system software, which are installed before starting the game if needed. This ensures that systems that cannot connect to the Internet are still updated. For the same reasons as GameCube, Wii cannot play DVD movies or CDs. However, earlier Wiis can play DVDs using
homebrew Homebrewing mainly refers to small-scale, non-commercial manufacture of a drink, typically beer. Homebrew or home brew may also refer to: Computing * Homebrew Computer Club * Homebrew (package manager), for macOS and Linux * Homebrew (video game ...
such as WiiMC. The Wii can read dual-layer discs, and all games are single-layer prior to the release of '' Super Smash Bros. Brawl''. Upon that release, Nintendo admitted that some Wii systems may have trouble reading dual-layer discs due to a dirty laser lens. Nintendo repaired systems with dual-layer problems, and later released a disc cleaning kit for users to purchase.


Wii U Optical Disc

The Wii U Optical Disc (WUP-006) is the retail physical game medium for the Wii U, with a capacity of 25 GB. There is no 50 GB dual layer version. The Wii U system software is backwards compatible with Wii Optical Discs, but not with GameCube game discs. The Wii U Optical Discs differ in appearance from most other optical discs in that they have soft, rounded edges. The console's optical drive was developed and supplied by Panasonic, a founding member in the
Blu-ray Disc Association The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. The BDA is divided into ...
. It is not clear whether the Wii U Optical Disc is similar in physical design to the Blu-ray physical disc specification. Nintendo president
Satoru Iwata was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth President (corporate title), president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. He was a major contr ...
stated, "Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities. The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies". Like with the GameCube and Wii optical discs, it was chosen by Nintendo to prevent copyright infringement of games, to reduce cost by avoiding licensing fees to the
Blu-ray Disc Association The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. The BDA is divided into ...
(BDA), and to reduce loading times. This also prevents the console from being modified into a DVD or Blu-ray movie player.


Burst cutting area

Each Nintendo optical disc contains a burst cutting area (BCA) mark, a type of barcode that is written to the disc with a YAG laser. The data stored in this BCA mark includes an encrypted table related to the hardware-based copy-protection mechanics, in addition to 64 bytes of un-encrypted user-accessible data. Wii U discs do not use BCA. A BCA mark is visible to the naked eye. It is different from the IFPI mark that is on all optical discs. BCA is described in Annex K of the physical specification, and can be seen between radius and . There are also six additional evenly spaced small cuts, visible with a strong light source, located just outside the BCA radius, which are related to the copy-protection. Their value as a copy protection mechanism diminished after
Datel Datel (previously Datel Electronics) is a United Kingdom, UK-based electronics and video game console, game console peripherals manufacturer. The company is best known for producing a wide range of hardware and peripherals for home computers in t ...
discovered that the same pattern could be recorded into the DVD instead of needing to be precisely cut later. ''
New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a platform game, platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii. A follow-up to ''New Super Mario Bros.'', it was first released in Australia, North America, and Europe in November 2009, followed by Japan a month later. ...
'' was the first Wii game to use the BCA as part of an anti-piracy check; however it was cracked.


See also

*
GD-ROM GD-ROM (an abbreviation of "Gigabyte Disc Read-Only Memory") is a proprietary optical disc format originally used for the Dreamcast video game console, as well as its arcade counterpart, the Sega NAOMI and select Triforce arcade board titles. It ...


References


External links

{{Nintendo hardware 80 mm discs 120 mm discs DVD Nintendo hardware Video game distribution Video game storage media