Wii Broke It

It is with a heavy heart that we bring you this special weekend report. When PopSci's Wii arrived last week, it didn't spend too much time in the box. Ripped open without any hesitation, our little Wii gave us a long Friday's worth of furious Wii Sports and Excite Truck action at PopSci HQ. But then, it was time for it to go off to a photo shoot, where its fate would be sealed.

The plan was simple: carefully disassemble the little white box and controllers for a detailed inside look, then re-assemble it with ease and get back to where we left off, working up a sweat bludgeoning our little cartoon selves in Wii Sports Boxing. But the Wii proved to be one tough nut to crack. Due to Nintendo's special proprietary screws, we had to resort to brute force. And in the process of doing so, our precious white beacon of joy was rendered unplayable, forever.

But in the interest of making the best of a decidedly horrific situation, we figured it best to finish the job with a full, heart-wrenching disassembly. Here we bring you a visual record of our Wii's autopsy— put on your recording of bagpipes playing "Taps," get out your hankies, and click here to launch the gallery. Sniff. —John Mahoney

Comments

[Josh]

You know, you *can* buy those screwdrivers for about $8 - if you know where to look.

[Nick]

I can't believe you didn't know that you should have stopped taking it apart when the screws weren't coming off easily.

That's the most idiotic way to waste a high amount of money, when you could go buy a cheap screwdriver to fix it.

Pathetic.

[anonymous]

why is it rendered useless? couldn't you just run it open-cased?

[INAFAN]

ISTED AND ANDY!

[neutrino]

is there anyway that i can get the piece that you destroyed it into i will take them off of your hands if you do not want them.

[Some Other Guy]

I'm to pay to subscribe to PopSci, and it can't properly disassemble an electronic device without completely destroying it?

Shame on you, get some real technicians. I'll be looking to a real technical site like hackaday for my disassembly, in the future.

[Nick]

I'm sorry for being a total moron. I was being a pathetic emo fuck earlier and I want to apologize for my idiocy.

Please accept the apologies of this pathetic internet thug. :(

[lolnintendo]

That looks like a nice 25 dollars worth of technology right there.

[jwigum]

I still don't see what the fatal mistake was. A "broken" ribbon cable or connector? Replace it...

[randy the sachs]

what the hell makes adam the skinner so damn special that he gets some of j.r.'s bar-b-que sause before me.... i am still very very upset aboot that

[Luke]

Where is the RAM located?

[zorikin]

Hey, the GPU is bigger than the CPU. That's interesting.

[adam skinner]

randy the sachs, the ram is located beside my nice bottle of J.R's Bar-B-QUE sauce.....

[Mark Neri]

Nintendo used the same type of screws for most of their consoles and cartridges. Still, being PopSci, I expected you to have had the right screwdriver at hand already, or, at least, tried to look for one. Opening a new console by brute force? Tsk, tsk. Next time, don't get so excited!

[Jordan T-H]

Hah! And they're laughing at the commenters knowing they have job security for selling mad ad space :)

[Tyler]

Is it just me, or is the Wii the size of the Heat sink for the Ps3?

[JeremyR]

Well, the Wii really is nothing more than a turbocharged Gamecube (like 50% faster) - it doesn't need to be very big.

[Maniac]

The looks of the plastic casing are not very promising, it looks cheap. PS3 showed off in that segment.

[L_A_G]

Well this pretty much proves it, with technology, brute force isn't the answer.

Anyway intresting pictures, but still it's a shame to see a good console being literally ripped apart.

[Jew... WETI]

It's good you broke it. If I can't have one neither should you! I'm sooo jealous.

[Boon]

Posted by: Luke | November 19, 2006 at 12:23 AM

Hey, the GPU is bigger than the CPU. That's interesting.

------

Ever looked at a computer?

[K405]

John Mahoney,

Ur a fucking moron... Sjeez..

[Jake]

Why do you guys all care so much if he broke it? Haven't you made a mistake or ever done something without the right tools? I know I have and it's not like he planned on breaking it. And it's not like it cost them anything anyway. Besides, it makes the article a little more interesting than the average "Here's the inside of a Wii..."

[Scipio]

Wow. Renamed: Popular Tech Screwups.

[Andy]

"Why do you guys all care so much if he broke it? Haven't you made a mistake or ever done something without the right tools? I know I have"

Then you're an idiot too. How can someone start a job KNOWING they have the wrong tools for it and not expect to break it? Sure, I've made a mistake here and there, but not because I was a fool and tried to open something without the right tools.

It would be one thing if this was done by some no-name amateur (and thus far it appears so), but this is someone who works for popular-fucking-science. If anyone should be anal about getting something done right with the correct tools, you'd THINK it would be them.....