One of our big expenses two Christmases ago was a Wii video game system for the family. The price tag of the thing really got under my skin, but we were able to justify it as a good purchase for a number of reasons.
A few months ago, my son got a used game for his birthday. He was excited to play with it until the Wii stopped being able to read the disc. Since it was used, I returned it as a faulty disc and the store replaced it. The sales lady noticed that the disc had deep concentric circles on it and told me that we might have a machine that was out of alignment. She gave us permission to use the new disc and if the same thing happened again, she would replace the disc again for us.
Well, you guessed it, the same thing happened. After about an hour of play, the disc wouldn’t read and the circles appeared again. We got the disc replaced and put a lock down on the system while we reviewed our options.
We could have the machine fixed by Nintendo, at a cost of $75 diagnostic, shipping charges and the cost to fix it. We could replace the system for $199.99, and get a bonus game and accessory, we could buy a used system for $150 without the extra game and accessory, or we could just get rid of the system and sell off the games we owned.
We debated the options until my husband decided to take a look online to see if anyone else ever experienced this problem. He found out that a simple cleaning kit that cost just a few dollars would clear up the problem. It worked, saving the system and us a possible $200 replacement cost.