Nintendo: 'Very small percentage' of SSBB discs having issues

Nintendo fans in North America were likely very happy this weekend, given that Super Smash Bros. Brawl finally came out swinging in the region at the end of last week. The game has been out in Japan since January 31, and has already broken the 1 million sales barrier.

However, a few of those fans saw their joy turn to pain when they took their prized copy of the game home to find that, instead of Mario-versus-Princess Peach brawling, they had the video gaming equivalent of an out-of-skew crossbeam: a "disc read" error.

According to Nintendo, this is because SSBB uses a high-capacity double-layer disc. In a statement on its official US Web site, the company explains, "A very small percentage of Wii consoles may have trouble consistently reading data off this large capacity disc if there is some contamination on the lens of the disc drive."

Those suffering from such issues are asked to fill out a form online and then send their console off to Nintendo, which will clean the laser with its "specialized cleaning equipment" for free.

Gamers are not advised to attempt cleaning the lens themselves, or to return the game to the shop to get another copy of the game. The former is likely to simply cause damage to the system, and the latter will not solve the problem.