Sunday, January 4, 2009

Copying Wii Games On a Computer - How and Why

By Cam Halladay

The Nintendo Wii is unlike any other video game system which has come before; it has generated an unprecedented level of popularity. It should come as no surprise to anyone that there are a lot of people who want to copy their Wii games as a backup in case of damage, loss or theft.

While these games come on a disc that looks a lot like your burnable CDs, they can't just be copied the same way you'd rip a music CD. It's a little more complicated than that. Here's a guide to tell you the basics of copying Wii games, as well as the circumstances when you should and shouldn't do it.

Your usual burning software can't copy your Wii games the same way you'd burn a CD. Roxio, Nero, and other popular burning programs just can't copy these disks. That's because there's encoded copy protection on the disk that keeps your computer from being able to make sense of it.

Like any other copy protection developed to date, someone quickly cracked the encryption. You can find programs which are capable of reading the encrypted Wii game discs.

Once you've installed this kind of software, making a copy of the game is relatively easy - your computer is suddenly able to understand the data that was unreadable before. This is true for games on just about any system, including the PS3, Xbox 360, and the Wii.

A lot of PC games also have copy protection which these programs can work around. If you have several different game systems, you can make backup copies of all of your games with this software ? you're not just limited to copying Wii games.

With this encryption breaking software, you can make a disc image of the Wii game and copy it on to your hard drive. You can use your regular CD burning software to make a copy of this disc just as you would when copying any other CD or DVD.

Often, burning and copying functions are included in the decryption program, so you won't need to resort to your regular burners at all. This reduces the chances of an error when ripping and burning the disk.

Thanks to these new software tools, copying Wii games is not quick and easy. It's always a good idea to have backups of your favorite games in case of accidents, theft or loss. Happy gaming!

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