That’s where things stand. Thanks to aging hardware and a strict DRM system, I have a choice to make. Spend $60 to move $400 of legitimate Virtual Console purchases and other data from my aging Wii to my brand new Wii U—or don't. If I pass, at least I can continue playing those games on the Wii until the memory issue affecting the transfer process eventually prevents the Wii from working at all. At that point, I presume I would need the same repair option to save my purchases.
At the moment, I’m undecided. I enjoy having a virtual library of classic games at my fingertips on the Wii, but truthfully, I rarely play those titles. (I don't need a quick hit of nostalgia on the big screen every day.) And I loathe essentially rewarding Nintendo by paying the company for making this process so difficult. Then again, I’ve already sunk hundreds of dollars into buying these games, and I would prefer to keep that value going forward.
Most Wii owners will probably be able to use the transfer tool without a hitch, seamlessly enjoying their older content on the newer system. Sadly, a "loyal customer" like me wasn't so lucky.
Update: A few commenters suggested that I might be able to avoid having to send my Wii in for repair by formatting my Wii's system memory and trying the transfer process again. This would guarantee I would lose the uncopyable save data on the system, but I would save the cost and hassle of a Nintendo repair.
After triple-checking my backup, I tried reformatting this morning. After waiting an hour and a half (for a process that Internet reports say usually takes a couple of minutes), I decided that the formatting had failed somewhere (even though the system showed it was still processing). I performed a hard reset, expecting my console to be a useless brick, but instead found that the formatting seems to have deleted some, but not all, of my saved data. I redownloaded the Wii Transfer Tool and started the process again, only to find that I got the same memory error, only now it appeared almost immediately, rather than a third of the way into the process.
Just for kicks, I went into my Wii save data management and tried deleting the file that the process seemed to be hanging on, an old save for Pro Evolution Soccer 2009. The system has been trying to delete that small file for the last ten minutes now without success. At this point, I'm guessing there's a physical problem with a specific memory location inside that file that is causing the transfer to malfunction.
Again, most Wii owners probably won't run in to this specific problem, and I don't necessarily expect Nintendo to be responsible for a physical problem in a system that's five years out of warranty. But the only reason this small hardware problem is an issue at all is that Nintendo's DRM is forcing the Transfer Tool to freeze on that bad sector, rather than simply letting me copy files from a clean backup or re-download purchases through a password-protected account.
Since this story was published, Nintendo PR has reached out to offer me a free repair on my console (an offer which Ars Technica's code of ethics prevents me from accepting). I'm currently awaiting a response from Nintendo on the prevalence of this kind of issue and whether the company would consider extending the Wii U's warranty to cover transfer-related issues on older Wii consoles.
Until then, I'm leaning toward paying to send the system in for repairs, just to see how the entire process goes and to confirm whether or not it will actually fix my problem. I'll be sure to update you if and when I have more information on that score.