Format
The Nintendo GameCube Game Disc (DOL-006) is the medium for the Nintendo GameCube, created by Matsushita (Panasonic), and later extended for use on the Wii through backward compatibility. The GameCube Game Disc is a 1.4 GB, 8 cm miniDVD based technology which reads at a constant angular velocity (CAV). It was chosen by Nintendo to prevent copyright infringement of its games, to reduce cost by avoiding licensing fees to the DVD Forum and to reduce loading times. This also limits the consoles from being used as general DVD players.
The GameCube Game Disc was often criticized by game developers for its relatively small storage: some games with large amounts of data had to be placed across two discs. Multi-platform games that fit on PlayStation 2 and Xbox DVD discs occasionally had to have certain features removed to fit on GameCube Game Discs. Full-motion video scenes and audio had to use more compression to fit on a single disc, reducing their quality. Prior to the Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo consoles traditionally used cartridge-based media.
For the Wii, Nintendo extended the technology to use a full size 12 cm, 4.7/8.54 GB DVD-based disc (RVL-006), enabling it to have the benefits of the Nintendo GameCube Game Disc, while having the standard capacity of a double-layer DVD-ROM. Although the Wii can use double-layer discs, all titles were single-layer prior to the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. With the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo has admitted that some Wii systems may have trouble reading dual-layer discs due to a dirty laser lens. Nintendo repaired systems with dual-layer problems, and later released a disc cleaning kit for users to purchase.
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The Wii U is backward compatible with Wii Optical Discs, though not GameCube discs. Reportedly to control costs, the Wii U will also use a disc format developed and supplied by Panasonic, with a capacity of 25 GB (single layer). The optical discs used for the Wii U differ from other optical disc formats in that they have soft, rounded edges.
Read more about this topic: Nintendo Optical Disc