Although the Wii U may not be as fondly remembered as its predecessor or as successful as the Switch, the console still holds a special place in many players’ hearts, and is home to a number of titles that are still not available on other consoles.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, as it seems some Wii U owners who haven’t used the console in a while are discovering that it no longer works. According to reports, not using the Wii U for a while could cause it to become corrupted due to lingering system memory errors, such as error 160-0103 which occurs in the Gamepad. This can happen to consoles that are normal and have not been modded in any way, and affected users have reported that a factory reset does not fix the problem.

Reports further state that the corruption is tied to the console’s NAND, and is difficult to fix without official support from Nintendo. Sadly, Nintendo has long stopped providing support for the Wii U, meaning that players will not be able to send it in for repairs. Although Nintendo’s support pages do have some recommendations for addressing errors such as 160-0103, affected users have reported that these fixes fail also.

For the time being, players who wish to keep their Wii Us in working condition are advised to turn them on once in a while to avoid these problems. Stay tuned for more updates should they become available.

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