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 standard CD burning software can’t copy Wii games. Nero, Roxio and other common CD burning software doesn’t have the capabilities of breaking the copy protection which is encoded in to Wii games and other game discs. Your computer cannot make sense of the data on the disc because of this encryption.

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.

When you have this softeware, copying Wii games becomes a relatively simple process. Your computer will now be able to read the copy protected data on the disc. It’s not just Wii discs which can be read using this type of software, but also Xbox 360 and PS3 games.

Many games made for PCs also use encryption which can be cracked with this software. If you have multiple gaming systems, you can use this software to make backups of these games as well as your Wii games.

Once you have the necessary software to break the encryption on the disc, you can copy the game to your hard drive as a disk image. Then you can burn a discussing this image just as you would with any other, using the CD burning software of your choice.

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.

There are a lot of options available for copying Wii games now which make the process quick and easy. Making a backup of your games is a great idea ? you’d hate to lose your games to accidental damage or loss; copying Wii games keeps your games safe and sound.