As others have said, this is probably easily solved by calling and just explaining the problem. It was mentioned multiple times in the article that this case was a fringe scenario (he had old software, first gen, etc). It doesn't even sound like Nintendo is trying to employ DRM to do anything dirty, it sounds like there were simply issues with early Wiis that weren't addressed.

If you decide to skip all that crazy talking-it-out nonsense and take Nintendo to small claims court, you pretty much deserve to lose your filing fee and time screwing around with the courts.