i totally agree w/ gonintendo on this one: "Nintendo is willing to work with us. They want to help you out when you’re in a bind. Don’t take advantage of that. Nintendo thinks we are honest, and I think we owe it to them to back that up." spilled beer? come on, guys, don't take advantage of a business when it was clearly your own fault.

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I have a broken DSLite. Nintendo refused to take it "for free", they wanted to charge 50 bucks to fix it. It was one week out of warranty.

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Nintendo actually replaced my defective Wii component cables for free just a week ago. They didn't even ask me to send them the defective ones. Great customer service, only when the company is worth 6 billion dollars.

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Nintendo replaced my DS for free: I had a defective pixel, and a hairline crack on the hinge, along with a stick 'R' button. I Spoke to a nice AMERICAN-(weird) person, they sent me a new one, and I got an extra battery out of it. Really good service!

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Back some time ago when Nintendo was running a promotion to get the Zelda Collectors disk for the GC, I had fulfilled the requirements but after 8-10 weeks, the game hadn't arrived. So I gave them a call.

Sent me a 2nd copy (The guy asks that I return the 2nd one if I received two copies, which I totally agreed to.) About 3-4 weeks later, one finally came.

The 2nd copy did eventually come... Fan freakin' tastic service by Nintendo!

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I wonder if anything ever happened to my Pokemon Dialga & Palkia DS Lite would Nintendo replace it? I bought it from PokemonCenter.com, and I even registered it on MyNintendo account. Apparently they put a US Serial Code on top of the Japanese one...hmm. I'm not about to find out when it was $330 in a Bundle Pak.

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They've advanced since the GBA days:

My story from 9/25/2001 -

So here's my first experience with Nintendo's warranty system:

Earlier this month I had been playing Bomberman in the wee hours, got tired, turned off the GBA and put it on a wire rack with some other gaming equipment. The next few days were kind of warm, really sticky warm, I didn't feel like playing games so I didn't get the GBA urge for a while.

The day Advance Wars came out I popped by the store after work, picked up the game and came home to try it out.

As soon as I pick up the GBA I see a big, black "D" shape in the center of the screen, just off to the left a bit. It's about 2 inches tall and an inch wide. "Oh, crap!" Well, I put in the game and power it on to see what would happen, the game looks fine on the inch or so to the left of the "D", but on the right it's hopelessly scrambled.

The next morning I call Nintendo's warranty service and speak to David. I explain the issue and he states that Nintendo can't help me because it's obvious I broke the screen.

"Excuse me?" He goes on further to say that because the pixels are black with the power off it's the type of problem that can only be caused by an impact on the screen and impacts on the screen aren't covered under warranty.

Now the problem isn't that I've been playing games for 20 years and have never broken a machine, it's that I'm an A+ certified computer hardware technician. I've seen more broken LCD's than I can think of, this didn't look at all like a broken LCD. It looked like a whole bunch of pixels revolted and turned black all at once. If you press on a broken LCD in most cases fluid will ooze out and the screen will discolor around the crack.

That doesn't happen with this unit because there was no crack for the fluid to ooze out of.

(My personal theory is that the liquid expanded due to heat and caused an internal rupture. In other words, a defect in mfg. Ergo a warranty repair.)

David doesn't want to hear it, so I ask him for the name of a local shop that does Nintendo authorized repairs. He directs me to Sharper Video in Portland, OR.

Here I get the runaround, AGAIN, from ANOTHER guy named David. (I swear I'm not making this up.) He tells me that they can't do anything because it's an impact fracture. So I go through the story again, show him how to identify an impact fracture. I even make him a deal. Open the case, examine the LCD, if there's any physical damage I'll pay to repair the unit. If there is none then I want Nintendo to take care of it under warranty. David tells me "We can't do that." Why not? Well, apparently their deal with
Nintendo is that they don't actually repair anything. They just send the units directly to Nintendo.

So I call Nintendo again, speak to the same David AGAIN, I tell him look... The warranty is for defects in manufacturing, in order to prove a defect in manufacturing the case must be opened. The authorized repair center they sent me to apparently isn't authorized to do any repairs. I tell him the same thing, if it's a broken screen I'll pay to have it fixed, but if it's not they are legally bound to the warranty and I intend on holding their feet to the fire on it.

So David talks to his supervisor and gets an RMA for me to return the GBA at their expense using a special Fed Ex shipping code.

Today I get a replacement GBA back in the mail:

Repair total : 49.00
Less Warranty : 49.00-
Balance Due : .00

Enclosed was a photocopied sheet with a checkbox marked by hand:

"We have reviewed your description of the incident and conclude that evaluation of your components is necessary. Since the evaluation process can be lengthy, we have exchanged your components with product from our inventory and extended your limited warranty for an additional 90 days. We also cleaned or exchanged any games that were sent in with the system and checked them for proper operation."

A few months later I see a display unit at a retailer showing the exact same D-shaped mark in the exact same place.

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I agree. My friend bricked his DS Light with flashme and nintendo replaced it for free with no questions asked. My other friend spilled water over DS, and even though nintendo says they don't cover physical damage, and water damage, they replaced it for free.

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Nintendo rocks. We bought a used DS from family-in-law, they said nothing was wrong with it, but you know how it goes, they're liars. The top screens color was off, only noticeable in game, and the touch screens sensitivity was screwed. Unplayable. We called up nintendo, explained what happened and they said they'd repair it. We get it back, the top screens fixed, but the the sensitivity issue was unsolved. One more call, they apologize and send us a brand new one.

Greatest customer service ever.

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I had a very similar experience with Nintendo's Customer Service department. I've had three DS Lites with cracked hinges. The first I returned to the store, the second I sent in for repair, but the third system, Nintendo sent me a brand new system. I asked them to do this, and lucky for me, they did! The customer service rep was very nice, very professional, and very American. I guess they haven't farmed out their service yet. Good stuff!

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The lower screen on my sister's DS Lite went faulty after a few months play, and Nintendo of America replaced it free by 2-day air before they even received the broken one. Pretty great customer service if you ask me. Let's all hope it isn't spoiled by clumsy, dishonest drunkards like the one featured in this article.

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Nintendo does rule! I had green pixels from a fucked up gpu on my Wii. I called Nintendo and they made an appointment for me to go see an authorized Nintendo repair retailer and they replaced the gpu in 35 mins and transferred all my wii shop stuff. I was able to get everything taken care of in a matter of a few hours. I know first hand with other console manufacturers that isn't the case. So in my book, Nintendo kicks ass!

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Now I regret whipping mine at the wall when it broke.

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this is BS. My DSL broke about 2 weeks ago, I had a massive ink blotch on my top screen. There was no crack on the screen at least that is visible to the naked eye and I treat my DSL like a precious little baby. I phoned Nintendo customer service and was told that it would not be covered because the only way this could have happened is if I dropped it (I didn't) and I was told that I would have to pay $80 to get it fixed.

This guy gets beet spilled in his DSL and Nintendo fixes it for free. I wonder if I call up Nintendo now maybe they will send me a free replacement.

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About 2 years ago, my DS phat broke, but only in a cosmetic way. One of the hinge parts broke; not the part with the ribbon cable. All that needed to be done was to glue some plastic back into place, and nintendo wanted 130$ for a new phat, or 80$ for repairs. Bullshit.

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Patrick just keep calling until someone agrees to replace it, a different representative might say different.

I think it is taking advantage of Nintendo, if Nintendo starts getting more negligence replacement calls they may stop being so nice.

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For a long time in Turkey we dind't have Nintendo Products. Just about GBA SP era Nortec began importing Nintendo Products. They are also reponsible for "customer service."
However Nortec not only refuses to replace broken ds lites (just like in the picture above) They clain they can't repair broken ds lites because they don't have spare parts!

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So wait, someone can get a DS shipped to them by 2 day UPS in America... Yet it took 3 fucking weeks for 4 Wii Remote jackets to reach me in Birmingham, United Kingdom? I envy your US Nintendo devision, for ours is shite.

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Good thing it was beer and not dust!

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/11/19/fox-news-offers-their-unique-reporting-on-ps3-dust-story/

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