Honestly... It doesn't seem like Nintendo went out of it's way... They don't know the damage was done by abuse, they just know it doesn't power on.

More than likely this is just an employee who is more concerned about handling call volume than getting specifics on problems and possible warranty violations.

I think Nintendo is probably a great company, but what just happened was a no questions asked warranty exchange. Don't expect that to EVER be the rule when it comes to these type items. Just consider it lucky.

i agree

it's definitely nice of them, and i have had great experience with them in the past, but i can only imagine this will go sour as soon as every retard tries to do this with their ds that they left out in the street or whatever. nintendo's got more money than god now, so i'm sure that played a part in the snappy replacement.

Yeah, I once got my DS dampened by water and called and told them about it and they said it'd cost some money to repair it... I tried to turn it on but the screen was all messed up and scrolling and it wouldn't hold the basic memory of my name and the time and date... I waited a while longer and after the water fully dried it was just fine, no problem whatsoever. Great product, I could have totally screwed it up by turning it on while it was damp, but it was okay and recovered perfectly. Go nintendo!

Hey. At leats it was not killed by dust. I bet if it was dust they would say no. Or was that Sony....

Sony, you're no Nintendo!

oh darn someone else got to the ps3 dust joke before i did

@Phildawg: Nintendo did what it always does: They stood behind their product. I don't think a company like Nintendo has employees that worry about call volume. As a long-time fan of them, I can safely say that what this employee did is normal behaviour across the whole company, not just the one employee.

Seems moderately dishonest. An untrained or lazy CSR not asking the common questions off the sheet that would have made this categorically denied.

When My Wii broke, I sent it in. In less than 2 weeks from the time it broke, I got a working one back.

The repair report said they could not find the problem with the unit, so they just sent me another one.

Nintendo support is first class.

not out of their way, just a lazy CSR and a not totally honest consumer.

Im glad it got taken care of, but had you said "I spilled beer on my DS lite and now its broken" they wouldn't have done the repair, but becasue you let them assume the DS just stopped working, they took care of it for you.

I forgot to add, its things like this that cause crappy customer service. The company will eventually get hit with so many out of warranty replacements, they will force their CSRs to ask the pain in the ass scripted questions to make sure they aren't replacing out of warranty things. We expect companies to be honest with us, but then we aren't with them. Seems hypocritical.

and please don't give me that crap about standing behind their product. Electronics aren't made to have beer spilled on them, that is pure neglect and no one can expect a company to "stand behind their product" if the customer refuses to take care of their stuff.

This is not out of what Nintendo normally does. My Friend's son dropped his DS and the sreen was messed up. Nintendo still fixed if under warranty, and they did know it was dropped.

Its not bad CS, its just what they do.

But everyone here would probably agree, that if Nintendo did not do this under warranty, they would not really be bad for it.

yeah consumer you f'd up, this is totally dishonest on your (for outright LYING) and Nintendos part (for doing something not legally obligated to). I can't believe a giant corporation focused on gaming and fun would still have the heart to replace a childs gaming machines when it is literally rolling in dough and enjoys number one selling consoles across the board. That is beyond my belief that they might do that. I should just start a blog called "the businessist" where people can post good and bad things a company has done and people can be told how it is all their fault no matter what (it usually is).

@xtc46: I agree, its not companies trying to gyp consumers or just not caring, its actually providing customer service when not obligated to that does lead to crappy customer service and a lower bottom line (since this man will probably continue to buy xboxes, but no more Nintendo equipment).

Nintendo has done this for other people before too, they are often known to replace things out of warranty and for other reasons. They probably also want good PR during the busy holiday shopping season. They replaced my DS Lite too even though I had a really weird problem with it (obviously not caused by a fault of my own as I take care of all my stuff), they didn't even question it just sent a replacement. Not to mention they sent it for repair to the closest repair center, only about 3 hours away from my house so the turnaround time was very short, not even 2 weeks. I have heard of people getting back faulty replacements but mine was perfect.

one of my kids knocked my Wii off the top of a projection tv. Nintendo replaced it under warranty, no questions asked and they even reset the warranty period for another year.

Despite their reputation as a "kiddie game" company, as a consumer electronics manufacturer, they certainly know how to take care of their customers well.

the big N certainly deserves a big thumbs up here at the Consumerist.

@Phildawg: I'm not so sure. I think Nintendo are starting to go the (original) Apple way of building a good customer base. Look at how they gave out all those "wii gloves" for free, even though they were not legally liable for any broken TVs.

@redkamel: But other people will go with Nintendo over the rest when they hear this. I expect no less from Nintendo, to be honest, same as I expect from any other console company (which is why I only bought a PSP once- an import).

@xtc46: Yes, you hit the nail right on the head!

Deceptive customers are the reason why most American companies have decided to take a dumper on customer service and shortened the obsolence cycle to an absolute minimum. And it has nothing to do with pressure from shareholders and retailers to squeeze the crap out of the margins and lower prices and costs at all cost, even if it means saying to hell with customer satisfaction and brand value. No no, it's those evil customers who lie to them, pouring beer on their toys en masse and demanding new machines.

I have had returned my Xbox 360 7 times for repair and never received treatment anywhere near that nice.

And yet you keep buying one. I'd have gone to Wii or PS3 by this point if my console kept failing.

@Papa Midnight: Sentence correction, "And yet you keep buying one" should read "And yet you still cling onto one".

With all the people saying this this is just luck and what-not, I had to put my two cents in. I was one of the .03% of gamecube customers who got a faulty unit at launch time. It worked for about a week and then wouldn't read discs. I called nintendo on a tuesday, took my system to the local service center on wednesday and on thursday I had a new system sitting on my doorstep. No questions asked, no red tape, just unbelievably fast service.

Nintendo has a pretty solid reputation for handling hardware problems within (and often outside of) the warranty period. I remember reading stories of people whose GBA systems went through car windows during accidents and the systems either still working, or Nintendo replacing systems that had broken. When Gamecubes had problems with power supplies failing (not as common as PS2 DREs, but still out there), Nintendo took care of them.

I mean, say what you will about them, Nintendo supports their customers and their products. :^:

Whatever your thoughts are regarding the ethics of the consumer mentioned in this article, Nintendo has a very long track record of superb customer service. In the last two years I have come across at least two dozen or so articles praising Nintendo's treatment of their customers and I have no doubt that reports like these go back even further as I once had to return my old SNES for repairs way back in the day (they ended up sending me a new one instead of replacing a few minor parts that would have been much cheaper).

Now it is possible that the CSR in this article was "lazy" or "new" as some people have suggested, but if you had walked into one of their branch headquarters with the same problem and told the front desk (as many have), you would have probably received the same treatment--if not better, so I'm inclined to say that this is just how their customer service works.

Sadly, when the hinge on my daughter's DS froze and she cracked the corner housing the indicator light off when she tried to open it, I was told that was not covered by the warranty. The caller did knock 25 dollars off of the fee and the price was a lot better than buying a new one. It went smoothly and I feel that it was a positive experience.

The key thing is that the liquid damage wasn't mentioned. If it had been, then the options would've changed (but while there would be a cost, it still would've been less than buying a new one).

The problem with power issues is that they can be both warranty or non-warranty, and that's why the CSR gave the benefit of the doubt and set things up the way they did.

In the end, while Nintendo will eat the repair fee, the guy will have a DS faster and obviously reacted positively to the experience, so odds are that they go out on Black Friday and purchase a few Nintendo games to make up the difference (leaving it all a wash).

Folks, this is not out of the ordinary for Nintendo customer service. They seem to be more focused on happy customers than pinching pennies over warranty costs.

That said, I think it was VERY dishonest of that individual to have Nintendo replace the DS, which was damaged due to USER NEGLIGENCE.

It's people like this who give validity to the common business practice of absolutely horribly customer service. The run around, the scripted phone calls, and the RMA process are all an attempt to weed out people like this.

When the pleasant customer service gravy train runs to a hault, we'll know who to blame.

Nintendo has always been great about in and out or warranty support (I had to use out of warranty once on a game boy that got baked). Not to mention with the exception of the original NES and the N64 they are build like tanks. They are stories about original gameboys that looked like they had been though WW3 and still worked (One they dried out) and of me and my friends we have seen many PS3 and 360s croak but no DS's, gamecubes or WII's

@Akamaru: They may have replaced it even if he said he spilled something on it.

From my Friends experience, they replaced a broken unit under warranty that HE SAID that was dropped.

Its not just Price that is selling the Wii, CS goes a long way.

@Phildawg: "They don't know the damage was done by abuse, they just know it doesn't power on."

Agreed.

They'll probably send him a bill once they find out it was soaked in booze.

Based from what was said, one of the following could be true:

1. Nintendo would replace an NDS that wouldn't power on for any reason (As much as I'd like to believe this, I find it unlikely)
2. The CS rep was in a really good mood that day
3. Someone high up at nintendo saw the smear campaign on sony's cs on FOX, and decided that they don't want to go on the news for something like that anytime soon so issued an order allowing replacements for almost any reason for the time being.
(Not sure about the timing, as the article did not actually specify when this occured)
4. Nintendo is rolling in cash, and the actual failure rate of their hardware is extremely low (less powerful, older tech -> more reliable hardware) so they can afford replacements for almost any reason unless people start abusing this. They also like good rep before holidays. (Also keep in mind the price of the Nintendo hardware is above cost, where as MS and Sony's hardware were being sold below cost, when you pay more than what something costs... well, you should get better service to begin with)
5. Any other possible reason that I may have missed.

Personally I'm leaning towards number 3 or number 4 right now, not sure which as I don't know the actual timing. But calling Sony out on this is just ridiculous. Nintendo went out of its way. Sony did not. This does not mean Sony has bad CS, it just means Nintendo has really good CS.

Now, if Nintendo would only ship out some more Wii systems.........

@uricmu: The best defense is a good offense. By Nintendo giving out the gloves, they avoided the inevitable lawsuits and accusations of them not doing anything. It's an excellent move and was almost certainly approved and supported by their lawyers.

SWEET! Best way to get a DS Lite? Buy a broken one on eBay for 20 bucks and do this! WOW! I bet you could make a lot of money off this by doing it a lot of reselling them!!!!!!

/sarcasm off

A company that doesn't enforce their warranty terms consistently could run into a lot of legal issues. When you make to many exemptions, you can invalidate your ability on the non-exemptions.

That won't work, you have to have a valid serial number on the unit and the unit still has to be under warranty to qualify for warranty repair. Also if the clerk didn't scan your system's serial number at the POS when you were buying the system you may be required to provide a reciept that you actually purchased the system. Broken DS's go for a lot more on ebay though..

I don't think Nintendo warrants systems that were purchased "used", and they can tell by the serial number... although with their customer service, they might do it!

I agree that this may be a case of the CSR not knowing that the unit was water damaged, but I would like to say that I think Nintendo has fantastic customer support.

I got a DS Lite on the day it came out. After opening it and using it for the first time, I noticed that the upper screen had a single always-lit RED pixel. I called the retailer I bought it from, and they said they wouldn't exchange something with only one bad pixel. I then called Nintendo, and after explaining the problem, the CSR simply asked "Does it negatively affect your game playing experience?" to which I responded "Yeah, kinda." He then, without further questioning, issued a replacement for me, and I got a new one within a week.

This may not seem like much, but when you consider the fact that most manufacturers require a minimum of 3 bad pixels to issue a replacement, Nintendo's service was top notch.

>>>>before I could go any further he asked me to provide me with the serial number and after looking up my information....

Your credit card will be charged for the new one when they get the old one back and see what caused the problem.

And that's how you sell more games. A company that makes a common sense decision is rare these days.

False pretense, people. Should this really be on consumerist?

consumerist...really now.

@rich815: When he didn't even provide a CC number? How? Do they just pull one out of someone's rear?

me to rep: "So I messed up my DS lite, (serial number), my name is (algormortis.) I need a non-warranty repair, it's my fault,I dropped the thing in water."
rep: "Ooh, that stinks, (algormortis.) I can certainly take it in as a repair as it's under warannty by about 20 days still. I see you're near Seattle. Do you know where our repair center is or would it be more convenient to mail it in?"
me, incredulous: "I dropped it in water."
rep: "It's under warranty, ma'am."
me: "Okkkay. So, uh, you're saying that you'll replace a DS Lite that i damaged out of my own stupidity?"
rep: "Eh, we all drop things in water. So you know where the repair depot is, right? We're here 9-5 monday to saturday and if you for some odd reason have any problems my name is Ken (lastname), and this is my (email) and my (extension.)"

Hour and a half later, my DS is replaced with a smile by a nice gentleman who apologized that the experience took "so long" (20 minutes!!!) to complete.

Damn skippy i wrote a love letter about that experience...names and all.

when ds first came out, i had dead pixels. i called and they sent a new one overnight, just told me to send the old one in the box included. I did not like the replacement, the bottom screen was fuzzier. They let me exchange again the second day. They said they were incredibly sorry and embarrassed that they had given me 2 defective units, so instead of sending me another from the warehouse, Nintendo of America would open the box in their corporate office to check for any problems with dead pixels or a fuzzy screen, and then send it personally from there. Since it was the first few days of the system's sale, the opened box did not concern me, because no used units existed yet.

A+ customer service. This company is following the consumerist's basic tenant: the benefits of good customer service should outweigh the price of supplying this service; the few people who abuse their kind exchange policy is nothing compared to the good reputation it earns them.

Besides all this, even if you broke your system on purpose with a sledgehammer, they would probably rather give you another for free just so you would have a system, since they make all their money on games, and the system is a prerequisite for buying the games. Unless, of course, they thought you might break it again...

This reminds me of apple's service. Once, I tried running ipod linux on my 1st gen nano which was under warranty. It stopped working, yet apple replaced my nano brand new!

Awesome! I am glad to hear Nintendo has such great customer service. I am buying my son a DS for Christmas, and it's good to know that if somethings happens to it during the warranty period it will be promptly replaced.

Why does a four year-old have a DS in the first place? I'm surprised s/he didn't destroy it on their own...