Good job nintendo! makes me happy that I chose a wii, and makes me happy that I lent it out to 4 different families to convince them that they are worth it.

This doesn't surprise me. Nintendo repaired my DS Screen for 20 dollars less than normal even though physical screen damage isn't covered under warranty. Only took two days too.

Of course, as everyone knows, Nintendo builds their systems like friggin tanks. Guess they learned their lesson with the NES.

@raleel: Makes me wish I could afford a Wii...or find one when I actually had the extra cash to shell out!

Can we be friends? Mine haven't embraced the idea of lending out their Wii's for a few days...they just can't fathom going a day or 2 without playing it! And me...I'm always down for a game of Wii Bowling!

Glad to hear Nintendo's manning up with their customer service nonetheless...

I've never had any repair issues with Nintendo but with my Wii playing Super Smash Bros Melee the way it is, I might have to see into that. But I've never had an issue spending money on Nintendo products, since they've always seemed to make things right if there are ever any issues. I just hope that Nintendo stays this way, because as long as they do, I'll always be faithful to them.

Nintendo, what the hell? We don't know what you're up to with this "good customer service" routine, but pulling shenanigans like this doesn't keep our tipline stuffed with complaints.

Peters and Waterman said in their book, "In Pursuit Of Excellence" that one dissatified customer will tell ten people, but one satisfied customer will tell one.

Is is any surprise you don't hear much about Nintendo doing things right and little about problems with them?

Microsoft ought to take a lesson from this. My Xbox 360 was two months out of warranty and they charged me 100 bucks to fix a bad DVD drive. (When you google "Insert Disk" for xbox 360, hundreds of complaints come up. Think they would have the same level of excellent customer service?? NOPE!! You just get routed to Call Center Hell in India. I love my wii and this just goes to show that a company like nintendo stands behind their product! Shame on you Microsoft.

"Nintendo attempts to close down Consumerist with good service!"

This is a lot different than Sony's "Oh you don't have your original receipt? Then you obviously stole it! You get no warranty!" policy. Great job Nintendo!!!!

Nintendo has great customer service from my experience. I purchase a Wii on launch day and I discovered that I was one of the people with bad flash memory from the initial batch. I called Nintendo the following Monday and spoke to someone about my issue. They determined the problem was hardware related and allowed me to do a cross ship. I received my replacement Wii the following Wednesday and then send back my broken one in the provided box with the label from them.

The only bad part about the whole experience was their hold music. They had orchestral versions of classic Nintendo songs; however, you only got to hear about 30 seconds of each before a your call is important to us message and then a new song started.

My boyfriend has had to send his Wii back twice because of bad graphics memory. Both times they simply replaced the Wii. The first replacement wasn't shipped to us for a week after they received his defective one and had none of his user data transferred. It ended up having the same problem after three weeks. Thankfully, Nintendo seems to have gotten a bit better at handling Wii repairs and the second time they transferred all of his user data to the new one and shipped the replacement two days after receiving the defective one.

Nintendo as a company has never let me down since I bought my first NES.

@SScorpio: lol. Was the bad part the hold music itself? Or the fact that it changed constantly?

Regardless, if that's the only bad thing you have to say about nintendo's service...well, that says something.

Not particularly surprising to me, either. Had an old GBA SP ($150 at the time) that got partially crushed. Unfortunately, the damage wasn't covered by warranty so it cost $82.50 to fix, but it was definitely a fast fix, and apparently they kept the old unit 'to have a look at the damage pattern'.

..Though, I have found out that the DS self-destructs if you manage to put the battery in backwards.

I have no particular love for the Wii or it's motion controls and Fit Pads, but I love this story. Kudos to Nintendo.

I love my Wii. :-)

Things like this are why I love Nintendo and continue to buy their products.

Nintendo has a great repair department. My kids broke their DS. It was out of warranty so I was ready to buy a new one. At the last moment I decided to contact their warrantly support.

They were able to fix it as good as new, for a reasonable cost, and I got it back in less then a week. I could not have been more pleased.

I love when I read positive stories on this blog. Mind you, I'm not saying I don't like the negative ones, they are usually more entertaining. But instead of just a collection of posts about where not to spend your money, I like the word-of-mouth about places that care about your business.

I purchased two used DSes, one with a cracked hinge and one with some dead pixels. The rep I spoke with about getting them repaired was the only person I've even dealt with in a customer service capacity that was willing and able to apply logic to a problem.

My case was that every new DS came with a 90-day warranty (or whatever it was), and the DS had only been out in the states for less than that time. So whether or not I had the receipt, these two must be still under warranty, right? The guy said "Yep, makes sense to me," sent me a tag, and I got two damn-near new DSes in about a week. Stellar all around.

way to go nintendo.

deadspin has their hall of fame. how about a consumerist hall of fame for companies that consistently offer outstanding customer service? i imagine that zappos would probably be in there.

@Dyscord: Probably that it changed. I'd buy a cd of orchestral classic themes, I think.

@PipeRifle: I don't know how warranties transfer in the case of a sale of a product, but either way that's another case of above and beyond.

I've heard rumors that if you call in for support for NES and SNES they still make an effort to help you, and the classic "blow in it" technique is amongst the troubleshooting techniques.

And I'd love to see a "Best Company in America". Unfortunately, we'll have to start it in the final four with Apple, Nintendo, Zappos and a mystery contender, but hey, what can you do?

@coren: Oh, duh, Newegg as the fourth member. Too obvious.

I had a repair issue with my Wii as well. I've had to deal with them about 3 times. Every time they were GREAT. First of all, they were obviously located domestically. They were very polite and sounded like they enjoyed their jobs. I actually had a guy try to put a custom case on my Wii, thus voiding the warranty. He was unable to put it back together. I literally sent them my Wii in a lump of parts and missing screws! They charged me a small fraction of what they should have. I think it was around $50. Got my Wii back within a week!

We had the exact same issue when trying to play a game on our Wii. I was about to take the game back as defective and then found out that this problem can sometimes occur if you leave your "classic" controllers plugged in while playing a Wii game. Unplugged them and no more problem.

I've always gotten good service from Nintendo with only one exception on their website.

Years back, I was trying to register a new Gamecube game with "My Nintendo" and the website came back that the key had already been registered. I e-mailed for support with that issue and never got a response.

In retrospect, I'm betting a Gamestop employee took the key and registered it for himself while they were gutting the game boxs and putting the disks in the drawers.

Beyond that one issue I've always been extremely happy with Nintendo. Not to mention their near indestructible products.
(I had a gamecube fall 4 feet bounce off the top of bedpost then plummet another 4 feet onto a concrete floor and other than a small chip in the plastic the machine was perfectly fine.)

@Joseph: Did your Wii have any distinguishing marks? If not, they may have sent you a refurb. That way they can take as long as they need to fix your Wii, and if/when it's fixed they can send it to someone else. It's a good way to handle repairs until you get someone with a customized case.

My one experience with Nintendo customer service got them my loyalty. Super polite, helpful beyond what I thought I'd get, and fast - I couldn't have asked for more.

Good old Nintendo, I had a first generation Gamecube and it lasted for years, even though I dropped it down the stairs twice and it fell of my bedside shelves thee times and it still survived. It did eventually die though from regular wear and tear though. She was a grand old Machine.

@fonetek: When your products aren't defective right off the production line and therefore don't require hundreds of thousands of warranty repairs for issues you should have fixed before mass production, you have the luxury of providing service on a few units that are out of warranty.

I have a Wii, and while I'm disappointed with the games out for it (though I don't buy many), that think feels like it's built like a tank. And the one or two times I have had to call their tech line, I've been satisfied.

Wow, I wish they'd extend this sort of service for the Nintendo DS Lite. There's a common problem with the power button breaking (I turned mine on one day and the button simply caved in). However, despite my unit still being under warranty (received it for Christmas '07), Nintendo claims the power button problem falls under "user damage", and it'll cost me $62.50 to fix (half the cost of the unit itself). I haven't been able to play my DS for over three months simply because I don't have the money to fritter away on having it repaired. I wouldn't mind if I had broken it, but it was a defect in the product! Geez. I normally love Nintendo, but that's something they need to work on.

I've got nothing but praise for Nintendo's customer service. My Wii was crashing while loading games sometimes, so I gave them a call. This is a launch unit. The first surprise I had was the wait time. It was under 5 minutes. The 2nd surprise was when I actually talked to a person, he spoke perfect English with no accent. This person answered every one of my questions accurately and quickly, and when he didn't know an answer, he actually went to talk to his supervisor and asked them to confirm. He sent me the shipping info I needed to get my Wii off to Scarborough within a matter of moments after hanging up the phone, and my Wii was gone for a grand total of two weeks. It came back with a new DVD drive and no further issues.

Yeah, 3rd party support still kinda sucks for games (but it's getting better), and it doesn't have wiz-bang graphics of it's major competitors, but damn do they have fantastic service, and that makes up for it when the merchandise fails.

@ShirtNinja: It's stories like that that made me happy to buy mine - Several friends reported similar experiences, and the games (especially paper mario!) are great for even people like my mom. ~Lerren

yeah, and then stupid me, whose barely-out-of-warranty wii breaks, so i fill out the form online to send it in for the paid-for repair.

maybe if i had pitched a fit it would have been free.

When we were kids, my brother and I decided to see how strong the SNES really was, so we stood on it an jumped up and down on it. Not even a crack. It still works great to this day! Really is tank-tough!

To go along with the other Nintendo tank-console comments: When I was younger a neighbor's dad dropped kicked his Gamecube into a brick wall one day. Aside from some scuffs, it worked great for years afterward.

That reminds me of the story where the guy called up Nintendo about his broken Wii, and the lady came on and said "Oh, why don't you just bring it in and we'll have a look?" The guy was like "What? Ok." and it turns out he was only like a block from their headquarters. Took it in and they fixed it. He took pictures of the place, but I can't be bothered with a URL.

@fonetek: I got that same "inster disc" error on my xbox 360. The difference here is that mine was defective straight out of the box, and I checked, the serial on the machine matched the box, so no one swapped it. Way to go microsoft. My boyfriend was super pissed as he'd been looking forward to the new console all day. Lucky me though, I was able to return it and get a new one since we'd just bought it. Here's hoping it never breaks..

I own 3x as many nintendo consoles as anything else. (2 DS lites and a Wii). Gotta love em.

I think we've all heard of the 1st Gen Gameboy that got hit with a mortar shell and still runs. I cant remember where I heard that. it was a few years back.

If Microsoft had consoles as tough as Nintendo's, they would have a perfect system.

There's a known error with early Wii's. Something with the disk reader. It started manifesting with Smash Bros. and at that point, Nintendo said they'd repair all Wiis with the problem for free (in warranty or not).

We sent in our box and had it back within a week. It was lovely.

My launch Wii was somehow stolen when I moved. I spent about 6 months trying to buy a new one. I sent an email to customer service to try and get my VC games back and in turn they gave me a phone number that wasnt made public.

I called and the phone was answered by a person on the second ring. They told me they dont normally do this but due to the fact that my Wii was stolen and they could see I had purchased so many VC games and I was obviously a big fan.

They needed my credit card number or friend code. Neither of which I had because that card had expired and who knows their friend code?

I called the bank and managed to talk them into giving me the number for my old debit/check card but they would not give me the EXP date.

Lucky for me I had it memorized because of all my online ordering, so I called Nintendo and in about 5 min they said I could redownload all my games.

At the point normal customer services says goodbye. Not the lady from Nintendo! We had a 15 min conversation about our favorite Nintendo classics and future games. I was just floored by how nice I was treated.

I do have to say normal Nintendo customer services reps are not nearly as helpfull but whoever they handed me off to was nothing short of excellent.

@brent_r: Kudos on that. I have NEVER broken any Nintendo console or handheld despite how much wear I put on them.

My original NES still works like charm. Props to Nintendo for QUALITY service and products, something you find far too little of these days.

Our Wii actually had this problem as well - it was a fan that stopped in the back of the unit and it would overheat. Eventually, we had to un-plug it and plug it back in. Ours was still in warranty, but Nintendo still repaired it excellently! We actually sent it in for the Smash Bros. fix, and they threw in the fan fix for free. We were to expect up to seven days and got it back in three.

@dragonfire81: My original NES is still running smooth too : D

It's not like they had any around to sell you, so it was either fix it or have you buy an XBox :-P

In all seriousness, Nintendo has always been great in my experience.

@parad0x360: I think we must have spoken to the same lady. There were two that did this secret/special case move over your VC downloads back when I had my problem. When I called-up the same thing happened but there was a bunch of friendly banter with the other one sharing the cube as well. It really was human. When I spoke to them one immediately knew it was a launch Wii and wanted to learn how I got it. I told how I waited outside in freezing rain all night and they really seemed to get a kick out of the story.

Sadly NoA moved most of the jobs done in Washington state to California not too long ago, so these two wonderful employees may no longer work for NoA. I also later got a call from one of them saying that they had forgotten to add my 600 or whatever it was points I had to the new system. When does that ever happen, you get a courtesy call back?

What happened with me is I had a launch Wii that for a long time was not working right and finally broke and I needed to get it repaired. UPS messed-up and it took three weeks for me to actually get a Wii back. This one worked for a few minutes and then I got a "System memory is corrupt" error message. My wife made a video of my reaction:

When I called customer support the next day they were simply fantastic. What they did is they shipped me a new Wii right then and I went and shipped the broken one back. When they got it, I called this number and they did the VC transfer. But it was always fun to talk to the NoA customer support. For example I learned that a lot of people break the early Wii models when the DVD mechanism sucked in the SD card because they put it in the place where the game discs go.

Another time I had a wii mote stop working so I called and I said I do not know when I bought this one (they all look the same) and the fellow on the other end said it does not matter and simply replaced it. They also repaired my cousins' launch Wii not too long ago outside of the warranty for a very reasonable $80.

@chiieddy: I've read about that.
Apparently it was just that the early drives were very sensitive to dust in the air. The fail rate was significantly higher for smokers and in dusty environments.

Usually it was not a problem that the lens was a little dirty, but on some big games like Smash Bros. which were on dual layer discs the issue manifested itself and that's how it got mainstream attention.

@brent_r: To clarify, the issue was that the drives couldn't read the dual layer discs when a bit of dirt was on the lens.

I once had a GBA SP that was dropped and no longer displayed video, and Nintendo repaired it out-of-warranty. Being about 12 at the time, my parents helped me handle the situation and they were impressed with Nintendo's support in the situation as well.

This is a shining example of customer service.
However, this is always to be expected from Nintendo.
Don't be surprised, it's an Asian thing.