Less than a week after sending the Wii back to Nintendo it has been returned, with no charge required! Sadly I wasn’t able to plug it in straight away as I had taken my video cable to work as the one for the Wii there had broken.
Nonetheless I eagerly opened the parcel to find what I initially thought was a replacement console as the hinge for the cover to the controller ports was different (read: damaged), but I noticed there was a tell-tale mark on the system that identified it as my own. I was a little saddened by the cover that would fall open now, but hey, hopefully this meant there was the possibility of some (all?) of my save games being intact. Something was troubling me though, and that was the speed of return. All that was enclosed was the letter I sent accompanying the console that explained how to repeat the fault if the console booted up, this had no indication that it had been acknowledged. I wondered if any repair work had actually been done, especially as I hadn’t been contacted for payment details.
As I wouldn’t be able to get my video cable back until the next day, this continued to bother me, so I decided to phone up Nintendo and see if they had any more information. The guy who answered my call assured me that all repairs will have been done unless I had specifically stated that I didn’t want them to. This allayed my concern a little, but I was still not convinced, so I did what any other impatient geek would have done; I went and picked up a replacement cable!
Upon my return I plugged the Wii back in, booted it up and held my breath. It lived! However I had seen this reawakening before, hence why I included a note with how to reproduce the error. So, my next mission was to do just that. I booted up one of the games that causes the console to not want to reboot (Wii Fit Plus), hit the ‘return to menu’ option and…
It still crashed.
Disappointed that my concerns had not been misplaced I once again called Nintendo’s helpline. This time I was told that no repair had been needed to my console (not sure why this wasn’t said during my previous conversation) and what I should do is restore my system from the option screen, after all “that’s probably all they would have done anyway” (again, why this hadn’t been mentioned in my very first phone call I do not know).
Hanging up, I went to follow the guidance I had been given only to be thwarted at the first hurdle. A message popped up stating it was recommended that I close my Wii Shop Channel Account. So, loading up said channel I went to do just that, however the documentation implied that I would lose all the games I had purchased in doing this. Not wanting to lose all those titles, I decided against this course of action and threw in the towel. Perhaps Nintendo of Europe feel that only otaku would want a console that works, access to all their saves AND still be able to play games that have been purchased online.
For now, I quit. When I have time I’ll contact Nintendo once more and find out how best to proceed, but at the moment I don’t have time. At least the Wii has returned to life, until my girlfriend or I want to play Wii Fit or Raving Rabbids that is.
Nintendo, I’m disappointed. But credit where it’s due, there is no sign of the Xbox 360 at work that got sent off for repair at the same time, so at least the return was speedier, and it didn’t cost me anything.
UPDATE: 4 days after this the Xbox was returned, repaired at no cost and a free months pass to Xbox Live. I didn’t think Microsoft had the ability to better any company, especially when it comes to customer support, but I have been proven wrong.
