How Nintendo almost ruined Christmas

[WestofHouse]

Three months ago I bought a Wii U for my daughter for Christmas when I found a great sale. Shortly after purchase I secretly unboxed it and hooked it up to test it and install updates. I didn't have a free HDMI port on my TV, so I used my Wii's component cable connection since I'd read that it will work with the Wii U. Everything seemed to work fine.

 

A week ago I connected it again to recharge the gamepad and install the latest updates before wrapping it so it would be ready to play on Christmas morning. Again, everything seemed to work fine.

 

Christmas morning I connected it to the TV while my daughter waited with great anticipation. It booted fine and looked great. She inserted the Super Mario 3D World disc and it loaded up. But on the game save selection screen the display went to black and then started flickering. As the picture was rapidly going off and on my TV kept indicating that it was getting a new signal or changing resolution.

 

Panic. Daughter begins to melt down.

 

The display on the gamepad was fine, though, and once the game started the display was solid so I didn't think the game was the problem. It was only in the static game select screen.

 

In desperation I dug out the HDMI connector that came with the Wii U and tried it. The flickering went away and the display is now perfect.

 

I'm not sure if the problem is in the Wii U unit or the ancient Wii component cable I was using. Nor am I sure what, if anything, I'm going to do about it. My daughter has been playing for over an hour now with the HDMI connection and it has been rock solid. Since I bought it in October I can't return it to the store, so I'd have to go through a lengthy warranty replacement with Nintendo.

 

I may just leave it be. I have a cheap HDMI 3-input hub I can use for the time being. She'll just have to switch it when she wants to play.

 

[cybercylon]

Nothing like having thinking everything is just right for your young one with a big ticket item, but it isn't. I had gotten a steering wheel for my son several years ago that he badly wanted for his PS2 for his racing games. It had all sorts of problems. We went back to exchange it, but they didn't have another in stock. We walked out with an Xbox 360 instead.

 

I'd see how it goes with your Wii U. If nothing happens in the next 30-45 days or so, it is probably fine. I can't count the number of times some sort of gadget had a sudden brain fart, only to be fine after that.

 

When you pick up a selector though, get a GOOD one and not some cheap thing from Walmart. We have been down that road before.....

[Tempest]

I used a Wii component cable with my Wii-U for a few months and didn't have that issue with SM3DW. I'd guess there's something it doesn't like about your TV. It could be a bad unit, but it seems odd that it would stabilize itself after a few.

[Keatah]

Mmm.. the young ones need to learn patience with tech products just like the rest of us. The damned thing don't work? The damned thing don't work.. It is what it is.

 

When I got my Apple II I had no idea I needed an RF modulator. And no one told us either. I had to wait a whole day. A WHOLE DAY! ..before I could do anything with it. I didn't sit there bawling like a spoiled brat. I read the manuals, and looked at the pictures, and actually learned something. And I was 6 years old at the time!

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Mmm.. the young ones need to learn patience with tech products just like the rest of us. The damned thing don't work? The damned thing don't work.. It is what it is.

 

When I got my Apple II I had no idea I needed an RF modulator. And no one told us either. I had to wait a whole day. A WHOLE DAY! ..before I could do anything with it. I didn't sit there bawling like a spoiled brat. I read the manuals, and looked at the pictures, and actually learned something. And I was 6 years old at the time!

Wow you are just so frigging awesome Clearly you should teach parenting courses.

 

A parent simply wants a fun and enjoyable Christmas for his daughter GET THE PITCHFORKS !!!!!!!!!!!

Edited December 26, 2014 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[goldenegg]

The first thing you should check is the video output settings on the Wii U. If you have it set to AUTO, force 1080P or 720P instead. It's possible the auto detect is having issues with your specific display.

 

If you're using a 3rd party component cable, rather than a Nintendo branded one, that could possibly cause problems as well.

[WestofHouse]

The first thing you should check is the video output settings on the Wii U. If you have it set to AUTO, force 1080P or 720P instead. It's possible the auto detect is having issues with your specific display.

 

If you're using a 3rd party component cable, rather than a Nintendo branded one, that could possibly cause problems as well.

 

Thanks! I hadn't thought of checking those settings. It has been working fine all day connected via HDMI so I'm going to leave it like that. I had to dig into my box-o-cables in storage to find the right cables to complete rewire all my components in order to accommodate the Wii U in HDMI. I also had to find the right combination of devices that would work properly with my cheap HDMI switcher. It was a pain but it's all working now.

[Keatah]

Wow you are just so frigging awesome Clearly you should teach parenting courses.

 

A parent simply wants a fun and enjoyable Christmas for his daughter GET THE PITCHFORKS !!!!!!!!!!!

 

You got that straight bro! Awesome indeed.. Shaking in yer'boots awesome!

 

I've learned years ago to not always rely on modern electronics as the centerpoint & 1st choice in creating a whiz-bang moment. And parents would do well to heed that advice. These electronic things can be great secondary things if you can get them working. Usually there's setups, accounts, and updates and all sorts of do this, this, and this, and perquisites, adapters, and special cables, and even other settings on the TV that have to be dealt with first.

 

I don't remember my VCS being that way. We plugged it in, it worked, and we had fun! And it took like 15 minutes, with mom and dad who were complete nincompoops with electricity!

 

Like today, for a real life present day here and now example. Today. My wife's nephew got a PS4. They hooked it up. And did whatever else they had to do with an account and its settings. I don't know exactly, and I don't know what was done. I don't have a PS4 myself. But the kid told me his dad was at it all afternoon and said it was ready to go now. Put your favorite game in let's play!

 

Not the case. There were problems with the network connection and each of the 5 games the kid had took forever to load. And with the connection being intermittent the updating started but didn't complete. Finally we got 1 game working to find out 20 minutes was a hand-holding tutorial - shoot here, jump here, press this, Ughh.. A completely different experience from Combat, or Flag Capture, Or Air-Sea Battle, where we could get into the game instantly.

 

Yesterday's consoles were simple, the fun times we had were built around us beating up my brothers and sisters and all that and on how we were playing the game. That heavy sixer must have been pulled out of the RF switch box 10 times the first night!

 

Parents have been creating fun holidays since the dawn of time. Why do we all of a sudden need overcomplex technology to do it today?

 

 

I may just leave it be. I have a cheap HDMI 3-input hub I can use for the time being. She'll just have to switch it when she wants to play.

You can certainly experiment around, you're not gonna blow up anything. Maybe there is some incompatibility when it comes to analog-component output? You know, some of these engineers that make these electronics are under too much pressure to cut costs. And that's aways a recipe for disaster.

 

But wouldn't HDMI be the best connection anyways? And switching between sources with a switch-box is really no big deal. Gamers have been doing it since the Pong days. Shit.. My TV had 2 switch boxes going. One for the VCS or Intellivision on ch. 3-4. The other on the UHF side of things, ch. 33-35, for the Apple II+.

[MrMaddog]

It's getting to the point where the parents have to set up a modern game console the day before just to get everything right, just like "Santa" building a bicycle. Gone are the days of opening a brand new Nintendo and playing the Mario cart after hooking it up...

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

 

You got that straight bro! Awesome indeed.. Shaking in yer'boots awesome!

 

I've learned years ago to not always rely on modern electronics as the centerpoint & 1st choice in creating a whiz-bang moment. And parents would do well to heed that advice. These electronic things can be great secondary things if you can get them working. Usually there's setups, accounts, and updates and all sorts of do this, this, and this, and perquisites, adapters, and special cables, and even other settings on the TV that have to be dealt with first.

 

 

[roland p]

Gone are the days of opening a brand new Nintendo and playing the Mario cart after hooking it up...

Cartridges loaded fine on my 600xl, but the tapes where a nightmare. I begged my father to burn the up 'n down tape on an eprom so I didn't have to wait so long (I never saw it on cartridge).

 

Yesterday my son got a lesson in patience too when he put toys IN the wii. The wii instantly shut down and he freaked out. My gf repaired it.

[dashv]

As a heads up Nintendo has the returns thing down to a science.

 

Call the number on the bottom of the console. They give you a ticket # and where to mail it in.

 

Within 2-3 weeks you have a like new console.

 

Just recently did this with an out of warranty Wii I had that died (after 6 solid years of service).

 

It was very painless. I'm sure it's even quicker/easier for a system still under warranty.

 

While we are on the subject. Register your console and they extend your warranty even further.

 

All this said. I also bought my WiiU a couple months ago from JohnnyBlaze here on VGCollect.

 

It was supposed to be a Christmas present this year. But after I opened it up to test it. I lost all will power to wait for it until then. Instead we packed up all the extra games it came with and opened those on Christmas.

Edited December 26, 2014 by dashv

[WestofHouse]

Well, that was a fun exercise. I ended up rewiring every single component in my living room system -- some twice -- before I finally got everything sorted. It was like an A/V final exam or something. I have more devices than TV inputs, and only some of the devices work with my cheap HDMI switch (the kind Cybercyclon warned against earlier).

 

My TV inputs:

• 1 component
• 2 HDMI

My devices and their output options:

• Cable box, component and HDMI
• Blu-ray player, component (at only 1080i) and HDMI
• Wii U, component (in theory) and HDMI
• Roku, HDMI only

As I mentioned in my first post I originally had the Wii connected via component, but the Wii U didn't seem to like that so I was forced to go with HDMI. That worked out well, though, because the Wii U actually works will through my cheap HDMI switch. So does the Roku, thankfully. So I have those two paired on the HDMI switch. The cool thing is not only do they work through the cheap switch, but the switch's auto-detect feature seems to work well with them, too. When the Roku is in stand-by mode, turning on the Wii U moves the selector to that source, so my daughter doesn't have to manually switch it.

 

That left one HDMI port open. Originally I had my cable box running into that, leaving the component input open for my BD player. But since component limits resolution to 1080i I didn't like that solution for Blu-ray; I want full 1080p. My cable box has a maximum output of 1080i so I switched that to component and put my BD player in the final HDMI slot. Now everything is at max resolution.

 

So far so good! Whew. I need a nap.

[Jinks]

Thats all??

I have a 7800, 600xl, wii u, wii, xbox360, and a blue ray player hooked up thru a 7.1 reciever to a plasma 50" oh I forgot also a vcr and wireless headphones. All can be played in seconds.

The tough part is the games and controllers... Always scattered somewhere or tripped on.

Oh try that with 1 double 110 15A wall outlet.

I dont ever want to redo the whole setup..

[Atariboy]

As a heads up Nintendo has the returns thing down to a science.

 

They hid that fact well when I went through the process a while back...

 

First, there was no way to actually do it online, despite claims to the contrary on their poorly setup support page. That should've been my first hint that it wasn't going to go too smoothly, but then things just snowballed from there after I called them on the phone (The only part of the deal that seemed to go smoothly and according to plan).

 

First, they emailed me a customer satisfaction survey along with things like my UPS shipping label after the conversation on the telephone. I started to fill this out, but it eventually contained questions that I couldn't possibly answer until the process was finished and I had tested my repaired system. Some warning would've been nice that indicated that this didn't specifically just deal with my experience on the phone with the support person when setting up my repair, instead of letting me waste several minutes only to discover it on my own.

 

My system went out on the 11th of September and arrived on the morning of the 12th. They claimed that it could take up to two days for delivery to be reflected on my online status. Yet it wasn't shown as delivered until Wednesday, the 17th. Not even two business days, which Nintendo didn't specify. And while delivery was confirmed in the title of the email they sent me, the message itself was blank when opened.

 

Then, it's the 26th and they again emailed me that they received my system (This time, the email isn't blank). Yet they claim on their site that it should be returned in about one and a half, to two weeks after being received from UPS. Yet my system arrived two weeks previously from this, and they're still just re-acknowledging its arrival.

 

Then on the 30th of September, they email that my repaired system has been sent to me, but the promised tracking information wasn't there (Only the old in-bound tracking data was listed on my support page). I sent in a support claim with a request for this data. The system arrived safe and sound the following day, and they resent the customer satisfaction survey. It took until October 12th for them to respond to my inquiry for my tracking information, despite a claim as I recall that they'd respond within 12 hours or something of the sort to support inquiries.

 

And I didn't even get my own system back. I stressed that I wanted this with the initial phone conversation and was assured that my original Wii U would be repaired and returned. I figured this was why things went well past their estimated repair window, yet they didn't even follow-through with that. Only my gamepad's serial number matched what I sent in.

 

At least it works...

Edited December 26, 2014 by Atariboy

[WestofHouse]

Thats all??

 

 

Yes, on my living room TV. My home theater TV is the one with the most toys connected to it, and I run everything through an HDMI receiver to surround speakers. In my living room I'm trying to keep things clean and simple.

[dashv]

 

They hid that fact well when I went through the process a while back...

 

First, there was no way to actually do it online, despite claims to the contrary on their poorly setup support page. That should've been my first hint that it wasn't going to go too smoothly, but then things just snowballed from there after I called them on the phone (The only part of the deal that seemed to go smoothly and according to plan).

 

First, they emailed me a customer satisfaction survey along with things like my UPS shipping label after the conversation on the telephone. I started to fill this out, but it eventually contained questions that I couldn't possibly answer until the process was finished and I had tested my repaired system. Some warning would've been nice that indicated that this didn't specifically just deal with my experience on the phone with the support person when setting up my repair, instead of letting me waste several minutes only to discover it on my own.

 

My system went out on the 11th of September and arrived on the morning of the 12th. They claimed that it could take up to two days for delivery to be reflected on my online status. Yet it wasn't shown as delivered until Wednesday, the 17th. Not even two business days, which Nintendo didn't specify. And while delivery was confirmed in the title of the email they sent me, the message itself was blank when opened.

 

Then, it's the 26th and they again emailed me that they received my system (This time, the email isn't blank). Yet they claim on their site that it should be returned in about one and a half, to two weeks after being received from UPS. Yet my system arrived two weeks previously from this, and they're still just re-acknowledging its arrival.

 

Then on the 30th of September, they email that my repaired system has been sent to me, but the promised tracking information wasn't there (Only the old in-bound tracking data was listed on my support page). I sent in a support claim with a request for this data. The system arrived safe and sound the following day, and they resent the customer satisfaction survey. It took until October 12th for them to respond to my inquiry for my tracking information, despite a claim as I recall that they'd respond within 12 hours or something of the sort to support inquiries.

 

And I didn't even get my own system back. I stressed that I wanted this with the initial phone conversation and was assured that my original Wii U would be repaired and returned. I figured this was why things went well past their estimated repair window, yet they didn't even follow-through with that. Only my gamepad's serial number matched what I sent in.

 

At least it works...

 

Yeah, I went through the process last month. Didn't bother with online. Went straight for the 1-800 number.

 

They did a console swap. Which I was hoping would not happen since I had a lot of stuff that was not replaceable (Obviously save games. But also other stuff like miis for pets that have passed away).

 

But as I said the console they sent me back is like new and the one I sent in had definitely seen better days. They also activated the purchases I made on the old console so I could re-download them on the new console.

 

According to the person I spoke to on the phone they still do repair and replacement for consoles going as far back as N64.

 

That's quite impressive.

Edited December 26, 2014 by dashv

[Metal Ghost]

I don't know.....I was extremely impressed at my experience with Nintendo Customer Service a number of years ago. It wasn't a repair, per se. This was back during the GameCube current-gen days. I got one thinking that I could use it via Component cables, only to learn that the updated consoles had the Digital-Out Port eliminated. I called their hotline and explained that I had purchased the console thinking that I'd be able to view games in Progressive scan and that I was disappointed that Nintendo didn't somehow make it clearer that you could no longer do that. Honestly, I wasn't even going to make a stink about it, not even in the least....just wanted to provide some friendly feedback, for whatever it was going to be worth. I wasn't really expecting any real sort of action on it. But the first words out of the service rep was how he understands that I'd be disappointed and that he was starting a 'repair' ticket to have my console retrofitted with the Digital A/V Output. I was really surprised. Come to find out that there's an authorized Nintendo repair facility right in Syracuse, so my console went a few miles away and came back a couple of weeks later.

 

Granted, it took me another 2 years to stumble upon reasonably priced component cables for the GameCube

 

But as far as getting the very same piece of consumer electronics back that you sent in on a warranty claim, I think that's pretty atypical and can't really be expected for the most part. I get the whole 'I purchased this one, I take care of it to the n-th degree, and that's the one I want back' standpoint, I really do. But the claims process just isn't usually set-up to handle that, and as dashv mentions, I've never had a bad experience of getting something back that wasn't in at least as good of a condition as mine, if not better. That's based on a tablet, smartphone and Xbox 360 return that come to mind immediately....there may have been other things over the years that I'm forgetting at the moment.

[Atariboy]

Incidentally, Syracuse is their center that replaced my Wii U. Happily, it's working fine so those were more just minor criticisms than anything else, despite the length of that post of mine.

 

Most of what went on, while puzzling, wasn't really any real hindrance. And I didn't really expect to get my original hardware back, but thought I'd ask to see if that was possible. I wish she wouldn't of led me on to believe otherwise though when she assured me that's what they'd be doing.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Atariboy