Wii remote warranty
Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 7:53am by Jake
Since the launch of the Wii, very few systems have crapped out. Significantly less than the other two next-gen consoles. What few issues that occur include the usual bad firmware upgrades, overheating, disk slot failure, and other minor problems that Nintendo will easily repair for you with in the warranty, but the question is…What about Wii remote warranties?
Yes, your 90 day warranty covers wiimote trouble, but is 90 days enough? Several Wii owners from around the net are having remote issues. Some are saying that the remote won’t recognize motion at all while others are reporting that the wiimote will just stop working. I’m even having a problem. One of my remotes will shut off every 10 seconds when you’re just idling in the Wii menu. Making a 45° swing during a round of tennis will cause the home menu to pop up. The same remote makes a level of Call of Duty 3 a chore due to random shut off. Luckily I have three other remotes, but having a runt in the four can get a little frustrating.
Remember, there are still very few Wii remotes failing. I think I might have just picked up a dud. Don’t get me wrong though. Nintendo is and has always had made the most durable gaming hardware, and peripherals. It’s just that this generation of controllers are a bit more fragile than past gamepads.
What do you think Infendo nation? Should the warranty for Wii remotes be raised to more than 90 days, or should we just live with it?
August 24th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Sorry to be a stickler but I haven’t even heard anecdotal evidence that the PS3 breaks more often than Wii. If you decide to amend the article to reflect this then please feel free to delete this comment.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:09 am
I’m not saying the PS3 is always breaking down. But when you compare it to Wii breakdowns….Wii has less. Even if it’s just a little.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Does it? I haven’t heard of a single unit of either of them breaking down. And this is the internet!
August 24th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I’m having an issue with one of my wii remotes where it doesn’t seem to pick up the sensor bar. Might just be me, but it is very annoying.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:24 am
It’s gonna be a hard sale to convince the Big N to extend the warranty due to the nature of the Wiimote. After 90 days, for the most part, it’s safe to say any problems would be due to potential drops and usage.
I know that some people have experienced problems, but for them to happen after the 90 days seems to be normal wear and tear…. although I do think there are exceptions. I already dealt with Ninty’s customer service and they are great so you may try and talk to them over the phone. Ninty definitely seems concerned with customer retention, so they may make an exception to the 90 day rule.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Yeah, I’ve actually heard of far more Wiis needing repairs than PS3. Remember that some of the Wiis had a version of the firmware that couldn’t be updated at launch? It wouldn’t let them go online.
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/wii/wiiconnect-bricks-wii-216036.php
Look, I’m a Nintendo fan too, but this site seems to be glossing by these things a lot lately. Any chance they have to poke fun at the PS3 or the 360, they take it. It’s tiring, and it’s also why I’ve stopped listening to the podcast, and deleted infendo from my RSS reader. Just because you promote Nintendo products doesn’t mean you need to take these kinds of potshots at the competition - especially when they’re not even true.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Yeh, I’m having a problem too. I’m not sure if it is the Wiimote or nunchuck malfunctioning. I need to sit down and figure it out. The problem is, I have 4 Wiimotes (2 nunchucks) and I just grab one at random out of the basket so I don’t really differentiate between them. Nevertheless, there has been a wiimote/nunchuck combo that gives me and my son some trouble. I just need to figure out which it is.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Most of the problems you described are from low batteries. I had the same problem because I thought that it was too early for the batteries to go.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:58 am
I think 90 days is probably adequate. Like Pnut said, too many problems after 90 days would probably be caused by normal wear and tear.
But I would like to see a price drop on the controllers.
And as far as console durability goes, I would say that the Wii is in the middle of the 3. My Wii has needed repair for an overheating graphics card (just got it back yesterday). I’ve heard of almost no PS3s needing repair. But there are a significantly less number of PS3s out there at the moment.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:55 am
My former roommate had a PS3 fry on him? Does that help anyone out? Oh and I think the Wii-mote issue is just mass production, there are so many out there, you know, there is bound to be a bad seed in a multi-million production line…
August 24th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
One of my wii remotes (got it on day 1) would need to be re-synced to the system (using the red buttons) every time i switched the wii channel. Game, mii, news, whatever… it would totally disconnect from the system every time. That was terribly annoying. Ended up exchanging it at Target.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
At $40 a pop, I think the warranty limit should be 120 days…
August 24th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
This was taken from a board of another site:
“One of my Wii Remotes stopped sensing movement so I thought I was going to have to take it in for repair. Pointer, buttons, speaker, rumble all worked, just not movement. Let me preface this by saying I smacked the shit out of it in any attempt to get it working again. I call support and after establishing my problem with them I am given these instructions to try:
Take the Remote and smack it against your palm gently, button side down.
So I try it and sure enough presto it works. Very odd. I asked if this was a common problem and she said yes, lets hope it is this easy to fix all the time.
Anyone else have issues with their Wii Remotes?”
August 24th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Rogy…
Thanks for the help, but wouldn’t you think I would have tried that already?