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My Bewildering Nintendo Australia Repair Adventure

by Andrew Brown - July 24, 2011, 4:15 pm EDT
Total comments: 8

Dealing with repair workshops shouldn't be this confusing...

If you're anything of a game collector like myself, you'll look after your games. Original Game Boy cartridges will be kept in the plastic sleeves they came in, consoles will be regularly dusted, manuals will be stored neatly in the game's case and never thrown away. You may even have a particular order you prefer to store game cases in on your shelf.

And that's why when one of your carefully-preserved pieces of retro treasure decides to give up the ghost, you want to get it repaired by the professionals, the guys who know what they're doing. This is sometimes cause for more confusion and headache than it's worth.

A few weeks ago I was preparing to spend a weekend cozying up with one of my favorite old Nintendo 64 titles in preparation for my very first Extra Life feature on the site. After some brief issues with the Controller Pak not finding my old save files, I got the feel of the controls again and saved at the first opportunity to go have dinner. When I returned, the console wasn't turning on anymore. The switch would flick to the on position, yet the power light wouldn't come on. I tried different power outlets, even different rooms, but nothing would yield a solution.

Is it just me, or does the Nintendo Australia building look kinda like a giant NES?

Not my 64! My baby! I'd looked after it for almost 14 years, since it first launched in Australia. Fortunately, I live extremely close to Nintendo Australia's main headquarters, it's about a 5-minute drive to take the console to their repairs depot. So take it, I did. I included my favorite controller, one of the transparent purple ones that lets you see inside – the interior was getting kind of grimy-looking in its age and the analogue stick was a little loose from years of playing. While I was at it, I'd noticed that my Game Boy Transfer Pak (a device used in the Pokémon Stadium games to use the Game Boy monsters in 3D battles) had stopped reading Game Boy cartridges, yet the Pokémon games themselves were working fine. I decided to take that in as well for them to look at – that was a big mistake.

The parts and service depot is full of whimsical Nintendo-themed posters, cardboard cutouts, display shelves, several TVs looping endless commercials for Mario Sports Mix and Kirby's Epic Yarn, and some sample 3DS systems with Ocarina of Time demos playing. A giant plush Togepi sits in the back corner, staring ominously at all who enter its hallowed territory. I dropped off the console and filled out the service request sheet -
“N64 Console not turning on | N64 Controller – tighten analogue stick & clean interior | GB Trans. Pak  - Console recognizes it, but doesn't read Game Boy games”. They took it in and told me they'd call within a few days with a repair quote.





Now, I'm known for having notoriously bad luck when it comes to my mobile phone – people seem to call right as the phone is charging on the other end of the house, or when I'm in the shower, or otherwise unable to reach it. The times I do get to answer, I often lose reception within a second of answering.

When Nintendo called back, this was one of those times. I heard my ringtone (Team Rocket's motto music from the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl series) several rooms away and ran to the phone, only to miss it by a second and get a voice mail message telling me to call back. Fortunately, when I did call I was connected to the front desk, who transferred me directly to the repair depot rather than the customer service desk. I spoke with one of the technicians who told me the only problem with the console itself was the power converter, part of the cable that plugs into the back. They'd replace that for free. Cool, cool – next up was the controller, the analogue stick was indeed worn out and loose, but they'd put in a new one and clean up the rest of the controller for $30. Looking on eBay, the controllers cost around that secondhand, so to have one in as-new working condition for that price was reasonable for repair. Finally, the GB Transfer Pak, as they're considerably rare and not often brought in for repair, would cost $50. The reasoning was that they found some “foreign substance” inside the Game Boy slot which was causing some kind of corruption reading the Pokémon games. Just to be sure, they asked me to take in the Game Boy cartridges that I used in it for testing and cleaning, to make sure whatever contamination had found its way into the Transfer Pak wasn't gunking up my Pokémon games as well.
The price was a bit of a stretch but I agreed – the best deal I could find for a Transfer Pak on eBay was $14 secondhand with “selling as is, no guarantee if it's working and buyer takes full responsibility for any errors that occur”.

I wrote down the $80 total bill and drove to the depot again to drop off three Game Boy carts – Pokémon Red Version, Pokémon Yellow: Pikachu Version and Pokémon Gold Version. My repair slip was updated to include the games (with the receptionist listing Pokemon Red as “fire version” - whatever) and was told to wait for another phonecall.

The next day, I was contacted by a lady from customer service, and things took a turn for the bizarre. She said that the Game Boy games had been looked at, and that it would cost $7.50 to clean the three of them as they were “contaminated”, but she wanted me to bring in my N64 game cartridges for cleaning. I asked if it was necessary, and she said it was optional, but recommended as the Nintendo 64 console had been clogged with an unknown substance. Wait, what?

Me: But the first person I spoke to said that nothing was wrong with the console itself, just the power cable, and that would be replaced for free.
Her: No, it will cost $50 to get the console fixed, because the connector where you plug the games into was dirty.
Me: Wait, the $50 was for the Transfer Pak. Does this mean there's an extra charge for that? It wasn't reading Game Boy games....
Her: Yes, the Transfer Pak. It's listed here, you said it wasn't reading the games.
Me: Yes. The GB stands for Game Boy. I'm talking about the device used in Pokémon Stadium and-
Her: Yes. The extra part you brought in? It plugs into the controller.
Me: I know that, but-
Her: And that's where you plug the Nintendo 64 games.
Me: …....I don't believe you.
Her: Excuse me, you're getting a bit confused with what I'm telling you.
Me: No, I'm sorry, but I know how the devices work, and how they plug together. I've been using it for more than ten years. The last person I spoke to said it would be $30 for the controller and $50 for the Transfer Pak, and that is what had been contaminated, but the console itself will be free. Now you're telling me my console isn't working?
Her: That's right. It's part of the console itself and it's where you plug Nintendo 64 games. It goes into the controller and you put the 64 carts into that –
Me: How about this. If I come down to the depot, and you can show me how a Nintendo 64 cartridge can plug into a Game Boy slot, then I'll understand what you're talking about.

What started as this...

It continued on like this for several minutes, with my patience lowering and my confusion rising as she continued to contradict herself and continually swapped her explanations back and forth between absurd misrepresentations of what my game console was capable of doing. After telling me several times that I was the one not understanding how the console worked, she insisted that I was too confused to understand her, so she would call me back. When she did, she insisted that it was not the Game Boy Transfer Pak that was contaminated, but the cartridge slot on the console itself, and that's what the $50 charge was for.  Meanwhile, they'd like to do another test on the Transfer Pak to make sure it was reading Game Boy games. I reluctantly agreed.

Later that night I got another call from the same girl, asking if I had a copy of Pokémon Stadium that I could bring in, so they could test the Transfer Pak. When I asked why they had no old cartridges to test for repair purposes, she quickly said that they did have a copy after all. I reminded them that they had my three Game Boy Pokémon titles, the only ones that I'd ever used in the Transfer Pak, and they could test Stadium with Pokémon Red and Yellow.

The next day, another call. She asked me once again to bring in every single Nintendo 64 game I owned for testing, and that they would only charge for the ones that actually needed cleaning. In the meantime, they had not made any repairs or replacements on the existing order, as they were waiting to bill the whole service as one transaction.
I drove in again, hauling my gigantic N64 game case, one of those official ones with a sliding draw that holds 24 games. The receptionist was as confused as I was at the repeated visits, but nonetheless proceeded to add 24 games to the repair bill, and my Controller Pak memory card which I threw in for good measure. If they were cleaning the lot, I wanted to make sure it was all working perfectly.

...became this.

A few days later, another call. This time, the story was that the Transfer Pak was working perfectly and that it was the controller itself that was damaged in the connection port where the Controller Pak and Transfer Pak were inserted. However, this would still be covered by the $30 repair charge. She wanted to point out that when testing Pokémon Stadium, they were able to get Pokémon Red and Yellow to work, but it would not read Gold version.

Me: You did try Gold on my copy of Stadium 2, right? Because as you know it's not compatible with the first game...
Her: …...Oh yes, yes, we did. It worked fine on that one, the Stadium 2.

She told me that they were going to clean every single N64 cart I took in, and that they were going to charge an additional $60 for the service. I asked if there was any kind of bulk repair since there were so many games to be cleaned at once, she said no. I asked if there was any kind of cleaning kit I could buy from them so I could clean the cartridges myself in the future, also negative. Oh well. If the games were restored to pristine working order and I got another 14 years out of them without having to go through this rigorous song and dance again, I might as well bite the bullet and just go along with it. I was told I could pick up my console next Monday, and the total bill came to $147.50

Finally, I picked up my repair order, what once was a single console was now a large delivery box packed with carry bags, game cases and cables. I've plugged it all back in to my retro TV setup. Despite all the confusion and the gut feeling that I've been hit with more unneeded repairs than even an auto mechanic would bestow upon their unsuspecting customers, I can at least say everything is working perfectly again. I was pleasantly surprised by how easily the Transfer Pak and Controller Pak jumped into their respective duties without so much as a complaint, and all the games I've tested thus far have gone off without a hitch. At the end of it all, the customer service rep had the decency to apologize for confusing the hell out of me and frequently mixing up her definitions. Throughout the ordeal, nobody was ever able to tell me exactly what the “unknown substance” was, just “most likely dust or something” - perhaps it's something better left unknown.

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Talkback

RABicleJuly 25, 2011

Did you know you can clean an N64 cart yourself with a cotton wool bud and water? I'm also curious as to how our poorer North American friends are going to react to a  $147 repair bill. I know that's like, a days work, for us.

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorJuly 25, 2011

Yeah, I'm wondering how much that is in... you know... real money.  $147 seems like a total rip off.

Over 159 USD!

Scatt-ManJuly 25, 2011

Our Aussie minimum wage is around double of that in the States though, so it really complicates things when you take that into consideration when complaining about how we get charged twice the amount for everything. Do worldwide-distributing companies adjust their prices with the worth of the local currencies in mind? Who knows! I still went the import route with mah 3DS though, mostly due to our crappy game delays and such.

Our brothers in New Zealand, however, have a minimum wage at 60% of that of Australia, yet get charged EVEN MORE for their games. Poor bastards! -__-

That was quite an entertaining read, Bowser. Let's hug!

oohhboyHong Hang Ho, Staff AlumnusJuly 25, 2011

Don't use water, use alcohol. You don't want to leave water residue.

The whole region pricing issue which even extend online pisses me off no end. It's price gouging, no more, no less.

RABicleJuly 25, 2011

Quote from: UncleBob

Yeah, I'm wondering how much that is in... you know... real money.  $147 seems like a total rip off.

Hehe. Let's just say you guys should be packing your bags before your country defaults.

They forgot the random box of shoes. Or is that a Microsoft thing?

CericJuly 25, 2011

Quote from: oohhboy

Don't use water, use alcohol. You don't want to leave water residue.
...

Alcohol will clean corrosion off of the connectors on NES games.  Its just a better cleaner for those types of things.

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