Yesterday,s story of DS Lite hinges cracking had Nintendo offering a canned response to customers who experienced such flaws and offered the usual company line for DS Lite owners to call customer service for warranty coverage or, in the event the machine was not covered under warranty, to pay a discounted repair price of $50.
Today, Nintendo released another company statement in their defense and regarded the incidents of defective hinges minor in nature and not widespread by saying, In the U.S., the reported number of small cosmetic cracks in the plastic hinge of DS Lite systems represents less than 0.02 percent of the total units sold. This cosmetic issue in no way impacts the gameplay or integrity of the DS Lite. Nintendo stands behind the quality of our products and encourages DS Lite owners to contact our Customer Service Department if they are not happy with the functionality of their systems.
"By contrast, when the Xbox 360 was released in November 2005, Microsoft reported that approximately 3 percent of its units were experiencing problems. The company also claimed that the figure was less than the average rate for newly released electronic gadgets. Sony has also had problems with defects: Many PlayStation Portable screens suffered from dead pixels, and the company quietly staged a free PlayStation 2 repair program for PlayStation 2s plagued by the dreaded "disc read error."
The Sony “free repair program” Nintendo cites was actually a result of a class action lawsuit brought against Sony in 2004 for the disk read error problem. Sony told consumers, who reported the defective units, that it was not a manufacturing problem and advised the gamers to take the unit to Sony repair locations for service. The PS2 owners were charged for repair services. Sony lost the lawsuit and was ordered to repair or replace the game machines at no charge.
While Nintendo,s attempt to divert attention away from its culpability regarding defective DS Lites, is a questionable at best, the fact remains that 0.02 percent of all DS Lites (13 million units worldwide) are affected by the cracked hinge issue. This means that there are 260,000 DS Lites that have this manufacturing defect. Early reports of how Nintendo customer service is handling this situation, seems to indicate that they are taking the position that it is due to user misuse, rather than a incident which is covered by their warranty.
