Warrantendo

Called up Nintendo today for the second repair-related issue since I bought my Wii on launch day. This time, about my Wii-mote which seemed to have lost its ability to register motion.

Got put straight through to a tech person in Richmond immediately. He gave me some instructions which basically amounted to: "give it a good smack." Apparently, there's a gyro of some sort, not unlike the ball in an old pre-optical mouse which can get jammed if sent through particular motions. The quick remedy is to smack your controller around a bit in order to "dislodge it"

I was a bit hesitant to hit it too hard, since I didn't want to end up with a controller in worse shape than it was. Couldn't seem to dislodge any gyros.

So the techie asked if I wanted to cruise over to Nintendo headquarters, where'd they'd take a look at my Wii-mote, and swap it out right there if it couldn't be fixed. Would have normally been put off by the drive out to Richmond, but had always wanted to get a look inside that big Nintendo building I'd always seen off the highway, so I went for a drive.

Got there, and was greeted by a larger-than-life sized statue of Link at the door. The techie I talked to on the phone came up to the front desk. synced my wii-mote to their console, and gave it a good smack. Sure enough... that had been the problem.

"Looks like I didn't hit if hard enough," I said.

"No worries," he shrugged. "Go ahead and keep those batteries I put in there for you. Hope the trip out here was worth it... even if to just look around the building."

Can't praise Nintendo customer service enough. Which is pretty bizarre, since most gigantic companies these days are a nightmare to deal with if you're looking for anything other than a profit-generating service from them. I've now had to repair one controller, and replace my entire Wii console, and I've never found Nintendo to be anything but immediately responsive, unquestioning, and completely lacking in bureaucratic red-tape.

Now if only Telus or BC Ferries could take a couple lessons from their book.