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Comment by it_citizen | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how it is in Europe, but in North America, their repair service is top-notch.

2 months ago I sent them a joycon of my 5 year old switch because it started to drift.

I simply filed a form on their website and dropped the joycon at a UPS store. Two weeks later, I received a new joycon by mail. I didn't pay for anything, not even UPS shipping.

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I can't say for Nintendo, they may very well have excellent support, as does Dell, but frequently I feel like the US get much better product support. In Europe the manufactures fight consumer laws and seem to do everything in their power to not offer the warranty that they are legally obligated to.

It may just be a case of "The grass is always greener", but it seems like the US have all sorts of excellent return, replace or repair options for electronics. Part of it may also be that it's much easier in the US. One language, easy shipping options (as in they can use the same shipping company for all customers), and the laws are more or less the same for the entire country.

I assume for many things there are operations in the US but not in most European countries.

Might be part of the explanation but I'm surprised every time I see European anecdata online like:

> The product wasn't what I wanted but I can't return it to the shop because it is not defective.

Maybe the retail environment in the US has developed higher margins that better accommodate returns.

My impression is that 80’s and 90’s lobbyists were too occupied fighting the EPA to engage the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Maybe the reverse happened in Europe? And now Europe is fixated on the privacy angle of CP.

We actually do have excellent consumer protection, on paper. The issue is that you frequently have to go to court, which mostly favors the consumers. People just aren't willing to spend years getting their laptop, TV or controller fixed.

Apple-Care shouldn't be a thing in the EU, our warranty laws ensure that. In reality, I just want my stuff fixed, not spend three years in a legal battle with Apple.

> Part of it may also be that it's much easier in the US. One language, easy shipping options

I don't think language has anything to do with. It's the regulatory environment and non-unified markets that makes everything in Europe so complicated.

Case point, it's a lot harder to offer physical goods in Canada, with the same profit margins, because of additional regulations & logistics constrains (around cross border shipping). And this is by design; the government want you to create this parallel infrastructure and create local jobs. Same for Europe.

While this is nice, you still lost access to the hardware you own for two weeks because the manufacturer refuses to admit the design flaw.

If they're willing to repair it at no cost and even cover shipping it sounds like they're definitely acknowledging the flaw -- even if it's because someone made them...

They replaced for free a joycon of a 5 year old product, and we are talking about a portable device with which i played intensively, traveled with, dropped, eat on it, splashed water, left in the sun, played at the beach in the sand etc…

As far as I am concerned, they didn’t have to go that extra mile but they did.

That's you lucky. Our controllers started drifting after a few months of light usage.

They have a huge design flaw.

I still have to waste time packing and going to a post office (I have no car and never randomly end at a post office, so that's dedicated time).

And I won't have controllers for 2 weeks.

How would them admitting it help? When my Xbox 360 RROD'd I still had to wait two weeks for them to repair it despite them admitting it.

It's also a design flaw with virtually every controller with an analog stick ever made, should Sony admit it? Microsoft? It effects joycons more because of the analog stick size leaving less room for deadzone. Sony used even smaller sticks in the Vita, you just never hear about it as much because nobody bought one.

Confused about what happened - did they repair or replace your joycon?

Replaced, they could not reproduce the problem.

So, doesn't seem like their repair service is that good and doesn't seem like they acknowledge the fundamental problem then. I mean the end result is you get a working* joycon still, so not terrible, but the root issue is that they built crappy hardware and won't admit it.

*for the next 2 - 60 months

More likely it is not worth the cost of actual repair. The joycons retail for like $40. The additional logistics involved to repair a device instead of replacing it make this not worth it.

To be fair, the joycon was drifting only once in a while (which is super annoying when you play platform games). I am not sure it was worth their time to try to reproduce for too long.

So you received a brand new unit, and not a used, repaired one?

Yes

> I don't know how it is in Europe, but in North America, their repair service is top-notch.

Pretty bad. Carmakers for instance occasionally fail to issue recalls for the same faults that they already have in the us.

Need to try this. I got one that’s bad. I mostly use the the Pro controller so I forget about it but there’s also times when I play Mario Party and need the joy cons for 4 people.

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