Topic: Episode 20: It's Broken

[Halbred]

We hope you like the 3DS, because this show is laced with it.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/connectivity/29180

Yes, it's true: this episode is almost entirely focused on the 3DS. Let's be honest, though; unless you are playing Skyward Sword again, what would your Wii be doing?

The joy of recording news in the beginning of the week meant that last week we missed out on the tasty bits of information that came from Nintendo's earnings briefing. But fret not, True Believers, as Neal, Zach, and Patrick have assembled in order to dissect the most interesting revelaitons... er, revelations, rather.

After that, Andy Goergen returns from dad-hood to talk about the durability of the 3DS with Patrick and Zach. Turns out a lot of the early systems were lemons. Have you had 3DS hardware woes yourself? Tell us about them in the comments!

Closing the show out, Neal, Patrick, and Zach reconvene once more for an eShop recap. What are the some of the standout titles recently digitally released for the plucky handheld? Take a listen to find out!

As always, you can click here to send us mail. Thanks for listening!

[noname2200]

I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but I can already tell you that my 3DS is something of a lemon. The L-Button just flat out died a while back. I finally sent it to Nintendo. Fortunately it's still under warranty, and there was no fuss on that end, It'll probably be a while until I get it back, though.

Also, I can't use it to play Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Anytime I repeatedly mash a button the top screen gets wobbly and ultimately slams on my fingers. I guess they didn't want to repeat the DS Lite hinge fiasco, but their solution's not ideal.

[Chocobo_Rider]

I'm probably jinxing myself but here is my complete list of hardware problems...

PS2: Reads discs slowly now.  I'm sure the lens is just dirty but I don't trust myself to open the thing up and clean it!

PS1: After about 7 years it just started preferring to be on its side to read discs.  Again, not all the time - but it's the most reliable way.

NES:  The year is now 2012.  In 2009 it fully committed itself to displaying "corrupted" graphics 9 times out of 10.  The effort required for that 10th time became too much so I bought one of those knock-off NES deals.

Not too shabby, eh??

I've only had my 3DS since Christmas but so far no signs of lower-screen smudge thing or button failure.

NOTE: Never bought a 360 or PS3.

[Shaymin]

The only hardware problem I ever had is a DS Lite having the hinge utterly destroy itself inside the first year. They overnighted a replacement, so no complaints there.

My 3DS has a lot of fingerprints on it, but that's partly my fault for going black. (Once you go black, you go deaf). But yeah, hopefully the 3DSXL has a matte finish.

[mrstupes]

I have had to send my 3ds in for repairs 2 or 3 times. I honestly forget at the moment. The first time was an issue with my sleep mode. The system would power off in sleep mode. 

The next issue happen right after I downloaded mario land 2 on the store. I load up the game and the the bottom screen now showed a double image effect. I thought it was just a little glitch with mario. I went back to the home screen and I now had two permanent home screens. Basically imagine two home screens squished together in the space of the bottom screen. After that repair, the L shoulder button becomes sticky some times. Also the upper screen  has the nice bottom screen rubbing scratches. Also the circle pad has left a nice mark on my top screen as well.

I hope the next one has the build quality of the DSi. Every time I pick mine up, I notice how much better built the DSi is than the 3ds.  Also I cannot stand where they placed the dpad on the 3ds, I am hoping for better placement on the next one. 

[ejamer]

Loved the eShop round-up.  My one problem with the eShop is that it's hard to decide where to best drop my limited funds.  The games being released certainly are of good quality, although a few are more expensive than I'd prefer for downloadable titles.


Makes me wonder: would it be too early for a "Best of WiiWare" retrospective discussion, or would you guys even feel qualified to talk about that?  It really feels like Nintendo has made some meaningful improvements with the 3DS eShop... but there were a handful of excellent WiiWare titles that really offered some interesting gameplay for anyone who actually played them.

Zen Pinball has recently become a minor obsession for me, although I feel a bit differently about the tables than you guys seem to. Excalibur is neat and seems to be a fan-favorite, but has a few too many toys and distractions for my personal preference. That said, the multi-ball is easy to unlock and pretty exciting... so you can't fault anyone who enjoys the table. I prefer the difficult but relatively straight-forward Shaman, which relies on a smaller number of skill shots and setting up special scoring to do well, and the colorful Earth Defense! with so many different missions to unlock.  How are you guys doing for unlocking awards? Do you even care?  Can't wait for additional DLC tables to be released.

Sad story: I had a good run on El Dorado last night and nearly doubled my previous high-score with just over 53 million... but that score never got sent to the server!  Grrr.
Happy ending: But after playing a bit this morning and checking again, the game did send my score to the servers. Take that, MEGABYTE! Now you're only beating me on 3 out of 4 tables.


Regarding broken systems: Also had to send my original 3DS in for repairs as the top screen would randomly stop working after putting the system into sleep mode. Considering sending it in again due to a dead pixel and the notorious smudge/scratch problem starting to show up as well. Love the system, but wish they had done a better job with the design details.

[NWR_insanolord]

I had five DS units over the course of the system's life (a launch Phat, three Lites and a DSi), and each of them broke, in five different ways. My launch unit's touch screen stopped responding, which I used as an excuse to buy a DS Lite, whose hinge broke completely, severing one of the wires. That was out of warranty, so I bought another Lite, which had its top screen crack, and then I got a third Lite, which I replaced with a DSi while it was still working but later its touch screen cracked, and finally my DSi's shoulder button quit working completely, but luckily it was still under warranty and I got that fixed. Outside of the DS line, though, I've never had any issues with Nintendo hardware.

[NWR_Neal]

Makes me wonder: would it be too early for a "Best of WiiWare" retrospective discussion, or would you guys even feel qualified to talk about that?  It really feels like Nintendo has made some meaningful improvements with the 3DS eShop... but there were a handful of excellent WiiWare titles that really offered some interesting gameplay for anyone who actually played them.

You know, we have an upcoming recurring feature on the site that might be a perfect venue for this...

As for Connectivity, I think we'd do one, but likely more when WiiWare is good and dead. So this summer, which is when you'll most likely see a lot of Wii retrospectives from us.

[Lithium]

I bought 3 DS' during it's lifetime, 1 phat and 2 lites, all of them had broken hinges and r buttons. my 1st lite's hinge broke completely and like Insanolord's ds the ribbon wire snapped as well.

my 2nd lite's hingebroke just now while i was playing rhythm heaven (right after i listened to this). it kind of spontaneously broke since it was perfectly fine when i opened it but then when i closed it I noticed it was cracked. Before that the R button was pretty unresponsive as well.

Luckily i only have 2 ds games left on my backlog though. Although i still refuse to buy a 3ds until the revision comes out

[KDR_11k]

IIRC my DSi has a faulty right shoulder button but that's about it. I gave it to my mother when I got my 3DS and since she only plays point and click games she doesn't care.