The Chronic Consumer

I bought my Nintendo DS Lite back in June 2007. The thing worked great for the first two years I owned it, but then it started acting up a couple months ago. The graphics suddenly became scrambled and pixelated whenever I would play certain games like Mario Kart, making it impossible to see what was going on on the screen. I debated whether to have the game repaired or just buy a new one. I decided to go the repair route for once in my life.

I checked through my papers and found that I actually had an extended warranty, which I didn’t remember buying. So any repairs would be complete free anyway. I contacted Nintendo via their website, filled out a form, and received a special shipping box in the mail. I then loaded up my DS (as well as the Mario Kart cartridge) and sent it off to the the warranty fulfillment center. About two weeks later, I received the unit and cartridge back, all fixed up and in working order.

The problem turned out to be a broken chip somewhere in the DS. The chip was replaced and everything else was checked out. I’m happy to say that the game works just find right now — and my son certainly is happy to have it back and fully functioning! Nintendo really made the whole process very easy, so kudos to them as well.