My email to Nintendo regarding the Switch.

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Ade

Ade

;3
Hello,

I purchased a Wii U 2 years ago with the expectation that a good Metroid game would come out during its lifetime (along with many other great games), and that the system would have a bright and long future.

I was very disappointed by the selection of games that came out for Wii U and by how quickly it was abandoned. I only own 5 games for it. Therefore, the system ended up being a huge waste of money.

I've purchased every Nintendo home console to date, but I will not be purchasing a Nintendo Switch. Why? Because I feel very hurt and very ripped off by purchasing a Wii U only to have it abandoned after such a short time. (The Wii had a 7-year lifespan, and the Wii U barely cleared 4 years.)

If you reimburse my $300.00 loss of purchasing a Wii U by giving me a free Nintendo Switch, I will continue to buy your games. The way I see it, you basically owe me $300.00 because you provided such a lackluster and poorly supported product with the Wii U.

If your system is good, I'm sure I'll purchase at least 20 games for it, much like I did with the GameCube; you'll still make good money off of me as a customer! If you don't, I just won't buy your stuff anymore. Your future sales from me drop to $0. I have a PS4 and a nice gaming computer, so I'll be just fine.

I estimate I've spent in the neighborhood of $4,000.00 on Nintendo products during my lifetime, so you need to decide if it's worth keeping me as a customer to foot the bill on this one.

If so, you can send my free Nintendo Switch to:

(address removed)

Ph. (phone number removed) if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

-(name removed), longtime Nintendo fan who is bitterly disappointed with your company at this time
 
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LoL. Error 500 on their website. Can't even submit this to them. Oh well.

Getting ripped off sucks, but I'm not letting it happen again :cool:
 
Cool.

I didn't feel hurt or ripped off about buying a Wii U, I just gifted it to my nephew who ended up playing it far more than I did.
 
In a way, I almost feel the same entitlement due to their poor handling of the WiiU. I believed their marketing lies about catering to the core again, but their new business practices and developmental standards are very anti consumer to their old core user base. I simply cannot tolerate the way they've gone anymore. :\

When I get enough money I'll probably eventually invest in the PS4 Pro down the line when Sony introduces models with better cooling. I'm just kinda...done with Nintendo forcing control gimmicks and mechanically oversimplifying their games. Like...I know Nintendo has always been a "for everyone" company, now it just feels like its for nongamers and casuals only. There's no depth left and it saddens me.
 
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Matt said:
You bought exactly what you paid for.

I don't think Nintendo is going to be giving you free shit because you feel "dissatisfied" with them. The customer is not always right.
Click to expand...

If @Ade calls them up and talks to a customer service rep, they MIGHT be able to do something (even if it's not a flat-out free Switch). I remember when piping broke my gamecube they replaced/repaired it for free, even though it was long past its warranty.

Nintendo might suck, but their customer service doesn't.
 
I'll give them that, their customer service has always been awesome. Probably the best in the games industry.
 
Wait what...? This is a joke right? I hope it is cause it seems like some of you are taking this seriously. Why would Nintendo give you a free anything? They don't owe you shit. You bought their games, their systems and you were disappointed. I bought Doom, didn't like it and returned it for full refund. id Software doesn't owe me jack just cause I didn't enjoy it. Imagine if every Nintendo fan said "Hi. I want free Nintendo Switch 'cause I was upset about your games and systems". They'd hand out free shit to everyone? No fucking way.

You could have done plenty of research before buying their games/consoles. Use the internet. They're plenty reviews online, go to a friends house and play a game, rent it for a dollar at Red Box. There's no way around this.

If this is a joke then I find it hilarious. If it's not then you're nuts. If Nintendo sends you free shit then they're nuts.
 
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Two years ago, it was still reasonable to expect the Wii U had a bright future and that some major releases were coming. That didn't happen. Therefore, my dissatisfaction with the product is valid.

@ScoobyDew: That's fine if you think my request is unreasonable. If Nintendo feels the same way, then they simply make $0 off of me going forward. And if enough people do that, they will fail. Yes, I realize that Nintendo has a lot of money in the bank, but they can eventually fail if they keep screwing up.

I used to be a diehard Nintendo fanboy where I would argue for them until my last breath, but Nintendo has pissed a lot of their fans off in the last few years, including me. They have fallen behind on innovation, their consoles are HORRENDOUSLY underpowered, and they don't make games that people want.

They're out-of-touch, arrogant, and they think they know what's best. Now they're in last place because of it. The PS4 sold 4 times what the Wii U did, and Nintendo's next system is LESS POWERFUL than the PS4 even though it's a generation ahead.

If people did their research, they wouldn't buy anything from Nintendo based on sheer hardware inferiority alone. My hope is that their hardware business dies off so their games end up on a suitable platform when they go 3rd party...
 
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This wasn't meant to be construed as whining. I'm dissatisfied with a product, I've voiced my concerns, I've given a course of reparation, and I've stated that I will no longer be a customer of Nintendo if they don't accommodate. I'll continue to be a very happy gamer either way.

When you spend $300.00 on a system, it's reasonable to expect a certain level of quality and support. I think that most people would agree, COMPARED to Nintendo's other systems, that the Wii U was a huge failure, and many people probably regret buying one. That doesn't mean if someone in this thread comes in and says, "I'm happy with my Wii U," that I'm completely wrong on this. I'm certain that I can't be the only person who feels this way.

Giving one's assessment on a product and an opinion of a company is not "whining" if the assessor gives good reasons for their dissatisfaction, which I did.

Side note: Nintendo's website is still giving an Error 500 on their email page, so I'm still unable to send this.
 
nintendo got their money from the suppliers buying the consoles to sell to the consumer

they get more money when they need a new shipment

you not buying a switch means that some little kid in your area is going to get one instead

while i respect your opinion i have to admit that this is more just a way to force yourself to justify not purchasing new nintendo products. deep down you know they aren't going to just give you a free switch as it would set a disastrous precedent for them, but you're using that as your goalpost so you can justify not purchasing anything new from them, which is clearly something you were already considering doing

this is basically the equivalent of an angry soccer mom complaining that the cashier isn't taking her coupons despite them being three months out of date

this is also a horrible place to just up and talk about something like this, because other users here clearly care more about making fun of you than discussing anything related to the topic at hand
 
Well, LKA, this was more about making a statement as a dissatisfied consumer, and a couple of people agreed with me. I could make the most sensible post in the world and some people would still make fun of me. I accept that; there's a lot of people who simply dislike me because I'm outspoken and I defend my points adequately. A lot of people hated Socrates for the same reason.

That being said, I called Nintendo to let them know their email system isn't working, and they had the same error happen on their end, so they submitted a ticket to get the broken link fixed.

I went ahead and read my email to the guy. He apologized and said he can't send me a free Switch, and that he also wishes a new Metroid game would be announced (at least we agreed on one thing). So I told him I'll regretfully have to take my business elsewhere, and we parted ways. I am actually quite professional by day, and I was very nice to him. (He's just doing his job.)

Just because I didn't get what I wanted here doesn't mean I've somehow "lost." They will submit the feedback. This feedback, as a standalone item, would do very little. I understand this. But it's that sort of thinking that keeps people from stating their mind, which is wrong. It takes a bunch of people submitting feedback for something to get done. Even AFTER something is done, nobody is going to retrospectively look back and say, "Ade's feedback made a difference." So it's a thankless job, but it has to be done by at least a few people.

A lot of people just "take things as they are" and never speak up. It takes guts to put yourself out there when you know you don't have much of a chance, but it's better than burying how you feel and denying it. I say with great conviction that I'm very unhappy with my Wii U, that I regret purchasing one, and that I won't be purchasing a Switch. This isn't complaining. This is making a state of affairs known.

Instead of attacking me as a person, the proper counter-argument would be to determine if my dissatisfaction is unfounded. I think most people would agree that it's perfectly reasonable. I also realize that there was a 99.99% chance that Nintendo would refuse to send me a free Nintendo Switch, but I wanted to give them a chance since I've given them so much business in the past.

I will say this, if they HAD sent me a free Switch, I would have ensured they recouped the cost of their console by purchasing many games. That opportunity is now lost for them. Am I happy? No. But is this "complaining?" No. I accept their response and move on.

In response to this gem:

"this is also a horrible place to just up and talk about something like this, because other users here clearly care more about making fun of you than discussing anything related to the topic at hand"

The "peanut gallery" on this forum (and many forums) who make fun of outspoken individuals are the same people who made fun of the "smart kids" who spoke up in class and actually wanted to learn and have a dialogue. My disposition to speak up and examine things carefully has lent to my reasonably good success in real life, so I must be doing something right. I do not care about what those individuals think of me, and I didn't when I was a kid, either.
 
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Ade said:
My disposition to speak up and examine things carefully
Click to expand...

I'll bite, since there doesn't actually seem to be much examination going on so far, so I'll throw in my own observations.

Gaming has changed pretty dramatically recently, and probably not in ways that are immediately obvious, or at least weren't to me.

Mobile gaming is ridiculous - with the advent of smartphones almost everyone has a platform that can run games, and for the most part these people wouldn't fit the traditional 'gamer' profile. To investors, well selling franchises such as Mario or Zelda are decent, but whay everyone wants is a peice of the microtransaction market.

Look at these daily figures:

https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/

$2 million. Daily.

My head hurts everytime I see this. These are games that for the most part probably saw less development time than PSO, the mechanics are usually garbage and the whole thing revolves around making the user experience as far removed from fun as possible in order to peddle items that skip the aforementioned shitty user experience.

To put this into perspective, if (and it's a big if in the fickle mobile gaming world) the top selling apps enjoyed the same popularity over a year, they'd outperform the entirety of Nintendo quite handily - just by making a single mobile game. They don't have to worry about creating an install base though console sales or 'wars', nor worry about attracting other developers to the platform to make it more attractive to consumers - It's already been done for them by Google, Apple and Samsung.

Traditionally Nintendo has always been against these microtransactions practices - their recent forray with Mario run was decent, but investors weren't exactly thrilled by the 'honest' pricing scheme. Currently the game is reported to pull in a somewhat modest $50k daily. Now I'd rate Nintendo as producing a much better product than whatever shovelware is ranked #1 on the app store, but the reality is that the greater market just doesn't care.

I hear you crying "but Pokémon GO!, Nintendo are in that market!". Actually they only licenced the IP, and the microtransactions go to niantec.

"But why are you talking about mobile gaming, this has nothing to do with that" - it doesn't directly but it's a good way to illustrate the issues Nintendo have to face in the actual console market.

Nintendo sell their own hardware, they also make games for their platform and rely on 3rd party developers to do the same. 3rd party support has been trash for Nintendo since the SNES, so much so it's a meme. Other companies have always been cautious about overinvesting in a platform with such a limited user base - Why would you make games for a console with 10 million users, when there are two alternatives that have around 75 million between them, let alone having to take into account the performance issues that will arise if your directly port games between the two. It's a proposal that carries additional cost and risk with no immediate benefits, so good luck floating that idea in any business meeting.

Nintendo got lucky with the Wii and gained a truly impressive userbase, they liked how that made their bottom line and doubled down on selling their next console for razor thin margins, packing in some quirky hardware and hoping to make up for it though users attracted by Nintendo's home grown software offerings and those of third parties.

Sadly the gamble didn't pay off, the userbase never materialised, 3rd parties were cautious from the get go and the limited library and support discussed in this thread were the outcome. These aren't exactly issues that can be remedied after the console has been released as after a point it becomes a case of throwing good money after bad.. Sure you can pay Activision to release a cut down version of Fifa Call of Destiny Auto 7 but I sincerely doubt it'll help bump the numbers all. You could also try and rush another Zelda or Mario for the fanboys, with their high expectations and pray it's enough to to create an additional 10 million + console sales and not destroy the franchise in the process.

Now, I don't believe you are wrong to be dissatisfied, but how Nintendo will recover from their own costly mistake with fans taking this failure as a personal slight I don't know. I think it's clear from the switch pricing, pack-ins addons and online gaming subscriptions that their margins on the console are again pretty slim. With the seemingly unprecedented media attention this console has attracted already it appears as if they're hoping to gain a ton of hype and repeat the successes they experienced with the Wii.

Now ask yourself this, if Nintendo are reluctant to enter the larger mobile market and embrace it's pricing wholeheartedly, where do they fall in the current landscape with a disappointing switch release? They'll be a games developer not wanting to accept the apparent future of gaming, creating games for a platform with a pitiful userbase. With the rise of smartphones, their previous stronghold of mobile gaming is being erroded as Apple, Google and Samsung are making the space more accessible. Hell, you can buy phones today that contain similar sensors to those in the Xbox kinnect - to think these devices won't continue to evolve and threaten any innovations Nintendo are able to make in this area is.. optimistic to say the least.

Interestingly the Switch is an evolved Nvidia Shield / Razer Edge so it could be argued Nintendo has already embraced outside innovation.. or has lost faith in their own plans.

TLDR - Nintendo fucked up the Wii U, but taking that personally will see Nintendo devolve into a software company sooner rather than later. Maybe their mobile hardware sees a few more iterations, but the writing is on the wall there as well.

I love Nintendo and how they're seemingly standing against the somewhat exploitative mobile industry. It's sad that if you purchased the Wii U you backed the wrong horse, but by continuing to shun them for mistakes they're already paying for Nintendo will start to resemble 'new' Sega or 'new' Konami soon enough.
 
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tl;dr on everything except the opening post, so apols if the below already covered.

I get where you're coming from, but your language is a long way off the mark (read too strong) IMO, to get the positive outcome you're looking for. Whilst your logic is sound, most people don't react well to threats or to people trying to hold them to ransom (which is IMO, how it will be interpreted), I know I don't.

Additionally (again, IMO), asking for a full refund isn't reasonable because:

1. You're bringing this up two years after purchasing, that means they'd be giving you 2 years of gaming for free if they obliged. 2 weeks and it would be a different story.

2. You're saying Wii U was abondoned quickly, but then mention 4 years vs 7 years as a benchmark. 4 years is is not 0% of 7, but you are effectivley asking them to retain 0% of their income (from you) on the console.

Recommendation would be to soften the lanuage a lot, remove all the threats and simply ask, remove anything that starts with "you need to" etc and ask for a partial refund, perhaps 50% off a new console.

Something along the lines of "I want to buy the Switch, but feel unable to do so without some form of goodwill gesture from you, due to the experiences above", should go down well.

Good luck, whether you heed the above or not :)
 
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