Nintendo replacing buggy Zelda discs.

Submitted by Stephen Munn on April 7, 2007 – 3:15 pm17 Comments

When researching my harrowing encounter with the dreaded sky cannon bug in Twilight Princess the other night, I came upon someone on the official Nintendo forums who claimed Nintendo was replacing the broken launch copies of Twlight Princess that had the bug in them on request. And perhaps best of all:

he said when you play the new disk, Shad should be there without having to restart.

Not having heard anything about this, I sent Nintendo an e-mail, and it turns out it’s true.

Hello,

Thank you for the e-mail. We can help you with this. You need to call us directly so we can go over this with you. At your earliest convenience, please contact our Consumer Service Department by calling 1-800-255-3700. Our representatives are available between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time, seven days a week. When calling, you may bypass the recorded information by pressing “0″ on your touch-tone phone. This will connect you to the next available representative.

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Inc.
[Name Removed]

So I gave Nintendo a call at the provided number and reached a rep in less than a minute, despite a recording telling me it could take a while. I explained the issue and he seemed surprised I was aware of the new replacement policy, and wanted to know how I found out. I told him, and he commented, “yeah, people like to talk about stuff.” Not sure how to take that, but he never became impolite. He described how people are encountering the problem and I described how I encountered it, which was a little different. He explained the exchange process to me as follows:

Write a letter explaining how I encountered the issue, along with my name, address, and daytime telephone number, and mail it along with just the game disc (no case) to the following address:

NINTENDO OF AMERICA
ATTN: CS ADMIN
4900 150TH AVE NE
REDMOND WA 98052-5171

He also confirmed that the replacement disc I receive will resolve the issue in games that are stuck because of it.

So there you have it. Got a broken game? Nintendo says they will replace it. Make with the snail mail. I’ll be sending mine in this week.

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Tags: buggy zelda disc, nintendo replacing, Twilight Princess

http://www.farbot.com/ Paul Munn

Redmond WA? That’s Microsoft’s home town. Cue Admiral Akbar: It’s a trap!
Stephen

Yep. MS and Nintendo are immediate neighbors. They’re right across the street from each other.
Shane

Nice leg work!
http://www.consolecolors.com Kat

Must you use that spider picture?
Stephen

Thanks, Shane. What’s the matter, Kat? Don’t like spiders?
Steve

looks like i’ll be sending mine in too
Niklas Sundqvist

Don’t you get it? spider=bug

Else, great text, can be good to know if something happends to me and my friends nintendo stuff
http://www.thepiggybanker.com Pbanker

gotta love nintendo’s customer service
Me

By: Pbanker at April 8, 2007 06:47 AM
gotta love nintendo’s customer service

Yep, much better than starting the game, downloading a patch in 5 mins and play the game
http://www.consolecolors.com Kat

Yes I get it, and no I don’t like those big hairy bugs.
Adam

It’s rather disappointing that, instead of shipping out a patch via the internet, Nintendo requires people to mail their discs for a replacement.

The correct solution would have been to simply provide a patch via the net. Such a patch could have been as simple as a bit of code to fix affected savegame files, or a binary patch that would override certain parts of the game. If Nintendo hasn’t built in the capability to do this, that’s unfortunate.
http://www.baka-tsuki.net Onizuka-GTO

yeah. stupid nintendo for not have a “save my ass when im too lazy to complete a game and fix it later when people complain” yes, bad Nintendo!
I mean really your LOSING money this way, just find a lazy way of out with no consequences. That’s way better then shipping out bug free quality games in the first place.
http://raindog469.livejournal.com raindog

Nice TMBG reference

I still haven’t gotten up to the sky cannon room, so I don’t know whether I should try to pre-emptively trade in my launch day Zelda disc or not….
Arachnophobe

Spiders aren’t bugs though. They’re arachnids…. and scary
Stephen

Spiders are bugs, they’re just not insects.
Eve

I wish I could say good, confirming things backing up your experience. Alas, I went through the entire rigamarole only to be sent a disk WITH the glitch, rather than a fixed version. Hopefully they will send me another copy, this time with the glitch corrected, but that will mean this process will likely take 4-6 weeks all told.

Wouldn’t a patch be considerably less painful for everyone involved?
Matt

btw i ran into this same frustrating issue. Called Nintendo as you indicate and they are hooking me up with a replacement disc. 2 ways replacement can be handled btw. 4 business days they will mail you a shipping label (they will pay for it) and then have a replacement disc to you in 8-12 business days. Second option is to have them ship you an e-mail with the instructions (also listed above thx for that) and insure a package and mail them the disc. You have to pay for the shipping (make sure it’s insured) but they can get you back and rolling in 8-12 business days.

Alternate option the lady at Nintendo asked me for the version stamp on the back inner circle of the disc. In fine print mine says RVL-RZDE-0A-0 That last zero indicates it’s the original release. The correct bugged fixed version is RVL-RZDE-0A-2. So i’m gonna hit up blockbuster and check out their game discs to see if they have one that is -2. I asked her if a later save file (after getting outta this loop) would cause a problem if once i was out i went back to my original disc. She didn’t believe that would be an issue.

So there you go. Hopefully some good additional information for you as god knows i was about to freakin break my controller after an hour of trying to get out of this loop.