In the last issue of This Week in Gaming, we talked about the Federal Trade Commission sending out a warning letter to a few select companies, two of which were Nintendo and Sony. These letters were sent because the FTC found both companies' policies were technically illegal, as voiding a warranty due to peeling a sticker off cannot be grounds for denying a full repair.

Nintendo and Sony might find themselves in hot water soon, in regards to a policy they have. The Federal Trade Commission states that both companies current policy is against a law that was enacted in 1975. And that policy entails warranty voiding. Normally, if you open up a Sony or Nintendo console to repair it, or use third party components, then your warranty is voided. However, this is illegal, and the FTC is cracking down on those don't abide by it, which means both gaming companies have been sent "warning letters", which means they have 30 days to remove such statements from their policy.

Now, a few weeks later, there's been a response, with Nintendo and Sony changing their warranty policies to allow for users to open up the console without voiding the warranty. Nintendo's policy has been changed from

This warranty shall not apply if this product: (a) is used with products not sold or licensed by Nintendo (Including but not limited to, non-licensed game enhancement and copier devices, adapters, software, and power supplies.

To...

This warranty shall not apply if this product has been damaged by products not sold or licensed by Nintendo (Including, but not limited to, adapters, software, and power supplies).

So now, if you open up your console, repair it yourself, or use third party hardware on it, you're fine, however, if these items or your actions cause damage to the system, then the warranty is still considered void, which is compliant with US and Canada law.

Source: GBAtemp Press Inbox

 

[paulttt]

I'm in an European country, does this apply to me? Because I've been dying to open up my poor PS4 Slim and clean the old bastard inside for dust, I can DO that to my PS3 because I bought it used however my PS4 has a 5 year warranty on it.

Is it affecting anything? If so, and you have e a 5 year warranty send it for repair.

 

[Yepi69]

Is it affecting anything? If so, and you have e a 5 year warranty send it for repair.

I'm not gonna send the system to repair just for dust cleaning when I can do it myself.
Its not affecting anything but the console's fan gets really loud on some games, I can also see dust inside of the console which a brush and a mini vacuum cleaner do not reach.

 

[chrisrlink]

so basicly we're one step closer to legalizing cfw as the means on only using hombrew MS is already doing it with dev mode on XBOne perhaps i hope with this FTC ruling but i doubt it they see all homebrew as evil

 

[Tallion]

did you not read the post? they took non-licensed game enhancement out of there warranty policy and that is what cfw was used for by most game mods game backups and so on and that is a game enhancement so yes they would have to now.

This warranty shall not apply if this product has been damaged by products not sold or licensed by Nintendo (Including, but not limited to, adapters, software, and power supplies).

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I personally feel that this is utter bullshit.

Warranty stickers are there to prevent the general public from dismantling their hardware and fucking it up. If your console is within warranty, and it breaks through no fault of your own, then what's the issue with you taking it to either the retailer, or Nintendo?

If you take the conscious decision to open up your console to clean/mod/just wanna look at the workings, and it breaks, that's your own fault

I personally feel that is comment is utter bullshit.

Their warranty policy still stated that if the console is broken by a third party device or user error in repair attempts the warranty is still void.

A lot of people don't want to send in consoles to repair something like a loose analog stick or wobbly hinge because you'll probably be waiting for it to be fixed when you could do it yourself in a couple hours or less. Odds are the retailer will tell you to call Nintendo if your system breaks, so you'll have to call or fill something out online, mail your console, and wait for repairs and for your console to be sent back to you.

While warranty stickers may have been designed to reduce the number of people tampering with products, but that's not the only way they're used. They're also there so companies can try to weasel out of giving you the repair you're entitled to however they can. Even sellers of prebuilt PCs (and yes a lot of people still buy prebuilt PCs) say your warranty is void if you do something as simple as opening up your PC and reseating your RAM. That's not there to prevent tampering. That's there so they can try to deny you your warranty so they can charge you for repairs.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

They are still not responsible for damage done by consumer modifications.

The question is whether or not they can prove it's from user modification. A soft brick could be caused by the battery failing in a 3DS (maybe Vita too?) or the console turning off during an update, wi-fi turning off during and update, and update corrupting, etc. You can't necessarily prove that a permanent brick is caused by user run software either unless the NAND keeps record of what's run and whoever does the repairs dumps the firmware files to check. That would take a lot longer than just flashing a recovery firmware.

If you fuck up your console through mods I really don't think you should be trying to get a free repair, especially if you're a working adult. But with how strict their warranty policy WAS I can't say I feel bad for them since they surely screwed over some honest customers at some point.

 

[leerpsp]

This warranty shall not apply if this product has been damaged by products not sold or licensed by Nintendo (Including, but not limited to, adapters, software, and power supplies).

Fine you win.

 

[Tallion]

Fine you win.

I'm not trying to win. I just wanted to make sure that people understand software modding will still void their warranty. Sorry if I came off rude.

 

[leerpsp]

I'm not trying to win. I just wanted to make sure that people understand software modding will still void their warranty. Sorry if I came off rude.

you did not come off rude or anything its that i had miss read it. And as for me saying you win that was me saying you was right. Just did not want to type it all out like this. (kinda hard with a gaming keyboard that types the same letter more then once.)

 

[Tallion]

you did not come off rude or anything its that i had miss read it. And as for me saying you win that was me saying you was right. Just did not want to type it all out like this. (kinda hard with a gaming keyboard that types the same letter more then once.)

ok as long as we are cool!

 

[leerpsp]

ok as long as we are cool!

Yep cool

 

[Viri]

Nintendo is going to introduce new ways to prevent the user from opening their console! They already try to with their "Nintendo Torx screws".

 

[Pleng]

I'm not trying to win. I just wanted to make sure that people understand software modding will still void their warranty. Sorry if I came off rude.

No it will not... It only voids the warranty if they can prove that the soft mod *caused* the warranty.

Example; if you have cfw on your system and the fan fails from manufacturing fault - warranty still in tact. If, however, the cfw has an app installed to spin the fan at speeds it was never designed for, Nintendo can argue that the software caused the failure and therefore refuse repairs.

 

[Deleted User]

I personally feel that this is utter bullshit.

Warranty stickers are there to prevent the general public from dismantling their hardware and fucking it up. If your console is within warranty, and it breaks through no fault of your own, then what's the issue with you taking it to either the retailer, or Nintendo?

If you take the conscious decision to open up your console to clean/mod/just wanna look at the workings, and it breaks, that's your own fault

Thats the point, the warranty is now only void if those actions cause it to break.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Thats the point, the warranty is now only void if those actions cause it to break.

Exactly. Before it was as simple as opening your console (both Nintendo and Sony) would void the warranty. Sure you could probably talk whatever customer service representative into still setting up a repair, especially considering how much jobs like that suck so the last thing they probably want to do is argue and get people screaming at them. But you shouldn't have to argue to get a warranty you're entitled to because some corporation tries to do whatever they can to screw you over. I made the point of strict warranties on prebuilt computers with some components and PC warrsnties being void if you do something as simple as reseating RAM or the GPU.

The point is that it's inexcusable for companies (especially big ones) to be screwing over the consumer by making their warranty void over the simplest things even if they don't damage the unit.

(I'm not arguing with the person I'm quoting, I'm just putting an argument out there for people who think that they should've been allowed to keep their weasly warranty policy)

 

[garyopa]

The answer to this will be incasing the whole motherboard with that horrible black epoxy glue, they did it on wii drives, and microsoft did it on dvd drives, so soon trust me you will see nothing but solid mass of sticky/perm. glue covering all the parts inside, alot of new cellphones are already like that, apple been doing it for a while, its super hard to get at some of internal parts, and now that you can remove the backcover on nintendo or sony, it will be same also.

 

[kuwanger]

The answer to this will be incasing the whole motherboard with that horrible black epoxy glue,

I'm fine with this. Mostly because it's going to eat more money out of the companies that do this. Instead of making parts they can refurbish/repair, they'll make expensive components they'll have to trash/recycle whenever any part on the board breaks. In the short term, it's a great way to avoid your competitors from cloning your tech or putting in 3rd party replacement parts. In the long term, it's a recipe for becoming irrelevant.

PS - Seriously, I'd love to throw in a car analogy. Imagine if most car engines were encased in black epoxy glue to technically comply with warranty requirements. That'd be fun.

 

[gamesquest1]

The answer to this will be incasing the whole motherboard with that horrible black epoxy glue, they did it on wii drives, and microsoft did it on dvd drives, so soon trust me you will see nothing but solid mass of sticky/perm. glue covering all the parts inside, alot of new cellphones are already like that, apple been doing it for a while, its super hard to get at some of internal parts, and now that you can remove the backcover on nintendo or sony, it will be same also.

tbh Nintendo has always been pretty fair with warranties imo, there has been countless stories of people sending in consoles with obvious signs of homebrew etc and not had any major issues getting a repair (although I'm sure some jobsworths have denied some), that said many companies (MS,Sony, apple ) have a track record of trying to push fault onto consumers for poorly designed hardware faults and only ended up caving in once the fault hits critical mass/widespread coverage, I have a feeling we will see more of the apple tactics of making things super hard to open and repair and arbitrarily tying hardware to units to try make repairs as hard as possible for independent stores or end users, although they do seem to be getting a lot of pushback recently, idk if its enough to stop that business model

 

[FAST6191]

so basicly we're one step closer to legalizing cfw as the means on only using hombrew MS is already doing it with dev mode on XBOne perhaps i hope with this FTC ruling but i doubt it they see all homebrew as evil

No. Not at all and I am not even sure how you arrived at that conclusion. It is just one reason people have to give people pause is not in play any more. Also why would "only using homebrew" be legitimate? You can have quite legitmate backups, and homebrew which can demonstrably infringe upon Nintendo's rights.

I'm in an European country, does this apply to me? Because I've been dying to open up my poor PS4 Slim and clean the old bastard inside for dust, I can DO that to my PS3 because I bought it used however my PS4 has a 5 year warranty on it.

It's an American ruling so not as such. However I have long pointed at similar rulings in the car world found in Europe that say similar things -- if the modification can be shown to cause the problem then any warranty is void and you also have similar rulings on servicing by a normal garage and third party parts there (it can be a third party part but if it is within their specifications then they can't void it based on that.. sort of thing). How far your local consumer protection departments will go I do not know (and Portugal is small enough that I don't see much from there compared to Germany or France or something) but I suspect they are not going to go to bat for you.

 

[leon315]

Now off to install b9s and a bunch of cias to a 3ds and send it to Nintendo to test them.

i'll get urs back updated and SD completely formatted

 

[softwareengineer]

So it's the end of sticker peeling warranty voiding! Such a great day! I can now retire my "I void all my warranties" shirt! So Sony and Nintendo both doing it at the same time, where they like hey you going to do it... They're like yep we're going to do it, yep us too, alright we'll both do it at the same time. And MS is being late to the party, and any other company that's been doing this, you've been notified!