Journal: Nintendo of Europe's Dirty Secret

Nintendo has never treated those in the UK very well, but this really takes the biscuit.

I got my Wii on launch day (December 8th, here), and haven't look back. To me, it has to be the greatest system ever made, simply because everyone who plays it wants one - I never thought I'd see my parents playing videogames with such vigour. A few weeks before the launch I went out to buy myself a small HDTV, so I'd be able to enjoy 480p and be future proofed for when I eventually get a 360. I decided on a Samsung 940MV as it was discounted, and I'd heard nothing but good things about it (well, its 16:10, but I can live with that).

Seeing as it was near-impossible to find component cables anywhere in the country, I ordered a set from play-asia. Third-party ones, but in my experience that makes very little difference. When they finally arrived I was overcome by the beauty of Twilight Princess in 480p - sure, it was sharp, but the colours really did it for me. But then disaster struck. Back in the composite days, I'd downloaded a few games from the Virtual Console service. Two of them were NES games: Zelda and Mario. These just would not work with the component cables. On starting either game, I would be greeted with a bright green screen with the game sounds in the background. Here's a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIvwcSqGicg&eurl=

No number of options I change makes any difference. I'd just like to point out that yes, with composite, the games did work.
Strangely though, the other two games I'd bought, R-Type and Mario 64, work perfectly on my Wii/TV. I have no idea why this is. All the games are running at 50hz/480i, at least according to my TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGeTbZ2BJm8&eurl=

This is not just isolated to me, however. Many other people have experienced similar problems, as evidenced by a quick Google search. These forum threads backup my claims:

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=147964
http://community.nintendo-europe.com/communities/thread.jspa?threadID=686926

I was obviously somewhat distraught by this, having spent 1000 Wii Points/£7 on these games, so I thought I'd email Nintendo's Technical Support. The best email address I could find was [e-mail]. Now, although I am using 3rd Party cables, this issue affects even the Offical ones, as people have noted in the above forum threads, so I believed this to be a valid enquiry to Nintendo. This was their response:

"Dear Customer, thank you for your e-mail.

I am sorry but as Nintendo have not released any component cables yet I can make no comment on the effectiveness or efficiency of yours.

Kind regards,

Your Nintendo Team"

Having heard wonderful things about their customer service (at least in the US), I was very taken aback by this blatant lie from Nintendo. They could have least fobbed me off with a "3rd party accessories are not supported" line. But no, they chose to lie to me. After many frustrating emails to them, I decided to ask for a refund for the 2 games - I was unable to use them, and was not notified that this could be the case. To me, this is a break of the sale of goods act. They refused.

As this problem is not present in Wiis from the USA (as far as I know), I have to come to the conclusion that the problem could easily be fixed by Nintendo in a firmware upgrade, but as they refuse to acknowledge the issue, I cannot see this happening soon. I have posted this on Digg to try and get the word out to people - as this is confined to the UK (possible all of PAL) there has been little coverage of the issue anywhere. If someone is planning to buy a Wii, they should at least be able to know if all its features will work.

I'm sorry that this was so long, but thank you for reading. I'd just like to point out that I own over 100 Nintendo games, and 8 of their consoles.

http://www.bennuttall.com/blork/blog/?itemid=8