Little backstory before I get into what's going on with me and Nintendo's customer service. About 5 years ago or so I hacked my Wii. My son had just broken half of my Wii games by using them to skate on the floor (DVD's are slick don't you know?), and I got super frustrated and wasn't interested in coughing up several hundred dollars to replace it all. Despite having a hacked Wii, I never really went overboard with playing downloaded games. I didn't have an external harddrive so I used burned discs, but I found they never performed as well as a real copy. Longer loading times, FMV's wouldn't run as well, etc. None of that's really important though. The point I'm trying to make is I kept buying games, including a lot of Wiiware and VC games.

That brings us to December of 2012 shortly after the Wii U launched. I was having internet issues with the Wii so I was unable to do the game transfer. I called customer support and explained the error message I was receiving. In a very polite non-accustory way the customer service rep asked me if I had ever heard of the Homebrew Channel. Apparently my error code was an indication that my Wii had been flagged and had it's internet bricked. The Wii still worked mind you, but they had essentially prevented from me getting online with it. I played dumb of course, and he said there was a chance it was something else and I could send it in to have it looked at, but knowing the truth I declined.

Not really a huge deal, but it did prevent me from accessing most of the Wii Shop games I had purchased over the years. I bought well over 40 games, and there was no way that would have ever fit on the harddive, or even one SD card. So, most of that library was lost to me. Fair enough, I hacked it, I will take the punishment. The only real regret was losing the Magic Obliesk which has been since taken off the market and is pretty hard to come by.

Now we come to today. I've decided to make one last attempt to get access to my library of Wii Shop games. It's a total of 46 games and over $300 was spent on it. Why not try right? I called customer service and they took the serial number of my Wii and Wii U and said they could do the transfer themselves, but it would have to go through the proper channels and it would take 5 to 7 business days. So it's likely they're going to look at my Wii's serial number and see that it was flagged. The question is, will they enforce the terms and conditions and tell me to fuck off or will they do it anyway?

I'm crossing my fingers that they push it through. One thing I've learned about Nintendo over the years, is generally they will kiss their customers' ass if they know you spend money and they can verify it. On my Club Nintendo account I looked at all the digital games I've bought over the past few years, and its not a small amount. Between the Wii, DSi, 3DS, and Wii U I've made nearly $1,000 in digital purchases. I'm the kind of customer they like. And we won't bother going into all the other physical copies of games I've bought and registered with Club Nintendo. Enough to get platinum status 5 out of the last 6 years. Anyway, wish me luck. I wouldn't mind having what would essentially be a "new to me" library again since I haven't touched most of those games in many years.

They should reinstate all of your purchases, unless they really want to be dicks about your use of the Homebrew Channel. Nintendo has been dicks lately, though, so who knows? I hope they help you out. Spending $1000 on digital games is no joke.

Ravenprose said:

Heh, I had spent around $250 on VC/Wiiware, but lost it all when I sold my launch Wii. That loss still makes me feel a little sick, even though I wouldn't replay most of those games anyway.

I did that with my first 3DS though not to that extent. I had around $100 in digital games on that. Then again, those game are why I was able to sell the system for as much as I did.

Some amazing games, but what if the FBI comes a knockin'? . Y's books 1 and 2any good?

Oh yeah I forgot about the Commodore 64 games. No. I never had interest in the handful of games they put out there. I do wonder why it was never really followed up on after the initial few games were released. Guess no one else bought them either.

It seems like it was a huge reason to own a Master System back in the day.

I'm sure in the dark ages of a pre-RPG universe other than Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star and Dragon Warrior, it was quite a marvelous game. Time has treated it like it farted in church.

Yup. And Y's 3 was a sidescrolling Zelda 2 clone.

Y's 1

Y's 3

It is a well loved series. I never played them back in the day, so I don't have any nostalgia for them myself, or for that style of game much.

It would be complete bullshit if they wouldn't transfer the games you bought. Especially if they've already enacted their hissy fit reaction to the homebrew channel by removing your access to the internet.