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Nintendo wins court case against Germany and Norway, inability to cancel eShop pre-orders deemed leg.

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

The Norwegian Consumer Council raised issues with Nintendo over the inability to cancel eShop pre-orders in February 2018. Following that, the German Consumer Protection Authority (VZBV) took Nintendo to court at the end of the year.

A verdict has now been reached, and Nintendo has won the case. The German courts determined that not allowing cancellation of pre-orders is legal. Although the decision has been appealed, there may not be movement with the case for up to a year and a half.

Once a game has been pre-loaded from the eShop, consumers are unable to cancel that purchase. Even if the game hasn’t been released, you’re still required to follow through on that order. This was thought to be in violation of Norwegian and European law, but the courts thought otherwise in this case.
 

MoreJRPG

Suffers from extreme PDS
Holy anti-consumer much? Maybe these guys will come out of the 1980s in the next 20 years. I mean, their console home screen still outputs at 720p in 2020 so I doubt it.
 

Codes 208

Member
I dub thee, "leg".
4nb1Bnq.jpg
 
Yeah, that really shouldn't be the case though. Legality aside, it's just anti-consumer. Plain and simple. IMO consumers should always have the ability to refund their (digital) game within a certain timeframe (similar to how Steam does it) but at the very least they should be able to cancel their purchase if the game isn't even accessible yet. Why customers should follow through on their purchase when companies can just cancel the release of their game or DLC (Like what happened with Batman on the Wii U) isn't clear to me. I hope the court thinks the same, and gives consumers more rights and protection.
 
Technically even with a pre-order you've 'completed' a purchase, because it's a digital product. The fact you have to wait for it to activate is immaterial. Usually changing your mind is not enough for a full refund unless you have some kind of physical doodad to return to a store.
 
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Rat Rage

Member
Here is a very simple advice to anyone: don't pre-order games on the fucking e-shop. Why would you even pre-order digital games?
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
How is this “consumers you are stupid for...” instead of a “WTF Nintendo and wtf with digital downloads and laws around consumer rights?!???”...?
 

mcjmetroid

Member

The Norwegian Consumer Council raised issues with Nintendo over the inability to cancel eShop pre-orders in February 2018. Following that, the German Consumer Protection Authority (VZBV) took Nintendo to court at the end of the year.

A verdict has now been reached, and Nintendo has won the case. The German courts determined that not allowing cancellation of pre-orders is legal. Although the decision has been appealed, there may not be movement with the case for up to a year and a half.

Once a game has been pre-loaded from the eShop, consumers are unable to cancel that purchase. Even if the game hasn’t been released, you’re still required to follow through on that order. This was thought to be in violation of Norwegian and European law, but the courts thought otherwise in this case.

This is madness how did they pull this one off.
A digital good needs to be treated the exact same as a physical good otherwise we're going to have problems.

Look the lesson here is don't digitally preload software. It's silly anyway.
 
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