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Nintendium

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jotamide
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Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
Shit on their underpowered hardware, ass-backwards "account system", scalper-friendly LEs, etc etc. But damn, Nintendo makes long-lasting products that's for sure. Around 2 weeks ago, I accidentally washed my Pokewalker, when I found and opened it up there was rust on the side of the battery. Didn't look good. I scrapped it with a toothpick, waited a bit and then installed a new battery. Well, after beeping a bit without getting anything on the screen, I was greeted by my beautiful Magikarp and started working just fine. :)
 
I remember back in highschool about 5 or 6 years ago I was playing Pokémon Gold Version on a Gameboy Pocket for shiggles. The save chip somehow hadnt burnt out and the pocket ran perfectly as well. Not to mention the OG Gameboy that Nintendo has on display in the Nintendo World Store still playing tetris despite being bombed during Gulf War

Edit: Thanks lmao. I brain farted hard. Thats what happens when you post at 1:30 am
 
Nintendo makes durable things. A friend's GameCube fell out of the back of a fast-moving vehicle years ago as the back of the car was unsealed and the GameCube slipped out when a few bags fell out as they were traveling, it was scratched but worked fine after that. My own table collapsed one morning suddenly, Wii fell off with other stuff and was slammed under stuff, but worked fine afterwards. A year later, the Wii did stop working, but sent it in to Nintendo (even though a little over warranty date) and they repaired it and sent it back.

There's also that famous crisped Gameboy that survived a bombing in a war a soldier was carrying and still works even though partially burned that's now in the Nintendo Store museum.

Edit: Ninja'd on that second part a bit.
 
I always thought their consoles (the ones I bought at least), despite design sometimes, look real sturdy and solid. Especially compared to Sony and MS' offerings, which some remind of interlocked Lego pieces.

That original Game Boy sure could take a beating from my clumsy 12 ysar old self.
 
My old GameBoy once fell down two flighs of stairs.
Aside from some small scratches it still worked perfectly.

Contrast to that the phat PS2 whose chip flew out of its sockets when you dropped it from a height of less than 1 meter.
 
Biggest complaint about the OG 3DS is that it isn't made of Nintendium. I've tossed just about every Nintendo handheld I've ever onto my couch before, because it wouldn't break them. I mean, it's a couch, it's soft, it barely ever scratched them and I didn't really own any system where I particularly cared about scratches all that much. But the original 3DS? Broke one of the first times I did it. Cracked the top screen. Left me more disappointed than mad even, especially since Nintendium seemed to be a trade off for a feature I absolutely loathed (3D).
 
Codex5050 said:
I remember back in highschool about 5 or 6 years ago I was playing Pokémon Gold Version on a Gameboy Pocket for shiggles. The save chip somehow hadnt burnt out and the pocket ran perfectly as well. Not to mention the OG Gameboy that Nintendo has on display in the Nintendo World Store still playing tetris despite being bombed during 'Nam
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It was during Desert Storm/Gulf war
 
My OG Nintendo DS Phat dropped from a moving car and when I went to pick it up only had a hinge broken, I was able to play it for maybe 2 years more, but my bad habit of playing with the hinges (Moving up and down) ended up breaking the thingy that goes to the upper screen, making it useless. I still use it to play Pokemon Ruby in the second screen.
 
The games aren't too shabby either. My copy of Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga got thrown into the washing machine. Label was somewhat destroyed, but the game and its save files were still a-okay.
 
Codex5050 said:
I remember back in highschool about 5 or 6 years ago I was playing Pokémon Gold Version on a Gameboy Pocket for shiggles. The save chip somehow hadnt burnt out and the pocket ran perfectly as well. Not to mention the OG Gameboy that Nintendo has on display in the Nintendo World Store still playing tetris despite being bombed during 'Nam
Click to expand...

I think you mean Gulf War.
 
Codex5050 said:
Not to mention the OG Gameboy that Nintendo has on display in the Nintendo World Store still playing tetris despite being bombed during 'Nam
Click to expand...

You... you do know the Vietnam War ended in 1975, right?

The Game Boy you're referencing was damaged during the Gulf War.

EDIT: lol, everyone jumped on that.
 
Generally Nintendo consoles are built well, but I kind of feel like this has been slipping over the last couple of generations.

The Wii U and 3DS are a far cry from the NES and Gameboy when it comes to resillience.

My Wii U power cable stopped working a few months after puchase.
 
Hatchtag said:
Biggest complaint about the OG 3DS is that it isn't made of Nintendium.
Click to expand...

Agreed, the Original 3DS is the outlier. I had mine in my front pants pocket while walking into a subway turnstile that apparently didn't read my swipe. Didn't hit it that hard but was sick to my stomach to find the top screen full on spidercracked. Had done much worse to just about every other Nintendo device with barely a scratch.

A high school friend threw his N64 controller into his door out of frustration during a GoldenEye multiplayer session. It made two holes in the door, one for the button grip, another for the analog grip and just stayed lodged there like a grappling hook. He pulled it out and we went back to playing.
 
My purple Game Boy Color wasn't so lucky, it fell while I was playing Pokémon Silver on the couch and it stopped working :(
I lost my Pokéwalker while snowboarding in Vermont, two days later a kind sir gave it back to me and it was like new, my Pokémon was still there.
My DSi fell from about 2 meters and it didn't get a scratch, that thing took the hit like a boss.
 
Too bad the 3DS isn't made of Nintendium. I've dropped every other Nintendo handheld dozens of times, always been fine. But a few years ago I put my OG 3DS in my backpack unprotected (in a pocket with nothing but pens/pencils/money) and the screen cracks. Like wtf. It's not like I threw the backpack across a room or dropped it down a flight of stairs or something.

Dimentionalist said:
I wish my first GameCube was made from Nintendium. It fell two feet and broke. I was a jobless teenager at the time, and I had to sell my precious N64 and all of my games to afford another one.
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwUYpOnBP-M

You must've had a really shitty Gamecube.
 
I wish my first GameCube was made from Nintendium. It fell two feet and broke. I was a jobless teenager at the time, and I had to sell my precious N64 and all of my games to afford another one.
 
Crayolan said:
Too bad the 3DS isn't made of Nintendium. I've dropped every other Nintendo handheld dozens of times, always been fine. But a few years ago I put my OG 3DS in my backpack unprotected (in a pocket with nothing but pens/pencils/money) and the screen cracks. Like wtf. It's not like I threw the backpack across a room or dropped it down a flight of stairs or something.
Click to expand...

They were running low on reserves. thankfully they found a new secret mine in time for the N3DS/XL. That thing's got the highest concentration of nintendium yet.
 
HardRojo said:
Yeah, that was a common problem with the first white DS lites I believe. I got a black one and it worked fine, no broken hinges or anything.
Click to expand...
The thing that sucked most was that they wanted to charge me the $100 or whatever repair fee and my mom got mad at me for their defect.
 
My OG 3DS had the nintendium. When my brother owned it he dropped it crossing the road and it got run over. A bit of cosmetic damage and cracking on the top but the internal work perfect.
 
Iwata stole their stockpile of Nintendium and used it as a bartering tool for Monster Hunter exclusivity. The 3DS XL is arguably the most cheaply made piece of hardware I've ever owned.
 
I seem to recall my DS Lite gradually, slowly, breaking apart over the course of 5 or 6 years. Of course we were real little shits and treated that thing like crap
 
My 2006 launch DS Lite screens started to give out in late 2011 just in time with my 3DS. And my Wii just totally stopped reading discs just in time for my Wii U in early 2013.

So Nintendium seems to only last until it knows it can live on to the next generation.
 
Speaking of Nintendium, I've been backing up all my Gamecube discs using Clean Rip. Almost every game has backed up successfully, including a copy of Mario Party 4 from Christmas 2002 that I got when I was 7. Just amazed that it survived that long.
 
Yeah, they got super cheap on Nintendium with the 3DS. My launch unit has that bad cracking and peeling paint job on the D-pad, but other than that it looks and works perfectly fine. Took a few falls, one time it was open and fell screen down. Not even a scratch.

The only time i was super pissed is when my SNES died when using a cart to boot games from other regions. Nintendo is really sucks with it region-free policy ;)
 
I had a limited edition pokemon game boy colour. Shit fell from a 7 story building and it was still playable. Too bad I lost it when I moved away from my condo.
 
I know we already jumped on that comment... But the fact that we are now in a place where someone could be young enough to conflate Vietnam and Desert Storm is utterly frightening @_@
 
their nintendium source has been depleted. i had to get two ds lites due to cracked hinges. in the same spot. and the screen scratching on the original 3ds isnt hot either. but the gameboy line was batfink levels indestructable
 
Hatchtag said:
Speaking of Nintendium, I've been backing up all my Gamecube discs using Clean Rip. Almost every game has backed up successfully, including a copy of Mario Party 4 from Christmas 2002 that I got when I was 7. Just amazed that it survived that long.
Click to expand...
You'll be able to play/rip games a LOT older than that. You're just young and you think that's an old game. It ain't.
 
One day when my brother and i skipped our chores to play Ocarina of Time my dad grabbed our N64 and Smashed it on the pavement outside. I took him a few hard slams on the ground but he eventually destroyed it :(
 
BocoDragon said:
You'll be able to play/rip games a LOT older than that. You're just young and you think that's an old game. It ain't.
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I donno. I guess it's just mindblowing to me because:
1) It's a disc. I'd expect carts and bluray discs to last this long, but a gamecube disc or a dvd I wouldn't.
2) It survived a large portion of my childhood and didn't get busted being left out of its case or doing stupid shit kids do.
 
Hatchtag said:
Speaking of Nintendium, I've been backing up all my Gamecube discs using Clean Rip. Almost every game has backed up successfully, including a copy of Mario Party 4 from Christmas 2002 that I got when I was 7. Just amazed that it survived that long.
Click to expand...

That's not Nintendium in action, sorry. That's just the expected condition of a CD that hasn't spent its life next to a cracked open windowsill facing east with a humidifier constantly running next to it.

Give those discs another decade before you start worrying about disc-rot.
 
It's not what it used to be. Take a look at the original 3DS. What a cheaply built piece of electronics (lacquered d-pad where the paint starts to crack after a while, lower screen having a rim that scratches the top screen, start/select/home under a plastic sheet instead of real buttons). Shameful.
 
Jotamide said:
Shit on their underpowered hardware, ass-backwards "account system", scalper-friendly LEs, etc etc. But damn, Nintendo makes long-lasting products that's for sure. Around 2 weeks ago, I accidentally washed my Pokewalker, when I found and opened it up there was rust on the side of the battery. Didn't look good. I scrapped it with a toothpick, waited a bit and then installed a new battery. Well, after beeping a bit without getting anything on the screen, I was greeted by my beautiful Magikarp and started working just fine. :)
Click to expand...
Fuck yeah. Pokéwalker. Wish I could have used that with my Wii Fit instead of the less superior "I can't hold a fucking Togekiss" version.
 
Ehh, starting with the GameCube it wasn't so great anymore. The drive could get noisier or develop read/tracking errors over time,and when everything was outsourced to China it got even worse. Broken hinges, lousy paint on the OG 3DS, dead pixels, Wii drive problems, you name it.
The N64 was their last rock-solid console, but I've seen a couple that had wonky video outputs (faint diagonal lines would cascade down the screen regardless of TV or cable used)
 
Wii and 3DS is where they started to drop the ball. Can't be helped I think, the tech is just what it is. Wii DVD reader SSBB thing + that miserable story with the 3DS bottom screen marks.
 
Nintendium died after the DS days. From Wii onward it has sucked big time. My launch Wii disc drive got incredibly loud a year or so in, and gave out around 2011. Also on a friend's Wii the plastic cracked from a 2 foot fall onto carpet.

I got an OG 3DS in July 2011. Kept it in a case, never hurt it and a week in moving white lines started appearing in the display for the bottom screen. I called Nintendo and they basically blamed me and wouldn't accept responsibility, so it went back to Amazon.

I've been through 3 different XLs, switching from one edition to another. All have hinge issues. Each one feels cheap and 2/3 had a shoulder button lose a lot of sensitivity.


My OG DS was slammed between a door frame and a door and didn't even have a scratch.

My neighbor left his gameboy pocket outside in the pouring rain overnight and all that happened was the sound was garbled at times.

My 3DS and Wii U feel cheap from the start and I wouldn't risk anything with them.
 
Hatchtag said:
I donno. I guess it's just mindblowing to me because:
1) It's a disc. I'd expect carts and bluray discs to last this long, but a gamecube disc or a dvd I wouldn't.
2) It survived a large portion of my childhood and didn't get busted being left out of its case or doing stupid shit kids do.
Click to expand...

Optical discs were originally declared to last 100 years.. It may be less than that due to "disc rot" defects... but 12 years isn't exactly coming close to testing that claim.

And Gamecube discs are basically just small DVDs... no real difference in construction there, aside from the fact that they are compact.

My dad's CDs from the launch of the format in ~1985 still play and rip. That's your oldest canary in the coal mine to gauge whether Nintendo discs or any others are particularly resiliant in comparison.
 
Weird, my 3DS must have more nintendium than yours. It survived a 3 foot fall onto bathroom tiling and all that happened was that it froze the game.

I've also had my Wii and N64 drop several times due to people not paying attention to controller cords. A quick reset and back to playing!
 
Wait the OG 3DS was supposed to not have Nintendium?

I dropped mine on concrete a few times by accident and nothing happened.

System didn't even freeze or anything.

(Of course, now part of the hinge broke off as a result of those drops, but the last time I dropped it and the time where the hinge started cracking was like over a year later, so...)
 
Dropped my OG 3DS about 2 feet on hardwood floor and it was fine.

To be fair I was using the Hori Wheel accessory which may have softened the blow.
 
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