Thank you for sending your Nintendo system for repair.

Upon examination of your system, our technicians determined that the system has been tampered with. Our technicians discovered that the product was altered by downloading of unauthorized software, such as the “homebrew” channel.

These types of alterations void the warranty. In addition, a system that has been altered is permanently damaged and cannot be brought back to its original working condition. As such, your only option would be to purchase a replacement.

If you enclosed a check with your repair, your payment will be returned. If you provided a credit card when setting up your repair order, your credit card will not be charged. For other methods of payment (i.e., money order, cashier’s check), you will receive a refund within the next two to three weeks.

Your product should arrive back to you in approximately two weeks. We will hold it at our repair facility for 5 business days before it is sent back. If you have questions you may call 800-448-6797 and ask to speak with a Tech Service Administrator. We are available every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time. However, should we happen to be on another call, please leave a voice mail message with your name and phone number.

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Inc.
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Apparently, it had the “Homebrew” channel on it, something which I never installed, nor never heard of until now. A quick Ask search brought me here.

I was incredulous: This is like your mechanic saying he won’t repair the fan belt on your engine because he smelled weed in your back seat! (Like that would *ever* happen…)

After vigourously complaining, the tech agreed to make an “exception” and sell me a refurbed Wii for $165. Ridiculous! But I had no choice. She said I should take it up with the original seller, but I laughed – I’m not going to return an eBay item after 4 months of use to some podunk in Arizona.

I attempted to argue with them that just flash the BIOS or whatever, I mean, c’mon it’s just software! The rep claimed that they couldn’t “quality control” the repair because of the mod. Ridiculous. I can flash the PROM on my linksys router, or my PC, but multi-billion dollar Nintendo can’t flash their ROMs to remove some software I didn’t install.

Anyway, I asked if this was a “recent” policy, and it is: as of before the holidays (Nov. 2009) they refuse to service hacked Wii’s. So beware.

In short: You void your warranty and Nintendo won’t touch the units for repairs no way no how.

Reading my italian warranty I understand that if the modification is related to the defect the wii is out of warranty and that’s ok but if I have an hardware failure then there is a warranty.
The word above instead says that if you have an hardware failure and the find unauthorized software my wii is out of warranty. That’s completely different.

@Bushing
If you have an hardware failure (for example the bluetooth module) when it is repaired they can check what it is installed, they just turn it on!

that phone call wasn’t neccessary at all, as we all now already that a softmod technically voids your warranty and of course somebody from nintendo will tell you that. the question is, if you now really have to pay this ridiculous price (210€) just because of the installation of the hbc;instead of a regular non-guarantee case which will cost you (in most cases) not more than 100€.
unfortunately I live in germany, so I guess, if I somehow brick my wii, at least I won’t have to send it to nintendo xD.
I guess we just have to wait and see if other countries will adopt that behaviour or not.

It may be worth knowing that Nintendo of Europe’s main offices are indeed in Germany. And Nintendo UK (and any other Nintendo office in an EU country) are only customer service and repair offices.

Also, Nintendo UK, at least in my experience, charge you almost the price of the item brand new in retail for a “repair” which in all my cases, was just sending me a refurbished item.

Ninendo has fought and won every lawsuit that claims anti-competitive behaviour in regards to their closed system gaming consoles.
Nintendo will win given the precedents they themselves have set in regards to closed hardware. Without this no gaming console manufacturer would be able to charge a license fee for making software for a particular conosle.
Nintendo are perhaps one of the most legally adept mega-corporations in the consumer industry today (due in no doubt to Howard Lincolns legacy )- they do not ever do anything without legal consult first – I would know because I used to work for Nintendo Australia and am well aware of their standard operating procedures. (They apply worldwide…)

They do this for console that installed homebrew in general (also legal), that could brick your Wii. Not just warezloaders.

First of all when we decide to mod a console either by hardware or software we know in our minds that this is slightly dodgy and could void the warranty. This is something we all should accept or not do the mod! Second, if something then goes wrong either because of the mod or not why should we expect Nintendo to repair the fault. For example if I bought a new PC from say compaq or dell or some other company and the computer came bundled with the latest windows release. But then I decided to setup a dual boot Linux system and it buggered up the computer. I would never send the machine back to the company to be repaired. I would accept that it was my fault in the first place and therefore my responsibility to fix it!

Now here is where I’m going with this thread. I think that if we brick our Wii through mods or homebrew use. We should’nt then go crying to Nintendo expecting them to repair it and then cying even more about what they charge for the repairs. Or trying to disguise what mods we had installed before sending it off for repair. We modded a perfectly decent console for the purpose of playing homebrew or illegal backups or both. This is the price we pay for trying to be clever!

Instead of crying about it we should be focusing on fixing the problem ourselves. All it takes is one clever hacker to find a way of restoring a wii back to factory defaults. And then we can cut the big N out of the loop. Plus there is money to be made here too. I have fixed many semi bricked consoles and even some that were so screwed up that its ended up taking days to fix. I see this as a challenge despite the frustration. It encourages me to find out as much as possible about the consoles hardware and software.

So stop crying because you bricked your wii, get off your behind and fix it yourself. And if you find a way to fix it. Let everyone know so they can send you their consoles for repair instead of Nintendo. And you can charge for this service!!

Now we need to get installed bootmii as soon as possible. Then, if the wii is so broken that does not boot, They will not be able to check if there is homebrew channel or not. And if it can boot, we can use bootmii to remove the homebrew channel and put bootmii in some “silent” mode.

In the other side of this… for people that uses software modifications for running pirated games, even 210€ are a low cost in exchange for the benefits (the price of 4 games).

I think that Nintendo is only generating viral advertising with this. The money is not the problem. Replacing some hacked wiis with “unhackeable ones” is not usefull for them: the viral advertising of “do not install homebrew or you will have to pay 210€ no matter what problem you have with your wii” is the important message.

But they are forgetting that the games are so expensive that if you are planning to buy more than 4 games, it is cheaper to place a modchip or install some “softchip” on it. Even more: the message of Nintendo can be traduced as modchips are better than soft mods, because many of them can be removed before sending the console for repairing and they are transparent and compatible with any game and soft mods are not.