Japanese game developer Nintendo is known for providing excellent customer service after sales. Sometimes, depending on the case, the company goes so far as to extrapolate this responsibility. That's what happened, when technicians tried to fix an old Game Boy (the first) of a 95-year-old lady in Japan, and failed. So the company simply sent the experienced player a new unit of the exact model she had.
Recently a Japanese national newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, reported the case mentioned above, where there was a letter sent by Kuniko Tsusaka, the 70-year-old daughter of the lady who won the Game Boy. The newspaper text was shared by the website SoraNews24 and we could check what happened: Kuniko's mother loves to play Tetris on her Game Boy and it was simply the third one she had. The handheld console eventually failed when the 95-year-old became in poor health.
The first Game Boy was released in 1989 in Japan and was discontinued in the year 2003, thus making it impossible to purchase a new one in local stores, and it was not possible to repair the defective unit. Kuniko's grandson told his grandmother that Nintendo had a reputation for providing great customer service and that it would be worth trying to reach out to the company to see if there was any way to fix the problem. So she did and sent a handwritten letter to the company.
[Analogue Pocket] One of the best creators of high-end retro consoles is creating a game boy After a week of sending the message to Nintendo, the company replied saying that unfortunately the Game Boy was not repaired, as there were no more parts to replace the that had been damaged. At the same time, in the reply, it was said that the company was sending a new Game Boy that they found in a warehouse along with a letter wishing her to still play Tetris for many years to come!
The lady played Tetris for another 4 years on her new Game Boy, but sadly, she passed away at the age of 99. She probably broke an incredible record after so many years of playing her favorite game.
It's quite an emotional story and shows that Nintendo, like many Japanese companies, care a lot about what their customers think about their product and what experiences they are having with it. It is the opposite extreme of what we see in many cases here in Spain, where there are companies that even try to take advantage of the situation of consumers.
Are you a fan of Nintendo's handheld console too? Check out the modernized version of the Game Boy from Analogue, a developer of premium retro consoles. Also, a YouTube channel called Odd Tinkering did a complete restoration of a Game Boy Color (check out the video below).
Source: Gizmodo
