Okay, not the DS…more specifically, my DS. Much to my horror, about two weeks ago my beloved Nintendo DS crapped out on me. The touch screen completely stopped responding. It first happened right as I was playing the first boss in The Legend of Zelda and The Phantom Hourglass; I thought the defect was the game, since I immediately tried several others and they all worked fine! So I returned the game to the Ebay seller I bought it from. And just a few days later, the DS quit on me completely. No game responded to my stylus.
To my shock, I was genuinely, truly upset. While I am no pro-gamer (I will admit, I do not own a Wii, Xbox, or Playstation…commence to whisper and point), I am more of a geek than I realized. I think it was always there, but since I’ve known my best friend Virtualgirl and her husband (my Mario Kart Double Dash arch nemesis/partner in crime), they’ve helped to me recognize and embrace the geek within.
So since I was at home visiting my parents at my DS’s time of death, I convinced them that they should totally buy me another one (they were not convinced…) It just depressed me, the thought of dropping $130 on a replacement for something that worked perfectly fine just a week before.
I tried to take it in to Game Crazy to see if they’d take a broken DS, or if they had anyone there who knew how to fix it. No on both counts. So, I turned to Ebay in my time of need. In searching for broken DSes, I found quite a few; some with my same problem, some with cracked screens, some with broken hinges. And they were all being auctioned…and bid on. So I took a chance and posted my very first item for sale. To my pleasant surprise, it all went down smoothly. I got $35 out of the sale (better than nothing!) and treated myself to a brand new cobalt blue DS lite.
The moral? Well, there is none, I guess. Though, I think the culprit for my broken DS was Rayman’s Raving Rabbids 2. I banged the hell out of that screen with my stylus trying to beat those mini games (I still freaking love that game, and would still highly recommend it. Just be gentle on your screen). But ultimately, I guess Janis Joplin really knew what she was talking about : You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone!
March 6th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I never realized how much I missed my DS until I los it when we moved last year. At first, I was like “Oh well, I don’t really play it that much anyway.” … But when I realized how much I missed playing Nintendogs months later, I was going nuts looking through boxes until I found it.
I feel for you. But I am glad that you were able to get a good buy on it and that in turn helped you buy a new one to play with.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Ahhhh… I would cry my eyes out if my DS Lite died!!! It’s my baby. ;_;
March 7th, 2008 at 12:51 am
awww.
I mourn the loss of your baby! I should send flowers…..
March 7th, 2008 at 5:57 am
How do you like the Lite compaired to your old one?? Slick right?!?!
March 7th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Nintendo customer service is REALLY awesome, you didn’t mention it, but they may have done something for you if you would have given them a call.
My friends DS had like 3 pixels go out, and they sent him a brand new one.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Sadly, my DS was way past warranty. They would have charge $75 just to try and fix it. And at that point, it was worth upgrading!
March 7th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I used to work for Nintendo and you can always call there 1800number and get your DS repaired if its the original one they will upgrade you to the DS LITE
guaranteed! and you get to choose your color that are only available here int he us.
It should only cost you between 50 and 70 bucks if I remember correctly. Nintendo will take care of you just hope you don’t get a CSRep that doesn’t want to help, we had a few of those when I was there
March 7th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Damn, I should have posted my woes here first before I bought my new DS Lite. You guys know all the inside scoop!
March 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Wow, I didn’t know that either… maybe that’s why the old DS’s go fast on ebay!! LOL!
March 7th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
You know, I made a comment on this yesterday saying how I was sorry your ds broke but I was glad that you got a new one. But I never posted. And when I went to try and post again, it said that it noticed I was making multiple post and did not let me post my message a second time even though nothing posted the first time. But the sentiment remains, I am glad that you were able to get a new lite in the process.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
lol its all good
but if anything goes wrong with you DS LITE like it stops working, aka won’t charge, touch screen will not calibrate that sort of warrnty things. You can always call nintendo and get it repaired and or get a replacement and only pay $5.00 for the shipping. 
of course it’ll be the same color but you’ll get it in 5 days or less 
depending on how fast ups is. Thats my 2 cents from this former nintendo csr 