Monday, May 01, 2006

'Fixing' an N64

My brother bought an N64 off of eBay. The seller told him that it worked properly, and it was delivered in a shoe box wrapped in bubblewrap.

It didn't work.

The seller then told my brother that if it got broken in the post, then that's not his fault. Well, no. The responsibility lies with the seller up to and including the point at which the parcel is delivered to the buyer. Including the postal system. If it's been broken by the Royal Mail, it's up to the seller to put in a claim for compensation.

My brother asked me to have a look at it, anyway, to see if I could fix it. After a whole minute of investigation, I found the problem: the plug has had the fuse removed. Furthermore, the console-to-TV lead was missing (although this takes a standard TV lead, so that's not too much of an issue). I put a new plug on the lead, and used my console-to-TV lead, and it seems to work fine now.

Well, sort of fine. The analogue stick on the controller is absolutely dire, registering only when tilted completely to the left or the right. As an indication of how bad it is, I played Mario Kart 64 and struggled to win the Mushroom Cup races on 50cc.

So, basically:
  • the N64 could not have been working properly when it was sent off,
  • the Royal Mail did not break it, and
  • the seller, cdatoys, is a bit of a fibber.
My brother wrote to Mr Cdatoys, telling him that the console was broken, and the response?
i tried being reasonable with you but you left neg feedback, as far as im concerned youcan go to hell
Nice.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boo! Down with nasty eBayers!

An honest product for an honest buck, please!

Anonymous said...

in my defense, i didnt look in the plus because i thought theres no way that it would be that simple. and when you have a brother as clever as mine, its easier not to fiddle about with things!

Xexyz said...

You'd have got stuck when trying to plug it into the TV anyway!