Customer Service: sony, microsoft, and nintendo

Ok, this post is about games, not the ukraine. games and customer service. I won't feel bad if you skip it.

so I recently received an email from Nintendo saying they'd send me some protective sleeves for my wiimotes and wanted to know how many I needed. This made me think of the other big 2, sony and MS.

In all my experience with sony (as a consumer) since the PS1 they've constantly fought the consumer. When my PlayStation decided it liked to be upside down and refused to play games until I acquiesced (and the CD is a flip lid, so it was extremely annoying), sony said I would have to pay to get this fixed, even though vocal gamers made it sound common (I think it was). Fine, so the sony logo and PS1 get to eat carpet upside down instead of resting on a nice table (on flat surfaces the top spins and slides, so you're likely to pull it off/around with the corded controllers). with the PS2 or PS3, the issues were word of mouth or in the media, but I didn't hear positive CS stories (more about charges for general use issues).

As for Microsoft, I bought the xbox and received a package one day with a new AC cable because a few, out of millions, had burst into flames or something. That was pretty nice, except for the flames part. After that I bought the 360 and it broke 2 times. Both times it was replaced for free by MS, shipping paid both ways. It was annoying, but at least they didn't charge me. Now they've extended a 3yr warranty to the systems and for those who had to pay, MS paid them back regardless of whether their repair was MS or that customer's fault.

Back to the Nintendo, when the Wii was released and users started letting go of the remote erroneously, Nintendo realized they had neglected to see this new behavior from new gamers and sent new wii-stronger wrist straps to make sure people weren't launching their remotes into objects and organisms. Now, once again, they're sending out clear rubber controller protectors for people who don't use the wrist straps to protect those users' property. Protecting people doubly from their mistakes and actions, that's the best CS I've seen from a console maker ever.

Nintendo really gets customer service, Microsoft does well on listening to what users want and then updating or adjusting, and sony, they tell people what they need and fail. I look at the UMD and sony's dead music formats and wonder when they'll understand that the customer is sony's reason for living, not the opposite.