A story has surfaced online over the past few days telling the story of a 95-year-old grandmother in Japan who received a pretty heartwarming response from Nintendo's customer support team.
The grandmother's daughter, seventy-year-old Kuniko Tsusaka, has shared the story in a recent print edition of Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun. She notes that her mother always had her Game Boy with her to enjoy games of Tetris, but when she reached the age of 95, her health started to decline and her Game Boy stopped working.
Kuniko struggled to find any stores selling new Game Boys or anywhere that could fix the broken system in her hometown of Chiba, but her son mentioned that Nintendo offered excellent customer support. As it happens, when her son used the phrase 'kami taiou' (神対応), meaning 'god support' or 'divine interaction' to describe this excellent service, Kuniko misunderstood, thinking he actually said the word 'kami' (紙) meaning 'paper' (thanks, Kotaku).
This resulted in Kuniko sending her mother's Game Boy to Nintendo in the post, along with a written letter. Within a week, she received a response from Nintendo's customer support team, who said that they didn't have the necessary parts to fix the machine either. Instead, they found a brand new Game Boy in a warehouse and sent that along with a letter which wished the grandmother a long life.
The Tetris-loving grandmother lived until she reached 99. Kuniko said, "Up in the sky, she’s thankful, I think."
[source kotaku.com]
Comments (53)
Even though that Game Boy is brand new, it looks old.
Nice story though.
That is really awesome. It is sometimes really nice to see something like this from Nintendo instead of their recent 1 step forward 2 steps back approach.
Nintendo has always gone above and beyond, for me and any friend I know who called customer support. This is why Nintendo will always have my support and love and this story is another example of that.
That is just priceless....
I love this story! It’s things like this which will forever keep me coming back to Nintendo, how lovely.
Leave it to Nintendo to offer a replacement old console for free but be unable to replace their current joy-cons. Aww.
What a braw story which makes a change from the usual doom n gloom...
This wouldn't have happen if she lived in Akihabara, she should have had a new game boy in mere minutes.
Perhaps regularly playing Tetris helped keep her mind sharp.
But wait the seventy year old daughter of the grandmother? Oh I get it sorry, thought you meant her grand daughter was 70 years old
Nice story
And now she's dead.
So who got her Game Boy when she died?
She got to Tetris 99
@gcunit No one could pry it from her cold dead hands.
That is beautiful.
Nice story. I’ve always had good experiences when needing the customer support here in Germany, too. Nintendo and Microsoft help a lot and in a very professional way. Can’t say that about Sony though. Even the mails from the customer service are hard to decrypt. As if written by people who barely understand the German language.
I wish my grandma / mom / girlfriend / any lady in my life played Nintendo haha - this was such a sweet story. The fact that she mailed it in is glorious.
My grandmother loves playing the original Donkey Kong game, with "Jumpman". That's her favorite game. My grandfather's favorite is Ms. Pac-Man
A warehouse full of new old Nintendo systems..
This is heartwarming... but, also, I feel bad for a 95-year-old that has to squint at that green non-backlit screen. Someone should have at least given her a GBA SP or DS or something. Unless she has amazing eyesight for her age.
This is why I’ve stuck by Nintendo over the years. Yeah they’ve made great games that I love, but their customer love and care is even more amazing.
Through the years I’ve had to deal with them on occasion, and I’ve always received personal attention instead of automated responses, and they’ve always gone above and beyond the call of duty. Last one in recent history was a storm surge frying my Wii, which I told the service rep I couldn’t afford a new Wii, or repair costs at the time... they told me to send it in under the Smash update fix, and sent me a box to ship it free. Got my Wii back in 5 days, fully repaired without a charge, and with the Paper Mario disc still in the system lol.
I swear, it stuff like this that makes Nintendo feel way less of a corporation/company, and makes them feel more like the mom and pop shop on the corner you’ve been buying from since childhood.
1 person gets a Gameboy. Great marketing strategy by Nintendo. The masses will love the story and say how wonderful nintendo is.
Their customer service is by far the best. Every time I've called, ive been assisted and typically got what i was requesting. The last example was a game that came out this past summer, It's was a $30 game that was download only, and I played for a good 2 hours before I realized how much I disliked it. I called them up, explained my situation, and got transferred twice. They said normally they don't do this, but since I've never called in with an issue like this, they would waive it and refund my account. They're awesome in my book.
@1UP_MARIO I don't think Nintendo knew for sure that this story would spread online
Stories like this are heartwarming and still give me some hope for humanity. I'm very glad the dear woman was able to receive a replacement and keep playing the game she loved.
I've never had to contact Nintendo's customer support as of this writing (though I think it's only a matter of time), but I've heard and read feedback that indicates that their employees often go above and beyond the call of duty. I know someone who had to send in a Wii several years ago that their youngest accidentally broke (he thought the disk slot was a slot for a piggy bank). They sent back the repaired console along with all the coins that had been inserted into the machine.
First, I love the notion of a 95 year-old woman playing the Game Boy. Maybe it's a bit different in Japan, but many older people didn't consider playing video games when I was growing up. Now, this article and the Kotaku piece use the DMG in the picture, but I wonder if that's the actual type she used, or if it was another kind, and if Nintendo sent the same model back. My DMG only lasted a few years before it developed screen lines, and I didn't abuse it. It had lines both vertically and horizontally, so it wasn't as easy to fix as, I believe, vertical lines only would have been. Cool that Nintendo did that for her and that she lived another four years, hopefully able to enjoy playing during that time.
This is why Nintendo is the best.
Hopefully this is a true story, and not a sympathy scam like that one involving the Australian midget who is 30 years old
And people say Nintendo dont care about their customers
Here’s how you get “good publicity”. Be good, thoughtful and understand your customer’s passion. Marketing departments all over the world should be taking notes.
Well I have a less rosy story with big N customer support in Europe. They refused to repair for free my two joy-cons (the word 'con' describe them well), as it was out of warranty. The issue: the joy-cons SR and SL stopped working so no more local multiplayer possible. The repair would have costed the price of new joycons. These should be repaired for free as it's a faulty design
@1UP_MARIO yep and sony just don't give a f#@.
@HammerKirby your right most corporations don’t. It does put them in a positive light. Praise to that individual who dealt with it.
@Alexprime I’m not too into console wars but let’s be honest. Nintendo is one of the greediest game companies.
We love the games but it still stands.
@pgerhard It's common sense to make sure you're still within warranty because if you're not then they have every right to refuse you. The joy-cons do have that drifting problem, but your joy-cons simply stopped working.
@Torn what if you were completely wrong? Look on internet the SL SR issue, it’s a pretty common on, just didn’t get as much publicity then the joycon drift. It’s a faulty design (the battery overheats a component) and should be replaced even outside of warranty.
He could've used Amazon if there's nothing in town.
Amazing story!
@SwitchForce are you the real switchforce?????
@Varazadi no just a user name on here. But I like SwitchForce YT reviews and watch from time to time for what's new and exciting.
A very lovely little story. It would not surprise me is that customer service rep bought the replacement out of their own money.
Was it backlit?
A nice sentiment (if they have a warehouse full of unsold Game Boys, why can't we buy them!?!!?!?!??!? ), but get this lady a Switch with Tetris 99 already!
Cute story! Tetris is one of a few games that really can connect with people of all ages. It's a masterpiece and the GB version is still the best!
Cue the sea of letters to Nintendo.
@RazumikhinPG Exactly what I thought !
Everybody saying Nintendo is the best but forgetting this little detail !
That’s adorable. Good job Nintendo.
@RazumikhinPG huh? Mine was out of warranty when the ringfit leg holder damaged it. I made an RMA and they fixed it in a couple days.
@neogyo Introduce them to some games they might relate to, who knows. They might like them! Try games with easy controls, people who never played sometimes have trouble with games which require certain skill with controls and that might frustrate them.
She was able to reach lvl.99 and class change up to heaven with a big smile and a happy soul, she must have been a wonderful grandmother, I'm happy for her and may she rest in peace. 😊
@inenai thanks for the suggestion, yea I’ve gotten my girlfriend to play a tiny bit of Mario Tennis and Party, but she just really doesn’t like digital media much at all. Just feels too unnatural to her. I’m trying to sway her with Animal Crossing next month, so we’ll see how that goes!
@neogyo Good luck!
@inenai haha thanks! I've warmed her up with some of the ads...
Very nice story.
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