Nintendo Rebutts Norwegian Consumer Council Over eShop Refund Policy

Norway’s consumer rights agency, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) has filed a report against Nintendo for allegedly breaching European Union Laws by not allowing eShop customers to cancel their preorders.

However, it seems like Nintendo is standing their ground, and have issued a response to the NCC and things have gone ping and pong since then.

Nintendo’s stand claim that once the game is pre-loaded, the “performance has begun” even though the player is unable to play the game. To which the NCC disagrees, because the player cannot play the game until it is launched.

Nintendo then says, that consumers agreed to forfeit their right to cancel their pre-orders when they preordered on the eShop and it is ultimately up to a user’s choice whether or not to preorder a game, because it is not as if the eShop is going to run out of stock.

You can read a translated excerpt by Redditor Fawesum on PressFire’s article below:

• The Norwegian Consumer Rights Council has officially reported Nintendo to the Norwegian Government for breach of consumer law in Norway and the EU.
• The issue is that Nintendo gives no option to cancel a pre-order even though the game isn’t released.
• Norway is a part of the European Economic Community, which means they share many EU laws.
• Norwegian gaming site PressFire.no has obtained Nintendos letter to the Council.
• Nintendo in their reply say they don’t agree with the council, and that they aren’t breaking any laws. They say that, because you can pre-load the game instantly after pre-ordering, the “performance has begun”, and the sales contract is fulfilled.
• The Council says you can’t claim “performance has begun” until the game is playable, even though you’ve pre-loaded it.
• Quote from Nintendo: “The legal position expressed [by the council] that the right to withdraw cannot be excluded before the purchased game can be downloaded and launched is, from a legal point of view, untenable.”
• Nintendo sends out an email at the time of purchase informing of the right to cancel and how to do it, but since they make you agree that the right to cancel is forfeit when pre-ordering, this form seems to be there purely to comply with the law requiring you to send it out. In a test the website tried to immediately cancel the pre-order, but Nintendo refused.
• Nintendo end their letter by saying “at any time, users have the choice whether they wish to pre-order a game in Nintendo eShop or whether they wish to purchase the game after its release” and “it is ultimately each user’s decision whether they choose to pre-order a game or not”.