Last week the lawsuit he involved Nintendo and the German Consumer Advice Center (VZBV) has finally come to an end after three years, with the victory of the latter. The controversy was centered around Nintendo eShop, for which the pre-order cancellation and refund functions were not considered flexible enough, a thesis that actually found approval in court.
Nintendo: how will the eShop change?
The cancellation policies of pre-orders Nintendo’s eShop have been closely scrutinized by European institutions for some time, just think that the lawsuit in Germany had been going on for three years. This latest skirmish saw a judge overturn a previous Nintendo victory last September.
The VZBV group argued that Big N’s current policy of allowing customers to cancel the pre-order of games booked only up to seven days before launch, it’s not flexible enough, as people cannot play the product to test it before the official release. The court to which this diatribe was submitted agreed with the institution.
In a case summary released on December 3 and translated by Nintendo Life, the VZBV explained that while Nintendo allows players to download full games after pre-ordering them, these pre-ordered games are not technically accessible until the release date, a practice that does not meet the legal requirements necessary to be exempt from EU 14 days return policy.
This law states that consumers have 14 days to return or request a refund on all products purchased online or over the phone, with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions concerns digital items such as movies and games, in these cases, once the content has been downloaded, it is not possible to request a refund or return.
However, the VZBV opposed this view, specifying that Nintendo’s pre-scheduled games cannot qualify in this exception to the rule, given that “Until the release date, the game is useless to buyers and Nintendo’s contract is not respected in any way. “Thesis that stood in court and that Nintendo was forced to accept. It is not clear how the eShop will change from here on out.