Some 3DS Units Plagued By "Black Screen of Death"

[Ghengis John]

Thankfully, the issue only seems to be affecting a small number of units, though it's a little weird that this issue has only popped up during the European launch (it hasn't been reported in Japan or North America).

Well naturally, European 3DS' have better working conditions and therefor expect breaks and holidays.

 

[theultimateend]

errors on a nintendo system? thats weird, of all the console makers nintendo has always been noted for having the most reliable hardware

Me thinks Nintendo has been losing it's touch recently.

I bet we'll find out it was DRM gone haywire.

That's been the source of a few odd quirks in games or hardware in the last few years.

This is why I advised people not to buy the 3DS at launch and wait a bit.

Agreed. But what's with calling it the "Black screen of death?" It's a prompt to reset the system. The name given sounds like an intentionally incendiary means of evoking the "Blue screen of death" that means your PC has just become a paperweight.

Either way, I bet it won't result in a >50% failure rate

Blue Screens of death are Blue and Black Screens of death are black.

<_<.

 

[Slanzinger]

Further proof, if any were needed after the countless PSX games from my childhood which were either released ridiculously late in Europe or not at all, that games and Europe just don't seem to mesh all that well?

 

[blankedboy]

Sometimes I don't think the world will be happy until we've experienced every kind of *insert color here* of death. Considering how hyped this thing was I probably should have expected something like this. Still, i'm glad I didn't buy one yet.

And the worst thing is that Black is already taken by Apple. I got it within 30 minutes of powering on my first and only Mac. Smooth.

 

[Slanzinger]

Sometimes I don't think the world will be happy until we've experienced every kind of *insert color here* of death.

There are already quite a few of them. Even Purple, Green and Yellow! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_of_death

 

[Soviet Steve]

Anyone willing to bet these consoles are bricking due to attempts to hack/play pirated games on them? I heard that there was a patch released for this right after the Jap release to fix it and these are probably all guys who worked around the wireless attempting the hacks and never got the patch.

Hence why mainly European units are failing. Europeans are bad people by default, and anything bad happending in Europe is down to the fact that Europeans are statistically bad people who hack, break and pirate much moreso than other parts of the world.

We appreciate the sentiment.

 

[Dexiro]

This is why I advised people not to buy the 3DS at launch and wait a bit.

A bit? I'd say more like... forever.

Haha, to the people that actually wanted a 3DS I mean

I'll end up getting one in years to come when its nearing the end of its cycle and if i can get it cheap etc.

I don't see how this will be able to dethrone the DS until then with people.

It doesn't seem to be doing that well, really. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Well I had no idea it even launched until I checked earlier. I don't think it's out in Australia yet so that's probably why I didn't realize.

I just lol at the fact that people are essentially buying it to replay 64 games. Apparently that was supposed to impress me...

Because I remember thinking: "Ocarina of Time is okay and all, but what it really needs is 3D!"

The 3D is a huge gimmick, I've only demo'd the 3DS in stores and in that short time I went from "wow this 3D is awesome" to "actually it is a bit pointless".

It's a nice thing to have but it's hardly a selling point. On the other hand the graphical upgrade is really nice. Really it's just an NDS2 with optional 3D.