Was this done under warranty? If not, how much did it cost? My 3DS has had a flaky R button for the better part of a year now and I haven't figured out if I should try to contact Nintendo about it or just buy a new 3DS.
I am indeed under warranty but the warranty doesn't cover physical damage and when I called Nintendo Support they told me initially it would be $125 plus shipping and handling (about $10) to fix. HOWEVER, that price IS negotiable and I was personally able to get them to lower it to $75 over the course of my conversation as follows:
When the guy told me the price, I told him this price was too much for me as I am a college student (this was key) and could not afford this and would instead seek the option of a local game store.
He then said the problem with this is that I would not get a warranty and that through Nintendo's repair system I would get a brand new warranty which I agreed was nice but still not a solution to my money problem.
He understood and lowered the price by $25 and said he would wave the shipping and handling fee for me. I thanked him but said that still was under my budget and told him I could only afford about $80 this month.
He then said he would lower the price to $75 with no shipping or handling since Nintendo appreciates people trying to go to school. I thanked him profusely and settled on this price.
I have no doubt I could have gone as low as $50 but I felt $75 (about $80 w/ tax) was fair. I highly recommend this.
Other notes:
-If you decide to go this route, make sure you have most of your stuff saved to a separate SD card or your computer just in case as the customer service rep I spoke to said that they initially try to rebuild the 3DS from the ground up to try and fix the problem and if that doesn't work, they replace it. This won't hinder your play coins or downloaded games but could impact your saved progress in some games depending on what they do.
-If they have to replace the system, you might get a different color. If you have a specialty or rare 3DS, this can be a problem as they usually seem to have basic blue and sometimes red in stock (when I called, they only had one red system and the rest were blue. My friend had a minor issue with spots on his Pikachu system that they could not fix and he had to change it over to a basic blue system although Nintendo did offer to send him back his original system without and fixes)
-Make sure you have a printer available to print your shipping label within 30 days of your repair application.
