Nintendo, accounts, and (recovering) your downloaded titles?

[Rummy]

Hello all, I've found myself in some confusion after my recent 3DS breakage - and I think it may be due to different systems spanning different consoles.

 

Essentially I know people talk about the lack of a unified system(which would be great, and stop me paying the same game on three different downloads/systems) but that isn't quite what I want to focus on in here.

 

Mainly, I was wondering - if something goes wrong with your Nintendo console - where do you stand on retrieval of downloaded titles? Am I correc that the Wii was system specific, and could be recovered by Nintendo if they had the console? Whereas with the WiiU it's more tied to your NNID - which might allow future account based recovery of titles if neccessary(ie WiiU basic breaks, I upgrade - I can recover them?)

 

Most importantly however - the 3DS. Am I right to think that this works rather similar to the Wii system; where anything downloaded is tied specifically to the system? For a system designed to be portable - what happens in the event of your 3DS breaking and you replacing it yourself, or the system being lost/stolen?

 

The other reason I'm more bothered on the 3DS front is that I know some people have taken steps to going entirely digital with it including retail titles. Which isn't a bad idea, given it's supposed to be portable and a ton of tiny cards aren't neccessarily safely so. Then one day nefarious villain appears, and jacks your shiny 3DS/games collection! Or long train journey forces sleep, and you awake to rush off as it's your stop, when that confusing moment of realisation hits you as you turn and see your bag happily drifting away on your seat along with the train? What happens then? Will Nintendo be sympathetic to one's cause?

 

 

Orrr....am I completely wrong on the systems involved here?

[Cube]

My Wii was stolen back in 2007. It had a variety of Virtual Console games on it.

 

When I got a new Wii years later, I contacted Nintendo of Europe on the off-chance they could do anything. I needed to give them the following details

 

- My old Serial Number or Console Code (luckily, I emailed my Wii to make the light go off when I first got it, and I never delete emails, so I found the console code there).

- The NoE account the Shop Channel was linked to.

- A copy of the police report.

- My new Serial Number or Console Code.

 

After I sent this off, I was able to access everything shortly after (I think it was around 15 minutes).

 

In short:

 

- Put a note of the serial number and console code somewhere safe. Proof of purchase would also be wise (I didn't need it).

- Link it with your Club Nintendo account.

- If it gets stolen, definitely report it, and keep the police report.

[Aneres11]

Yeah Cube's advice is definitely the way to go.

Serial number is a must. A note of your eShop username and password is also good if you don't know it off the top of your head.

 

I'd imagine if you replaced your console after your original was lost / stolen / broken etc, then once Nintendo had unlinked your eShop account from the previous console (which they can definitely do), you will be able to link it to your new console and 'redownload' the titles you had previously bought digitally.

 

This is just me guessing here, not cold hard facts. I just presume it would work in this way after my experience with the Wii U and unlinking my eShop from my previous console etc.

[Rummy]

Yeah, but I confused myself in the process. You basically had, sold, and re-bought a Wii U right Aneres? For the life of me however I can't recall any linking or login details for my 3DS eShop account. I also note Cube had a crime number(though I've never experienced it burglary must suck hard balls); what if you didn't? Also what's to stop the obvious people buying loads, selling/faking a 'loss' or broken console and trying to dupe everything? That's what I thought would be the reason for refusing - because afaik even if you 'unlinked' it wouldn't stop access to the content on the console? Just leaves you buggered when re-downloading?