Germany: Nintendo has lost a court appeal over Switch eShop pre-order cancellations

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It is not uncommon for Nintendo to be dealing with legal issues. Most of the time, these involve copyright infringement allegations. However, there is occasionally a situation where Nintendo ends up in court because of a policy they’ve enacted recently, or some official hardware that they’ve sold.

For example, you may recall the court case that Nintendo has been dealing with in Europe over their policy of Switch eShop pre-order cancellations. In the past, Nintendo did not allow consumers to cancel a Switch eShop pre-order. The court battle first began in 2018, and originally began in Norway. The matter eventually moved to Germany, because Frankfurt, Germany is where Nintendo of Europe’s headquarters is located at.

After a couple of years, Nintendo had won. Then, the company adjusted their Switch eShop pre-order refund policy in September 2020, allowing cancellations of eShop pre-orders to occur up to 7 days before a game’s release. However, an appeal was filed shortly after the verdict. And as of yesterday, the original verdict has been overturned. This time, the German court of appeal ruled in favor of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, or VZBV. As for what will happen next, it’s very possible that Nintendo will simply adjust the pre-order cancellation policy again, as they had done when the original verdict was issued a year and a half ago.

Source



mynintendonews.com