Nintendo Loses Court Case Over Digital Preorder Cancelation Policy

Nin­ten­do may have to adjust its pol­i­cy when it comes to can­celling pre­orders on the eShop. This is due to a recent court case it lost in Ger­many. The cur­rent pol­i­cy is that dig­i­tal pre­order can be can­celed up to a week pri­or to that game’s release–this is a pol­i­cy the com­pa­ny had pre­vi­ous­ly tin­kered with last year.

Nin­ten­do Life report­ed the Ger­man court of appeals reversed the deci­sion that allowed Nin­ten­do to have the sev­en-day pol­i­cy for pre­order can­cel­la­tions to begin with. The court sided with the Fed­er­a­tion of Ger­man Con­sumer Orga­ni­za­tions (VZBV) and The Nor­we­gian Con­sumer Coun­cil, who argued that pre­orders should be held to the same stan­dard as oth­er dig­i­tal pur­chas­es in Europe, allow­ing a 14-day peri­od in which the prod­uct could be refunded.

The deci­sion (trans­lat­ed by Nin­ten­do Life) stat­ed that since the pre-load was not a playable game, that the down­load is worth­less to buy­ers and that Nin­ten­do does­n’t ful­fill its end of the exchange until the game’s release date. Nin­ten­do has not announced or made any changes to its pre­order pol­i­cy on the eShop. How­ev­er, this deci­sion may result in pre­orders being able to be refund­ed at least up until the game’s release date, with­in the EU of course.

Nin­ten­do isn’t the only com­pa­ny with restric­tive rules around dig­i­tal games. PlaySta­tion only offers refunds with­in 14 days of pur­chase if you haven’t start­ed to down­load the prod­uct yet. Although, they don’t have any restric­tions regard­ing pre­orders. Xbox has a sim­i­lar pol­i­cy, but it allows for games “in which you haven’t accu­mu­lat­ed a sig­nif­i­cant amount of play time.”