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Nintendo rubbishes The Sun's 3DS dizziness claims

'Fewer than five complaints', not 'thousands'

Nintendo rubbishes The Sun's 3DS dizziness claims
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3DS

When it comes to reporting about video games, British tabloid newspaper The Sun is known to exaggerate.

Today's edition saw the newspaper splashing the headline "3DS SOS" across its front page - a story that claims "thousands" of people are suffering dizziness and headaches from using the Nintendo 3DS.

The report also claims that many retailers are offering close-to-full refunds for the handhelds, with retailers saying that they've seen a large surge of customers returning their 3DSs and complaining of vision issues.

However, both Nintendo and retailer GAME have hit back at the claims, telling MCV that The Sun is getting carried away.

"Recent reports are incorrect," a Nintendo UK spokesperson said. "The number of calls and emails with queries on Nintendo 3DS is in fact well below the rate experienced during past hardware launches and having spoken with our retail partners there are only a handful of people who have actually gone into stores to request a refund."

Nintendo also noted that the 3D slider allows players to turn the 3D off completely, nulling any possible vision issues.

GAME also backed up this claim, saying that it has received "fewer than five complaints" - well below the thousands that The Sun previously reported.

Both GAME and HMV claim that they are not issuing refunds on the 3DS - and in fact, The Sun has altered its original article since this came to light.

"Contrary to a report in today's media – which has since been corrected – we would like to make clear that we are not aware of any manufacturing fault with the 3DS console – which we have seen huge demand for, and that we have not issued any refunds for it and nor are we doing", said a spokesperson for HMV.

Have you had problems with your vision while playing the 3DS?

Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.