Cracked plastic hinge (Nintendo DS Lite)

I bought my son a Nintendo DS Lite on his last birthday. Actually, I should correct that. His grandad gave him the money to buy anything he likes for his birthday. His heart was already set on getting a Nintendo DS Lite. I just went to the shops with him to help him buy one. That was about seven months ago.

Looks normal enough, doesn't it? Look closely at the top right hand corner and you'll notice a missing piece.

Yesterday I posted the console to the sole Nintendo service centre in Australia located in Scoresby, Victoria. Why, you might ask, would it require to be serviced being less than a year old? Well, the plastic hinge that is holding the top screen has cracked. It came off eventually together with the “indicator” light.

This photo shows the cracked piece and the "indicator" light that has also fallen off.

The exact same thing happened to my friend’s son’s console. But instead of sending the console back to Nintendo for repair my friend tried fixing it himself. He bought on eBay a new plastic casing. Including postage it had costed him close to $50. And to that, I suppose, you would have to add the hours my friend had spent trying to fix the thing. After putting it all back together he realised he had to start from scratch as the thing did not work! But eventually he managed to get all working like new.

Anyway, after doing a quick search on Google I have found out that the “cracked hinge” problem is a common one. Nintendo, apparently, is aware that this problem occurs in a small percentage of consoles produced and is willing to cover the cost of repair. Hopefully this is true! I’ll find out in approximately two weeks what the real deal is.

Because of this cracked hinge the console is virtually unusable. The top screen wouldn't stay up.

Have you had the same problem? Please feel free to leave comments and share your experience getting it fixed!