The advent of refund options on the Origin and Steam services has shone a glaring light on the major console manufacturers, as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo lack the option for refunds on their consoles. Now the big 3 actually need to show that they’re consumer friendly, as they don’t offer any refunds for broken games at time of writing. It’s a hard and long process, even if you actually manage to get your money back. This is something that needs to be fixed right now, as it should have been there a long time ago and definitely from the start.

I have never been a big fan of Origin or even Steam, but I manage to see when they’re doing good things for the consumer. The console manufacturers still have a long ways to go when it comes to consumer rights. The refund policy is non-existent at the moment and even when you get hacked you don’t get your money back by refunding the games that were bought. Sony has had several bad costumer service incidents that have made people question their customer service. I, for instance, did not have the best experience with a season pass for the Sam & Max episodic games, Where I was told they couldn’t do anything, even though I had purchased it.

When a console manufacturer like Sony won’t give a person his money back when someone hacks their console, there’s something seriously wrong. These companies should do the right thing and implement this in their their policies as standard. I have done some consumer advocacy myself; I’ve contacted the consumer rights organization here where I live to try and force them to put it into their policies, because, as they currently stand, they go against the consumer laws here. Thankfully, I recently got an answer from them and they will be taking a look into it. I don’t know the time table of when they’re actually going to do anything, but at least I, and they, have tried doing something regarding this.

If you feel that these companies are not doing the right thing you should exercise your consumer rights and contact the companies or your local consumer watch dog. Give them the information and get them on the road to changing their current policies.

Have you had a bad customer experience on the major consoles? Got any horror stories to share?