March 28, 2011 - Like millions of others around the globe, we were excited to finally get our hands on the new Nintendo 3DS as soon as it launched.  When we first saw a demo at E3 2010, our first reaction was: “Oh wow!”  After opening up our brand new 3DS on launch day, our first reaction was “Oh no!”

Turns out we have what appears to be a “Dead Pixel” on the top 3D screen.  It remains constantly white, and really stands out whenever the screen is dark or the camera is pointed at a dark surface. 

We did a quick Twitter search for “3DS Dead Pixel” and it appears we may not be alone, as there are a few other Twitter users reporting similar problems.

We were in touch with both Nintendo and GameStop today on this, and you can find the results of our outreach below in our "Updates."  It nets out for us personally that we're able to exchange the 3DS for a brand new one.

As far as whether or not this is a larger issue for Nintendo, it seems as of right now that this is part of the "expected" statistical defect level for anything that's manufactured with an LCD screen.  Although a few users on Twitter have experienced a similar problem, in general the problem for now appears isolated.

If anyone does have a similar experience, or if we hear more about this issue, we'll definitely let you know.

-Johner Riehl

UPDATE 1 - We just spoke with Hiram in Nintendo customer support.  After telling him our problem, he looked up "Dead Pixel" on his computer.  After about 45 seconds, he told us that "this is something that may happen" and that it's common in devices that use LCD screens, such as digital cameras.

The options from Nintendo are to use the 3DS for a couple of days and see if it interferes with gameplay, send the 3DS to Nintendo and they will fix it, or we can contact the retailer since we just bought it and they should take it back. 

We put a call in to our local GameStop, but they're still not open as of 9:15 a.m., but we'll contact them later today to see what their policy is.

UPDATE 2 - Spoke with our local GameStop, and they'll be able to accomodate an exchange for us.  So we'll get in there later today.  Looks like it's not necessarily a problem to fix the issue, but hopefully for Nintendo this isn't a more widespread problem.