A:AnswerI would say that’s less than a normal lifespan of the system. Under normal wear-and-tear situations any modern system should last significantly longer than that. I would recommend reaching out to Nintendo about this issue.
A:AnswerIf you want to play with others online and yes you have to make a Nintendo account that cost about 12 or 15 dollars a month. You only need internet to download games to the device
A:AnswerBuying for my 5 yo. As long as your child can follow along and your purchase games that don’t require lots of reading (if they can’t read yet) they should be fine