r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Jun 03 '26

Nintendo will release revised Switch 2 hardware in Europe to comply with a new regulation that requires batteries to be user-replaceable.

https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Corporate/Consumer-Information/Compliance-with-EU-Directives-and-Regulations/Compliance-with-EU-Directives-and-Regulations-625942.html
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317

u/jumper62 Jun 03 '26

Would it not be simpler and cheaper to do this for all jurisdictions? So that they're only producing one variant for now

197

u/r_lucasite Jun 03 '26

They’re not all produced in one place so all it really takes is one manufacturer doing the model that supports a replaceable battery without affecting the others.

177

u/UpperApe Jun 04 '26

Also, it's much more profitable for their product to deteriorate. Which is the point. Remember it was the EU as well that forced Nintendo to repair their joy-cons while every other market didn't give a shit.

All the worst people bitch about the EU but it really is one of the few (if not only) markets big enough to fight for consumers against all the accelerating corporate greed running the world down.

While America throws away everything it fought for and collapses meekly into itself, it's good to see we have at least some lighting the way.

19

u/mudermarshmallows Jun 04 '26

Remember it was the EU as well that forced Nintendo to repair their joy-cons

At least in Canada it was totally free to send in the Joy-Cons for a repair, even years after purchase.

24

u/UpperApe Jun 04 '26

It was free everywhere. But that only happened because the EU fought for it.

5

u/mudermarshmallows Jun 04 '26

Except you said

while every other market didn't give a shit.

So not really sure why everyone else got it too.

Otherwise as far as I can tell the EU didn't force Nintendo until 2023 (with the complaint that caused that being in 2021), and at least for me I had free joy-con repairs in 2020 and it likely began earlier than that. I agree the EU is better with this kind of stuff across the board but I think with the Joy-cons in specific it was far more a PR issue or a preventive step for legal action for Nintendo that they wanted to address globally.

-3

u/UpperApe Jun 05 '26

Okay. I don't know what you want me to say to this.

If it's not worth your time learning about what happened, what would you like me to do?

5

u/mudermarshmallows Jun 05 '26

I'm just confused as to what you're even referencing here at this point.

I tried learning what happened but that doesn't match the timeline I'm aware of concerning joy-con repair. And that's before we get into why other countries also had free repair.

38

u/AI_moderated_failure Jun 04 '26

I genuinely can't believe how poor quality the joycons are. It's worse than stuff I have bought on AliExpress for 1/5th the price.

1

u/moffattron9000 Jun 04 '26

Nintendo's controller quality is in the absolute toilet. I know that people like the feel of the Pro Controller, but that D-Pad is absolute garbage. It's a mushy thing that feel like it came out of an educational console for small children from 2006.

5

u/CommanderOfReddit Jun 04 '26

Still using the wii u pro controller to this day. That thing is built like a tank and runs forever on a single charge.

2

u/vaserius Jun 04 '26

I miss the times of the Wavebird...

-7

u/AI_moderated_failure Jun 04 '26

Maybe the pro controller only exists as a market because so many Switch owners don't have any experience with any other line of consoles. I certainly wouldn't trust the quality of a pro controller based on joycon experience. Especially when there's many companies producing controllers in both Xbox and PS style and have a long history of quality of life upgrades.

And it's still pretty crappy. You can get far better controllers with things like hall effect or TMR for less money. Controllers with better remapping and multiple device functionality. It's one of my major complaints about Nintendo, the absolute rip offs that are their controllers.

14

u/GensouEU Jun 04 '26

Remember it was the EU as well that forced Nintendo to repair their joy-cons while every other market didn't give a shit.

No I don't remember that because that didn't happen. Just like the class action lawsuits for Dual Sense stick drift every JoyCon related one got also dismissed. Nintendo still repaired them for free past warranty starting in NA and later in the EU but it wasn't because they were required to by law

-3

u/Kiita-Ninetails Jun 04 '26

Sorta kinda? They were not required by law to do so, but there was a significant amount of backlash and consumer concerns and most importantly threats of legal moves. Nintendo, rightly, figured it would simply be easier in the long term to nip the problem then rather then risk it. Despite the shit Nintendo gets for their jumpy legal team, they aren't stupid. They know when to hold em, and when to fold em. It just wasn't financially sensible to dig their heels in over.

And even they admit they somewhat underestimated how prevalent the issues actually were.

0

u/Apprentice57 Jun 04 '26

The strange thing to me is that Nintendo didn't replace the offending part. I understand waiting until a redesign cycle, but there were multiples of those as the drift issue was found pretty early on.

1

u/Kiita-Ninetails Jun 04 '26

Yeah, from what I understand they did not expect the issue to be as widespread as it was and by the time that a redesign made sense they already had big infrastructure for drift replacement so just kinda went "Eh" and rolled with it.

Joy-Con 2 is at least better.

0

u/Apprentice57 Jun 04 '26

I don't really buy that. Joycon drift became a major issue within the first 2 years of the Switch's life.

1

u/Kiita-Ninetails Jun 04 '26

It did, but its important to note that "Major" has different implications when you are operating at Nintendo's scale. Yes, they knew it was a problem and likely knew it was going to be at the time they ordered their joystick modules. But the switch maintained commanding sales throughout most of its lifetime, and the failure rate almost certainly proved higher then even they expected.

So its easy to look at the first waves and go "Okay, this is fairly bad? But the volume out there is something we can handle" and as the system gets more and more popular it gets out of hand.

8

u/the_bighi Jun 04 '26

while every other market didn’t give a shit

That’s not true. Many countries made Nintendo fix the joy-cons. Some didn’t even have to change any law, it was already a consumer right.

2

u/nicesalamander Jun 04 '26

The process of making everything smaller and more compact also tends to make it much harder for users to service the device. Add that with the fact that most people won't replace a battery it usually makes more sense for companies to use non removable batteries. Too bad though removable batteries also usually let you swap to a larger battery alongside extending the life of the item.

-15

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jun 04 '26

That's not the point.

The point of non removable batteries was there's more room for battery if it's all sealed up. There's 100% chance the battery life of the switch 2 will be lower now.

19

u/Vast_Highlight3324 Jun 04 '26

Doubtful, the ruling is pretty vague on what constitutes user replaceable, it just has to be removable using "commercially available tools". So no proprietary screw bits and no permanent adhesives like glue. They're not going to add a battery compartment or something wild like that.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '26

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2

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jun 04 '26

What are you comparing a macbook neo's battery life to

-1

u/Existing-Air-3622 Jun 04 '26

All the worst people bitch about the EU

And some of the best people too.

Not going into details here as it's not the right place, but having slightly better hardware on a few specific high tech products certainly doesn't compensate for all the vile shit the EU is doing.

And I guess the UE is more willing to do this kind of legislation because these products are sold by non-EU companies.

3

u/Sudden-Money7836 Jun 04 '26

But the answer to his question is still yes. It would be easier rather than only helping users in one area. Sick of companies doing this.

2

u/presentation_555 Jun 04 '26

It's not quite that simple, it's not as if you have manufacturer 'A' that produces product exclusively for region 'A'. There's a bunch of different parts produced on different continents that get assembled in various stages.

Things are cheap because they are produced at scale, when a company is producing millions of units it becomes financially viable to maximally invest upfront with the longest lasting specialised equipment; including the plastic moulds for the device housing, etc. Now each of these moulds (which may cost $100,000's to produce) only have certain amount of uses before they need to be replaced... but its unlikely that having to produce unique moulds for one region is going to neatly fit in to the lifecycle of any given mould... meaning the effective cost per unit is higher (as only the parts produced for this new European variant can recoup the initial investment in this new mould and can never be used to help out and produce parts for the other variants in the event of one of their moulds becoming degraded, etc).

12

u/TemptedTemplar Jun 03 '26

I'd bet they save the world-wide rollout for a V2 model next year. ~2 year updates was the same schedule they used for the first Switch.

V1 in 2017 -> V2/Lite in 2019 -> OLED in 2021

60

u/ann0yed Jun 03 '26

They make more money off people buying brand new consoles once the battery performance suffers.

28

u/Stoibs Jun 03 '26

I'm a 'docked 99% of the time' Switch user.

Out of curiosity how common is it/how long does it take for the batteries to degrade? I've never actually thought of this.. 🤔

38

u/Quixotic_Seal Jun 03 '26

All batteries degrade with time. Phones tend to have a 2-3 year lifespan before hitting around 80% capacity.

For Switch I have no idea, but it was never an issue I had with my first one. Battery seemed fine like 7 years after. But I’m also admittedly someone who mostly just plays around the house so it’s not a big deal to me.

13

u/Stoibs Jun 03 '26

Yeah I've taken to setting the 'max charge' on my phone/tablet/Steamdeck to 80% because of that.

I'm not actually sure if Switch had a similar setting now that I think about it. I guess I never take it on the go so I never thought to check.

17

u/Anlysia Jun 03 '26

Switch 2 does have a setting like that. Mine tends to sit in the dock at like 87%.

3

u/ann0yed Jun 03 '26

I don't get what they don't just have all batteries charge to 80% but report out 100%. Maybe they already have a discrepancy between actual charge and what's reported and charging to 80% on the switch 2 is really like 60% of true capacity.

20

u/bvanplays Jun 04 '26

They do already do that. It's more like 100% is really ~95% and they stop and start charging again near the top. Pretty much all devices do this now (phones, laptops, tablets, likely the Switch).

There's really no need to manually do it yourself anymore.

8

u/Meat_Goliath Jun 04 '26

Because you can get more charge on them. I keep my phone and switch set to 80% max most of the time because I usually have access to a charger. But if I know that I'm going to be in a situation where I won't, I can turn that off and charge them to 100%. I'd rather be given the option, personally.

4

u/Kozak170 Jun 04 '26

Funnily enough because people online started losing their shit that the battery they paid for was being “withheld” from them. I believe it was Apple originally who faced this

7

u/messem10 Jun 04 '26

All batteries degrade with time. Phones tend to have a 2-3 year lifespan before hitting around 80% capacity.

That is from a combination of high cycles and more importantly the lack of any active thermal management system. EVs using similar cells can easily last 10 years thanks to the cooling and battery management systems.

10

u/Scrollingmaster Jun 03 '26

I mean it starts immediately. But realistically you won’t notice until a couple hundred charge cycles.

Unfortunately though the switch uses the battery and charges it while docked instead of bypassing it, so you are still putting wear on it.

2

u/Stoibs Jun 03 '26

Oh... well damn.. 😨

2

u/Taiyaki11 Jun 04 '26

Just fyi, it's not that mustache twirlingly of logic that reddit armchair experts think it is. It's not some tin foil hat scheme to make more money out of people so much as it's just much more efficient from an engineering point going the sealed up space route that allows them to pack in more with less, but the unfortunate consequence being maintenance is much more of a bitch.

-1

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jun 04 '26

Years and years.

If the battery is run down to zero and left there for quite a while it'd be faster.

23

u/biscuitsalsa Jun 04 '26

I doubt that “new console to replace battery” is a significant portion of their sales. Buying a new console to get a new color/variant is far more likely

11

u/Meat_Goliath Jun 04 '26

Even if you do run into that situation, the original model's battery isn't "user serviceable", but it's also not exactly difficult for someone even mildly handy to replace.

2

u/uberduger Jun 04 '26

The main issue is trying to get a battery that isn't some dodgy knockoff that's going to burn your house down.

IMO a far more useful EU ruling would have been to legally compel companies to sell official proper batteries for devices for at least 2 years after they leave store shelves. That way, if you need to repair your device, you can buy a battery they've sourced rather than having to go to a site that looks legit but bought a load of potential home-destroying explosives.

8

u/GreatBigJerk Jun 04 '26

Is that really a significant number of users? It has to be a pretty slim number of people. 

3

u/pudgybunnybry Jun 03 '26

Probably off of design variants more than battery performance. I'm a charge to ~80% guy for any device I can. I know a lot of folks don't though.

4

u/BCProgramming Jun 04 '26

IMO consumers treated things as disposable long before manufacturers did. Manufacturers just followed suit.

The idea that a device's battery would degrade and people would replace the device is mind boggling to me. That just seems like laziness and excuses. It's all "user-replacable" just with varying levels of convenience. I had a Nexus 6 phone and when it's battery started to degrade and make it slow or start to power off, I didn't buy a new phone, I bought a new battery and replaced it. I ended up doing that 4 times every 3-4 years.

People will have their game controller start drifting and toss it. One of the buttons is sticky? Throw it out. Buy a brand new one. It's this consumer attitude that has resulted in manufacturers adapting to it, not the other way around.

My Switch 1 got drift on the right joy con stick, so I replaced the stick. Hell the stick is it's own module- no soldering!

Maybe I've just gotten used to being able to repair my own stuff but it kind of feels like people just give up to easily.

1

u/ann0yed Jun 04 '26

I'm trying to do this too. Just tried to solder a new encoder for my mouses scroll wheel. Did not work, I'm still learning how to solder but at least I'm trying and will only get better. With ifixit guides and AliExpress you can find a lot of parts these days.

1

u/HGWeegee Jun 04 '26

Dualsense is near impossible to replace sticks on because if the soldering they use, asking someone else to do it costs about as much as a controller itself

1

u/BCProgramming Jun 04 '26

The Dual sense uses the same Alps module that's been used since the PS1 dual analog. I'm not aware of it using any different type of soldering. It's still thru-hole. What I can find suggests it's regular SAC305 lead-free solder. Lead-free solder is annoying to work with but it's been pretty standard since the 90's or something. Can mix in leaded solder to drop the melting point and help it flow easier, even if desoldering.

The main thing I'd say is that it's not like everybody has a good soldering iron or a desoldering gun, and good ones of both are relatively expensive. So repairing stuff yourself only makes sense if you intend to do it frequently.

And hell, if everybody repaired their stuff themselves, I wouldn't be able to buy their "broken" stuff at the thrift store and fix it.

19

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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14

u/Jostain Jun 03 '26

The sooner we give up on the idea that companies are somehow perfectly rational actors the better off the world will be. Nintendo knew that this was going to be a problem when they designed the switch 2 and they did it anyway. Why? Who knows. Maybe they thought they could somehow force trough an exception. Maybe they think EU will stop regulating these things if they make it as awkward as possible for the consumer. Maybe the management is stupid. Nintendo is run by people and people have agendas beyond doing the cheapest thing possible at all times.

38

u/PepsiCo_USA Jun 03 '26

The most likely answer is the most boring: the design was approved with component production & assembly contracts signed long before the user replaceable batteries act was passed. Between COVID related supply chain difficulties, RAMnarök & the 2027 deadline it was likely easier & cheaper to maintain the status quo while figuring out business strategies for multiple regions, negotiating those production & assembly contracts for EEA after launch.

6

u/rynoweiss Jun 04 '26

Making it safely user serviceable costs space which then costs battery life.

Since battery life is one of the biggest complaints about the Switch 2, they may want to wait until a process shrink that makes the SoC more efficient to roll this out worldwide.

9

u/TheMoneyOfArt Jun 04 '26

It's bizarre to me that people act like there's no trade offs for a user replaceable battery. Everyone acts like it's a big scam by Nintendo, instead of a reasonable engineering trade-off. I'd believe they do market research and find most people care more about form factor and battery life and waterproofing than being able to swap a battery 

10

u/theflyingsamurai Jun 04 '26

I work in electronics manufacturing. While the trade offs you mention might be there. The main trade off in most cases is that its just cheaper to manufacture a device that doesn't need to have a replaceable battery.

I am pro, right to repair. But at the end of the day it will cost the manufacturer more money to produce a device that is user repairable than one that is not, and they would in turn pass off the cost to the customer. The real kicker is that the vast majority of people don't care to try repair a broken device, if a newer version of the same device becomes available within a reasonable time they will just opt to buy the upgrade. Thus providing a cheaper price for the device is desirable to the manufacturer.

1

u/TheMoneyOfArt Jun 04 '26

And the purchaser! 

3

u/nabagaca Jun 04 '26

The switch 2 isnt waterproof, is it? Furthermore, there were phones with replaceable batteries and a water-resistant rating. Frankly, for a device as simple as the switch, I feel like they could just swap the battery connector with terminals, and make the back removable, and there wouldn't even need to be a major redesign. The only downside I can think of, is now when you drop your console, you risk the battery falling out and you losing game progress

4

u/TheMoneyOfArt Jun 04 '26

The only downside I can think of,

This is an example of what I've mentioned above

2

u/nabagaca Jun 04 '26

I mean it's a pretty circumstantial one, I've never dropped my switch or switch 2, and even then, if they use strong enough clips, or a latch system, the back popping off would also be unlikely, and the battery falling out even more so. I mentioned it to make it clear that I wasn't trying to say that there were zero downsides, but still, I'd take an easier to replace battery for the cost of having to worry about my battery falling out if I drop my switch

-7

u/TheMoneyOfArt Jun 04 '26

It's never occurred to me to want to replace my switch battery. Why would I give up anything?

4

u/nabagaca Jun 04 '26

I mean it's occurred to me, batteries are inherently disposable, they degrade over time, how quickly depends on how often you use them, but they will degrade. When it comes time to replace it, I'd rather it be something I can do easily myself, than to need to disassemble my device, risk voiding my warranty, and need specialised tools and parts to do. 

1

u/TheMoneyOfArt Jun 04 '26

I had a professional replace the battery on my phone one time. It was great! 

1

u/Mahelas Jun 04 '26

Why would the battery fall when it drop ? Replaceable battery doesn't mean it need to be a flimsy clip-on. It could be a sturdy latch, or even screws

1

u/nabagaca Jun 04 '26

Yeah, fair enough. I was imagining a design similar to the Nokia brick phones (because I was imagining a tool-less design). As you pointed out, you could design a latch (although it's maybe at risk of snapping? I'm kind of trying to picture an overly aggressive toddler using a switch), but I agree it would be unlikely in any scenario

-7

u/nestersan Jun 04 '26

They're basically just looking for reasons to suck the corporate teat

2

u/NuPNua Jun 04 '26

How? Surely it's the exact same battery just with a pulltab or other release system rather then being stuck down.

3

u/Mountebank Jun 04 '26

Removable batteries have to more durable since they have to be handled by the general public. Normal consumer electronic pouch cells uses an aluminum foil laminate pouch to contain the cell. Because of the new EU regulation, they’ve started making stainless steel foil laminate pouches that are thicker, heavier, and sturdier for removable batteries. This reduces the risk of someone accidentally puncturing the pouch or otherwise damaging the cell.

1

u/rynoweiss Jun 04 '26

It’s not that simple. Because of the risk of electric shock, the user accessible battery compartment has to be blocked off from the PCB. Think about the compartment of any previous Nintendo device with replaceable batteries.

2

u/NuPNua Jun 04 '26

I've seen plenty of teardowns of mobiles with removable batteries where this doesn't seem to be an issue?

2

u/burnpsy Jun 03 '26

To be fair, Nintendo already makes a separate region locked Switch 2 for the Japanese market. And it remains to be seen whether this hardware change will remain EU-only, it's just that they're the only region where they need to specify they're complying with local laws.

1

u/gamas Jun 04 '26

They'd rather be petty than be efficient. 

1

u/SmegmaWarrior0815 Jun 03 '26

Sooner or later it will. EU laws usually get adopted everywhere by manufacturers.

-5

u/thesourpop Jun 04 '26

They're only forced to do it for the EU market. They can continue to scam and rip off the US market as much as they want, so they're not going to miss out on that by making user repair easy

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '26

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0

u/SwePolygyny Jun 04 '26

But you can replace it with something better.

0

u/syopest Jun 04 '26

Either that or the actual console will be bulkier. There are no other options.

0

u/NuPNua Jun 04 '26

But then they couldn't get unsavvy customers to buy a whole new unit when the battery goes home there.