the Switch 2 is a waste of money.
This was inevitable. Everybody who was ever going to buy a Switch has already bought one. How else are they going to make more money? Keep increasing prices and keep cutting costs (enshittification essentially). These two will be the centre of all big business for the coming years.
I really appreciate iFixit and how they help bring the discussion of repairability to the forefront.
i was looking at them originally to fix my pixel 5a phone, than realize it wasnt worth the cost. not because ifixit, but because of the unreliability of the 5a at the time, i changed to a non-google phone this year.
I implore people to watch the teardown guide itself, which is way more nuanced than the clickbaity The Verge article.
I’m not a fan of the use of glue in the joycon sides and the fact that the color strips under the controllers are hiding screws. The bigger complaint is the battery glue, especially because you can imagine aftermarket parts with bigger capacity could be a thing here. I definitely wouldn’t open this thing unless it has a problem.
Some components are still modular, which is nice. I can’t imagine the sticks not having changed design is great, but it’s entirely possible they’re way more durable, which the teardown acknowledges. Keep in mind that, while all controllers can drift, most controllers don’t fail that way. It’s possible to build this type of stick without widespread issues. Time will tell, though.
The switch 2 gives out complete apple vibes. It’s repairability is pretty horrid after watching the teardown guide.
Controllers will fail sooner or later and will have to be replaced. Here it will end up replacing the whole stick just due to glueing small parts of the controller.
Battery will also fail sooner than later. The whole thing yells planned absolesence…
It absolutely does not. Nintendo hardware is built like a freight truck. The teardown guide references the JerryRigEverything “durability test” and I am pretty sure unless you use it to bash someone’s head in this thing will last (and even then).
What it reeks of is Nintendo wanting to make things cheap and sell you multiple of them. Which they do. My launch Switch 1 lasted until I got a Lite and then an Oled and I expect this one will do pretty much the same. That doesn’t mean their joycon won’t need fixing or replacing (and I did have to open and mod my Lite, which wasn’t easy).
I think Nintendo hasn’t adjusted its industrial design to modern repairability concerns yet, which is a very Nintendo thing (and definitely not the same as Apple artificially holding down the repair ecosystem to itself artificially). I like neither option, but I’d take Nintendo’s approach over Apple’s any day. They absolutely need to comply with modern right to repair regulations, though, and that will mean doing more than they’re currently doing.
What it reeks of is Nintendo wanting to make things cheap and sell you multiple of them
That’s the “apple like” planned obsolesence part I was refering to. Think about airpods for example.
The teardown doesn’t touch on part serialization, although the ability to brick your device if they “feel like it” is on PAR with Apple.
Although I’m not sure we should be arguing about which of the two is shittier when both are already deep in non compliance of “modern right to repair regulations (lmao)”
No, big differences at play here. Nintendo won’t plan obsolescence, they will give you a base version at launch (multiple, if they can, since they’re handheld devices and a single family may conceivably want a couple) and then they will iterate on the form factor with a cheaper, slimmer alternative and a bigger, premium alternative. None of those will stop working or break at any point, though. They don’t care about them being replaced. In fact, they prefer if they aren’t, given they make a cut of the software, too.
They are planned to stack on each other. Sell you multiples for multiple users. Apple can’t do that trick, because everybody already owns a phone and the software is backwards compatible and interoperable, so they need to push you to replacement hardware. Nintendo’s on a different business.
The remote bricking is not planned obsolescence, it’s Nintendo’s draconian opinion that they own every part of the hardware and the software fundamentally, so emulation, user modding and jailbreaking are crimes against humanity. They are wrong, but they will continue to enforce it aggressively even beyond what is legally established. This is because it goes fundamentally counter to their hardware design, which relies on cheap-but-robust devices you can give to kids that are built with imaginatively repurposed older tech. They see enthusiasts improving on their price-optimal design as a threat and will send ninjas to stab you if you disagree.
I disagree, but there are degrees of separation here. Nintendo still needs to be forced to provide replacement parts, specs and so forth, though.
If you design a product to be intentionally difficult to repair, using subpar parts, is it not planned obsolescence? I really don’t get what you are about there. Unless you require some sort of an internal clock to force brick the device to be considered planned?
Everything else is correct and I agree.
It’s not planned obsolescence if your device is meant to last for decades. You could argue about the joycon if they had done that on purpose, but given that they ended up having to replace a bunch of them it seems pretty likely that their business model is to sell you four pairs to play with friends, not to keep reselling you more as they break.
Nintendo’s business is not based on the product becoming worse artificially to upsell you on a replacement. Their model is to keep making incremental replacements and then drop a generational upgrade every decade or so. That’s not how planned obsolescence works. You don’t get artificial performance degradation, deliberately fragile parts or artifical restrictions to repair via signed components. People can (and many do) repair Nintendo hardware on third party repair services with third party replacement parts, and from what iFixIt is saying that doesn’t seem to have changed.
Which is not to say Nintendo put ANY thought into repairability here. They clearly expect you to buy a Switch 2 and keep it until you buy a Switch 2 Lite. This thing is very new and that may yet change in both directions. But so far all I see here is the same old “we built this to be cheap and durable”, which is fundamentally not Apple’s “you’ll buy one of these every two years and if it breaks you will come to us for a replacement and like it” approach.
I mean, it’s clearly not meant to last decades given the battery situation.
I feel like you’re biased in favor of Nintendo. “They make durable products” while also being infamous for the joysticks drifting. Those don’t seem to gel together. Maybe they’re hard to totally break, but they seem to be fine with selling products that degrade pretty quickly.
I don’t think I am. They had a significant isue with joycon drift. I do think some of it was overreported, in that a big issue with joycons is that they have absolutely garbage-tier connectivity, which can also manifest as the stick being “stuck” as the receiver keeps the last direction held to mask intermittent connectivity. But even with that, the sticks were prone to physical issues, at least in the earlier runs. It’s unclear how well newer sticks hold up in comparison.
But that is perhaps the biggest technical issue Nintendo has ever shipped, and their handhelds have been knwon for being insanely rugged since the original Game Boy. The Switch is perhaps the most prone to cosmetic issues, but it’s still a remarkably solid little tablet. It breaks under extreme abuse, just like the DS ended up with torn hinges and scratched plastic screens, but it’s nowhere near fragile. It’s a toy built for kids, so it’s built for more physical abuse than your average phone. That’s not a defense of Nintendo, it’s a very conscious decision they’ve made as an industrial design approach and a business model. It’s not good or bad in itself.
Great video. That’s a disappointing outcome though.
It was interesting to hear though that Nintendo hasn’t made any replacement parts available for the original switch, despite the fact that New York State apparently requires this by law.
I wonder if they’ll be forced to comply with that at some point. There are probably other jurisdictions that require this or that will require this soon. I’d love to see some pressure applied to companies that don’t make replacement parts available.
At this point I trust in the EU to force Nintendo to play the right-to-repair game.
Yeah, the EU has shown they’re serious when it comes to consumer protections. It’s great to see!
For example, coming into effect in 12 days, on the 20th of June, for smartphones and tablets:
-
Durability: Devices should be resistant to accidental drops and protected against dust and water.
-
Battery longevity: Batteries must endure at least 800 full charge and discharge cycles while retaining at least 80% of their original capacity.
-
Repairability: Manufacturers must make critical spare parts available within 5 to 10 working days, and continue offering them for 7 years after the product is no longer sold in the EU.
-
Software support: Devices must receive operating system upgrades for at least 5 years from the end-of-sale date.
-
Repair access: Professional repairers must have non-discriminatory access to any required software or firmware.
They will also have to include a sticker on packaging that has standardised information on it concerning energy efficiency, battery life, repeated drop test results, battery endurance in charging cycles, repairability score, and water/dust protection rating:
Does that go into effect for all devices on sale, or only for devices released after that date? Also, that software support section is great. That basically means all phones need atleast 6 years of support
Only new devices released after June 20th.
-
Not that Nintendo can’t just withdraw from regions that have some level of consumer protections.
The EU is way too big to just withdraw from
Not a problem. I wasn’t gonna buy one amyways.
I will, used in a few years. Assuming emulation isn’t rapidly done again.
I thought Nintendo devices were built like tanks, nes, snes, all old consoles are still playable. How long did the new Nintendo devices like switch last? I think the screen and battery are the main limit of devices life.
Lol nah, they might be generally well designed, but they’ve been making it all in China (until now for tariff bypass) for decades now, so you don’t get the Japanese OEM quality shine you usually get out of other electronics.
Most of the repair will be for damaged consoles. Switch 1 battery lasted pretty well considering most phone batteries begin to deteriorate around 4 years.
Aside from that though, I expect the joycon drift issue to be unfixed which will be the real issue, especially as warranties expire.
Part of the difficulty is that Nintendo have hitsquads that will blow your city if you even look sideways at one of the screw.
Blow a whole city? That’s dedication
There is nobody with more dedication than IP lawyers and Nintendo.
Haha when they did that blog post to change the switch from 8/10 to 4/10 saying they don’t normally do that but wanted to make sure you could compare the 2 properly against the original, I thought they were making space for the 2 to be above the original, not that they were going to mark it as worse 😅
Not surprised, given it’s Nintendo. My Switch Lite has seen very little use since I got my Steam Deck, tho.
I mean yeah, I wouldn’t expect otherwise. Nobody hates their fans more than Nintendo does.
Ironic because apparently the fan is actually pretty easily replaceable.
I wonder if Nintendo will ever embrace repairability like some phone companies have
I guess there’s more competition in phones than in devices that can run Mario Cart
Or Mortal Combat.
If you consider how hostile they are with everything else, I highly doubt it. Nintendo never again
Not surprising. Nintendo is turning into the Apple of the video game world.
Nintendo has been the Apple of the video game world since the N64.
NES actually, a good number of PC games got made because folks didn’t want to deal with Nintendo and Sega arguably got into the market cause Nintendo was too strict in their publishing policy. That last bit is ironic given the AI slop and hentai on their online store, nothing against the hentai I just think it’s funny.
Even Apple makes more repairable hardware.
Yeah once sued. They weren’t going to offer it up otherwise, I suspect something similar is going to have to happen to Nintendo.
Just don’t break it smh.
Oh good idea I hadn’t thought of that
you forgot the /s
“smh” serves the same purpose here.
What’s the appeal of the switch for when PC handhelds exist ? I just don’t get it why you would buy this unless you had children. Nintendo Games are good but they’re really not that good either.
People like playing Nintendo original games. Mario games, Zelda games, etc.
The only way to legally play those is on the switch.
Yes, even non children play those games.
You can legally play them on an ROG Ally or other Pc handheld . It is not illegal to emulate a game that you own.
But I get that it’s just that I don’t think Nintendo games warrant buying an entire system anymore. If their consoles had more third party support maybe, but I just don’t see the value at the current price of the console.
It is not illegal to emulate a game that you own.
In a lot of place it is illegal to circumvent technical protection measures, which is technically required for almost anything starting from NES era. Making it impossible to “legally” rip your own games (yes, even in places where there IS a tax to allow private copy of content you bought). So the only way you can do that is by downloading it, where there is no “legal” way to distribute it in the first place, so “legally” you can’t download it either.
I’m not defending the practice, I’m saying that if you’re going the “legal” defense, you’re going to have a bad time if it gets attention. Fortunately, suing every single gamer on earth is not an attractive prospect.
In those place it’s usually sharing which is illegal, downloading is fine as long as you already own the media.
And where would you download from, that is seen as legal sharing of someone else’s IP?
The closest you could get is by locating the ROM file in some PC remakes, assuming there’s no “protection” on them.
Again, playing around the “legal” way to do things. In reality, it’s different.
Battery life and weight. That’s what keeps me from getting a pc handheld. Although the switch 2 is so big I don’t know if that holds true anymore
The steam deck has great battery life (better than my original switch by a lot) unless you’re playing something super heavy, and it’s so much more comfortable to hold that the bit of extra weight isn’t that big a deal. I don’t think I’ve touched my switch since I got a deck
