Nintendo Switch 2 Is Getting a Replaceable Battery in Europe (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0184331954
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/07/06/1636252/nintendo-switch-2-is-getting-a-replaceable-battery-in-europe
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/games/961632/nintendo-switch-europe-discontinued
> The news comes as Nintendo is making a bunch of changes to the rest of its lineup due to EU regulations requiring user-replaceable batteries. Starting this summer, the company says it will start introducing updated versions of various devices on "a rolling basis," ahead of the regulations coming into effect on February 18th, 2027. "There is no difference in functionality between current products and revised products containing user-replaceable batteries," Nintendo says.
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> The Switch 2 is the most notable product being updated -- the new version is expected to start rolling out in the fall -- but there will also be versions of the Joy-Con controllers, Joy-Con 2, Switch 2 Pro Controller, and N64 and GameCube Switch controllers with user-replaceable batteries. "Due to a variety of factors, revised products may not become available in all European countries simultaneously," Nintendo notes.
[1] https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-Switch-2/Information-about-upcoming-battery-related-revisions-to-some-Nintendo-products-3132901.html
[2] https://www.theverge.com/games/961632/nintendo-switch-europe-discontinued
Let me guess it will not come to America (Score:2)
Let me guess it will not come to America. Region locked and even accessories will be region locked to not work here. Cant have freedom unless you force it.
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Several threads ago people were complaining how the EU is always fining these poor US based mega corps.
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Nintendo is US-based?
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When you have a mindless America-centric view of the world, _everything_ is US based!
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I would expect it will eventually come to the US as well, because manufacturing two versions is just more expensive. Kind of like RoHS came to the US effectively. But it may take a few years.
Should be worldwide (Score:1)
This should be the case worldwide with anything that has a battery inside it, otherwise the device can become a hazard, and eventually Nintendo will no longer repair it.
One of the advantages of the EU (Score:2)
EU technical regulations are not just there to replace power bricks with confusing and utterly incompatible USB-C variants, they can make sensible decisions, too. The obvious next step would be to promote a fixed number of standard battery sizes.
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> EU technical regulations are not just there to replace power bricks with confusing and utterly incompatible USB-C variants, they can make sensible decisions, too.
At no point did the EU technical regulation ever propose anything confusing or incompatible. Quite the opposite, they stipulated that compliant products must all negotiate using the same USB-PD mechanism.
Your actual complaint is shitty products not following the regulations. Just how are regulations supposed to fix that?
> The obvious next step would be to promote a fixed number of standard battery sizes.
No that would be truly dumb. Custom battery sizes are credited as a major factor in scale down of electronics. There's a reason even the EU stopped short of requiring *all* batteries to be r
We all know what will really happen (Score:2)
Ah, yes, the "people installing Chinese counterfeit napalm garbage from Amazon in their switches act"
I'm not proposing a way around that, just saying that's what's going to happen.
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No, even worse. The data link between the battery pack and the product will be encrypted. No genuine battery, no useful gadget.
"John deerification" is coming for everything with replaceable parts unless suitable legislation is passed to stop this nonsense.
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That will last all of 5 minutes before a workaround is found.
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> Ah, yes, the "people installing Chinese counterfeit napalm garbage from Amazon in their switches act"
> I'm not proposing a way around that, just saying that's what's going to happen.
The EU is not America. There's a reason we for example have several orders of magnitude more e-bikes while at the same time having significantly lower rates of lithium battery fires. For the most part every idiot doesn't just throw random Chinesium chemistry batteries into their devices. The first party battery market is huge in Europe.
It must be quite a redesign (Score:4, Informative)
Here is iFixit's guide for replacing the Switch 2 battery (last updated 9 May 2026). It is not a simple procedure - harder even than most smartphones I've had to deal with. JIS 00 screwdriver, head and prying to remove stickers, more screws, snap features to pry open - all just to get the case open. Then more screws, unplugging and removing components, some solvent to (hopefully) loosen the battery glue, so that by Step 36 you've removed the old one. A few more steps to install the new one, re-apply thermal paste (?!), reinstall and reconnect the internals, snap the case back together, reinstall fasteners, reapply stickers (if they hold!). Only 63 steps - piece of cake!
Changing this to make for an easy user replacement will be a substantial redesign. And this is all to the good.
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There's a lot of "make work" backed in during product design to discourage repairs by the consumer and to drive up the cost of servicing. This involves the use of special tools, and methods of attachment which easily break unless you are properly trained. Just take a look at doing an oil change in the latest cars for a good example.
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> This involves the use of special tools,
A JIS 00 screwdriver (Japanese Industrial Standard) is far more of an open standard than the Phillips screwdriver.
Sure the phillips patents are expired now, but JIS was never patented, it was published for all of the world to reproduce as they wish. You know, like an open standard.
(I don't particularly care how "standard" a flat-head screwdriver is compared to either, flat head is a technology that should be banished to the depths of tool hell.)
Compliance version (Score:2)
The fact they're not doing it everywhere indicates they're doing it in Europe through gritted teeth. EU already watered down the legislation so Apple & other phone makers could use "waterproof" as a loophole around the requirement, but for devices that can't like the Switch they're going to do it begrudgingly.
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Consumer protection laws would upset our corporate masters.