So there was nothing "limiting" them from making it already with user-replaceable batteries, they just didn't care enough until EU forced them (like all the smartphone brands). Love EU.
> The revised products will be available on a rolling basis in territories where Nintendo of Europe conducts business, either directly or through a distributor, namely: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
>From mid-February 2027, almost ten years after Nintendo Switch launched in March 2017, Nintendo will no longer sell to retailers hardware in the Nintendo Switch family of systems – specifically Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite and Nintendo Switch – OLED Model. Sales of Nintendo Switch hardware on Nintendo Store will also end in mid-February 2027.
Understandable, but maybe that shouldn't be buried in the FAQ...
But there is at least some argument that smartphones nowadays have some pretty crazy waterproofness that I'm not sure is physically possible with a replaceable battery?
This means they will lose the revenue of that product-line (currently ~15% of their total hardware unit sales according to their fiscal report [0]), which may help accelerate the need for a "lite" version of the Switch2 to recover this market-segment...
...or not, because console sales is generally dropping and there's actually no competition to Nintendo in the handheld console segment...
Bleak times ahead for the gaming industry, and for the gamers...
The below products will not be replaced by versions that contain user-replaceable batteries in Europe:
- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Controller for Nintendo Switch
- Pokémon™ GO Plus +
- Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo Switch Lite
- Nintendo Switch – OLED Model
- Nintendo Switch Pro Controller
- SEGA Mega Drive Control Pad for Nintendo Switch
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) Controller for Nintendo Switch
Nintendo will no longer offer the above-named products on Nintendo Store after mid-February 2027.
"Brussels Effect" is the new "California Emissions."
The redesign is because the ease of accessing the batteries did not comply with the new rules. The pro controller in particular requires almost complete disassembly to get to the module, and the Switch 2's battery uses double-sided adhesive which is finicky. Joycons can also be a bit finicky to navigate for the uninitiated.
Also, as the device is Japanese, it uses JIS screws rather than Philips (in addition to triwing), which could surprise some. These are superior for service - Philips screws are specifically designed to strip during assembly to prevent over-torquing - but they do require you to have the right, "exotic" screwdriver. As JIS screwdrivers are compatible with and superior in bite even for Philips screws, it's a good habit to just always use those instead for electronics. iFixit kits and such include them.
I celebrate user-swappable batteries and I think I like the battery regulations. I just don't think the Ghost of Iwata is under your bed twirling a Wario moustache while thinking about how to screw you over. The current Switch battery situation is simply a result of user-swappable not being a requirement, among the countless other requirements already in contention.
At the very least, the design will be more complicated to accommodate replaceable batteries. That costs money. There's a lot more to "limiting" than functionality.
The change surely eats into their margin per device, so they prefer to keep the higher margin for the rest of the world and recalculate their margin for europe.
However interesting: "The Americas" sells 34% of all Switch2 in the world [0]. I wouldn't expect the US to mandate the same changes, but if e.g. Canada or Brazil also demand replaceable batteries, it could push the needle to making it a default HW-feature of Switch2...
The biggest Switch issue by far is joystick drift on joycons. I've replaced 3 on my Switch 2 already and we have the same issue on the new Switch 2 in the office.
Every Switch that becomes unplayable where fixing it costs more than a $20 battery replacement is a console that is not buying games from the Nintendo eShop.
I'm not so sure. The first laptop I bought, a Titanium Powerbook, had replaceable batteries. And even better than that: you could hot-swap them while the laptop was running on battery power, and the laptop wouldn't even shut off. It felt leagues ahead of even modern replaceable battery functionality, and honestly? After owning that laptop for years, I felt like I just wasted my money with that additional battery.
Part of it, I'm sure, was that I didn't have an external charger to charge the battery not currently in the laptop. But on the whole, it just didn't feel like it was actually worthwhile, and when Apple stopped shipping replaceable batteries, I've never missed it.
(Hot swapping the batteries really was awesome, though)
I imagine the various products had their specific own conflicts with the rules, like requiring too much disassembly (the Pro controller in particular has to be disassembled from the front first), or the Switch 2 holding the battery with double-sided tape. Not to mention that you might not realize that the screw are JIS spec, stripping them with the Philips screwdriver you found in your drawer. Also triwing.
Thanks to this regulation, they will the next time around.
The truth is that the product with the 16% reduced capacity (Switch 2 Pro controller) is 7g lighter and the one with the 5% increased capacity (Gamecube controller) is 5g heavier.
Besides those two, the general idea is that the capacity is the same with 2-3% extra weight.
The Switch 2 itself loses 1% of battery capacity, most other products none at all.
Your framing seems a bit selective to the point of being misleading.
Battery longevity varies based on usage patterns and likely other factors (temperature?), but it's normal to notice a significant reduction in capacity within 4-5 years.
And the amount of adhesive holding the old battery in made replacing it an unnecessarily hard and actually dangerous (risk of battery fire due to physical damage) process.
https://www.euroconsumers.org/game-over-for-faulty-nintendo-...
That's Nintendo's entire business model and the reason why they've been thriving since for ever in gaming and even the bad times where actually positive cash flow wise. They're not losing a single sale because the battery cannot be replaced, unless that sale was far from guaranteed to begin win.
>Battery capacity: 5172mAh, approximately 1% smaller than current version (5220mAh)
Through a combination of internal and external factors, lithium batteries go through irreversible chemical changes on every charge cycle. Total charge capacity always trends down. Depending on a large number of variables, this might happen quickly or it might happen so slow you might never notice at all. It's all down to how and where the battery is used because temperature is mostly what drives the chemical reactions.
The other thing is that lithium batteries which have been deeply discharged below safe levels are permanently damaged. Just like charge cycle wear, this can be immediately apparent, or something that goes unnoticed forever, but the cell is damaged and will never be the same. Recharging such a battery can cause physical damage inside the cell.
Point is, batteries are chemical cells. They don't last forever because most chemical reactions are not perfectly reversible. Their specific application and environment strongly affects how long they last. But we do know conclusively that when lithium batteries are kept hot and charged and discharged at high current (such as in a handheld gaming device), they degrade faster. Cells which are kept at a stable temperature and low currents (such as headphones) degrade very slowly and can last a long time.
If you look past superstition, there's an entire industry that's been rigorously studying this problem for decades. There's a lot of literature and evidence.
Lithium cells do degrade. How fast they degrade depends on cell quality and environmental factors. It is, unequivocally, a question of when a battery will fail. It might well be a decade or two, but it will fail eventually.
I try to keep my cell phones as long as I feasibly can. Every single one I've used for more than 3 years has had its battery fail (as expected for a device that sees such heavy cycling). My current phone is on its 3rd replacement battery.
E: DS4 = DualShock 4, DS5 = DualSense; these are the standard PlayStation controllers for the PS4 and the PS5 respectively.
For everyone else here's the full list:
Switch 2 Battery capacity: 5172mAh, approximately 1% smaller than current version (5220mAh) Weight: Approximately 411g, around 10g heavier than current version With Joy-Con 2 controllers attached: Approximately 548g, around 14g heavier than current version (approximately 534g).
JoyCon 2: Battery capacity: No change. Weight: each 2g heavier
Switch 2 Pro Controller: Battery capacity: 897mAh, approximately 16% smaller than current version (1070mAh). Weight: Approximately 228g, around 7g lighter than current version (approximately 235g).
N64 Controller: Battery capacity: No change. Weight: Approximately 234g, around 1g heavier than current version (approximately 233g)
GameCube controller: Battery capacity: 525mAh, approximately 5% larger than current version (500mAh). Weight: 215g, around 5g heavier than current version (210g).
We shouldn't be throwing away laptops, smartphones, or consoles - or soon, entire EVs, just because the battery has degraded.
And it was unnecessarily hard (actually dangerous due to fire risk) to replace it with a 3rd-party battery replacement due to excessive amounts of strong adhesive holding the battery in place.
Tech used to be fricken cool :-)
Because who cares if the controller lasts 27 or 30 days? (Or so, don't quite me on exact numbers).
The basic Joy-cons have no change to their battery capacity.
Non-replaceable batteries are worse for consumers and worse for the environment. The fact that you "do not miss" a better world, does not mean it is not better.
From my experience, it comes from costs generated by:
1. Additional R&D-work and QA for the modification
2. New supply-chain deals for lower-volume components
Current sales-volume of Europe is only a quarter of the global volume, so price-negotiation is based on a much lower total volume-forecast.
Even if not, Battery prices today are ~15% higher than in 2024 (I expect Nintendo signed the supply-deal in late 2024), it'll be hard for Nintendo to cancel their existing supply-contract before fulfilling it (!), move to a different component AND get the same/lower price.
--> Better to sell other regions as-is, fulfill the contract and hope for a better climate in a year.
3. Tooling/Assembly (Ramp-Up costs, different processes, QA,...)
4. Re-certification of HW for relevant bodies in that region (Europe is quite lean on this, CE-certification is simple compared to US FTC/FCC)
I can almost hear the conversation with Nintendo of America CEO about covering 1/3 of the cost to get the same SKU and him simply responding "No, we just raised the prices because of component-cost increase, we wait for the HW-refresh in 2H/2027"
I wouldn't be surprised if they plan to unify the SKU again with a premium "Switch 2 OLED", offsetting the additional costs, preserving the margin and having an additional selling-point...
Starting summer 2026, in preparation for upcoming changes in European battery regulations coming into effect in mid-February 2027, selected Nintendo products in Europe will begin to be replaced on a rolling basis by revisions that contain a user-replaceable battery. There is no difference in functionality between current products and revised products containing user-replaceable batteries.
The first revised products are expected to become available from summer 2026, with additional products becoming available in autumn, winter, and early 2027. Due to a variety of factors, revised products may not become available in all European countries simultaneously.
The table below shows the estimated earliest availability in Nintendo Store, although please note that these timings may change depending on manufacturing, distribution, and other factors. Availability at retailers may also vary, so please check with your local retailers in the future for more information.
| Product | Estimated earliest availability in Nintendo Store | Updated specifications |
Joy-Con pair (selected colours) | Different colours will be available at different times throughout the year, starting from summer | Battery capacity: No change Weight: No change |
Nintendo Switch 2 console | Autumn | Battery capacity: 5172mAh, approximately 1% smaller than current version (5220mAh) The included Joy-Con 2 controllers will also contain user-replaceable batteries. Weight: Approximately 411g, around 10g heavier than current version (approximately 401g). With Joy-Con 2 controllers attached: Approximately 548g, around 14g heavier than current version (approximately 534g). |
| Joy-Con 2 pair Joy-Con 2 (L) Joy-Con 2 (R) | This winter | Battery capacity: No change. Weight: Joy-Con 2 (L): Approximately 68g, around 2g heavier than current version (approximately 66g). Joy-Con 2 (R): Approximately 69g, around 2g heavier than current version (approximately 67g). |
| Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller | This winter | Battery capacity: 897mAh, approximately 16% smaller than current version (1070mAh). Weight: Approximately 228g, around 7g lighter than current version (approximately 235g). |
| Nintendo 64 (N64) Controller for Nintendo Switch | Early 2027 | Battery capacity: No change. Weight: Approximately 234g, around 1g heavier than current version (approximately 233g). |
| Nintendo GameCube (GCN) Controller for Nintendo Switch 2 | Early 2027 | Battery capacity: 525mAh, approximately 5% larger than current version (500mAh). Weight: 215g, around 5g heavier than current version (210g). |
More information will be shared shortly before each revised product becomes available.
Battery replacement kits for each product will be available to purchase from Nintendo Store in Europe in the future.
In which countries will these revised products be sold?
The revised products will be available on a rolling basis in territories where Nintendo of Europe conducts business, either directly or through a distributor, namely: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
Will I be able to choose which version I buy?
As products will be replaced on a rolling basis, it will not be possible to choose when buying on Nintendo Store: when the current version of a particular product is sold out, it will be replaced by the revised version.
For retailers, please contact your local retailer for more information.
Can you be more specific with the time frames?
The current estimated timings may change, depending on manufacturing, distribution, and other factors. More information will be shared shortly before each revised product becomes available.
I already own one of these products – are they no longer compliant? Do I need to do anything?
The upcoming changes in European battery regulations coming into effect in mid-February 2027 don’t affect products sold before that time, so there’s no need to do anything.
What about other products that aren’t listed in the table?
The below products will not be replaced by versions that contain user-replaceable batteries in Europe:
Nintendo will no longer offer the above-named products on Nintendo Store after mid-February 2027. Regarding availability at retail, please check with your local retailers in the future for more information. Products marked with * are only available on Nintendo Store.
What does that mean for Nintendo Switch consoles in Europe?
Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch – OLED Model will all continue to be manufactured in 2026, and should be widely available in Europe all year.
From mid-February 2027, almost ten years after Nintendo Switch launched in March 2017, Nintendo will no longer sell to retailers hardware in the Nintendo Switch family of systems – specifically Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite and Nintendo Switch – OLED Model. Sales of Nintendo Switch hardware on Nintendo Store will also end in mid-February 2027.
Regarding availability at retail, please check with your local retailers in the future for more information. Nintendo Switch has an extensive library of games that continues to grow, and Nintendo Switch owners can continue to enjoy all their existing Nintendo games and accessories, and Nintendo eShop, Nintendo Switch Online, and other services will all continue for the foreseeable future.
When will the revised Joy-Con 2 controllers become available?
Joy-Con 2 controllers that contain user-replaceable batteries will be included with the Nintendo Switch 2 console that contains a user-replaceable battery when it becomes available in autumn. At a later date, Joy-Con 2 controllers containing user-replaceable batteries will become available to buy separately, either as a pair or as individual Joy-Con 2 (L) and Joy-Con 2 (R) controllers.
What colours of Joy-Con will be available?
The below Joy-Con colours are planned:
Of course that doesn’t mean they should be hard to replace with some tools and effort.
To be fair back in those days laptops only lasted on battery power for a few hours at most (also old batteries had a very short lifetime compared to modern ones) so being able to swap it was an actually useful feature.
In the abstract, yeah, it's better. But the extra battery cost me a lot of money, and I did not feel it was money well spent.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Joy-Con+Battery+Replacement/113...
Most batteries are replaceable. The difference is the level of effort involved.
It did also run when plugged in with the battery removed, which is good 'cause the battery eventually failed. So this way I can still run it.
You must be newly hatched.
I have plenty of devices in my gadget box with non-replaceable batteries that pre-date Apple's iPhones, and even its iPods.
Big problem with the truly excessive amount and strength of adhesive holding the old one in place, and having a real struggle to remove it (even after trying with IPA and dental floss)
Just because something is standard fare doesn't mean it's the only option. Point is, it was quite common in the past.
This isn't about the government being your nanny, it's about the government, long term, building a better more sustainable society for everyone, as it should be doing. And I don't think there's a reasonable objection to that.