"There is no difference in functionality between current products and revised products containing user-replaceable batteries."<p>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.
It's not that they didn't care, it's that they did care in the wrong way. A non-replacable battery means people will be more likely to buy a whole new device if (when) the battery fails.
I think the more likely explanation is that there was not sufficient market motiviation to include the additional requirement of a user-swappable battery. ie. people care, but they don't care enough or in enough volume for Nintendo to decide it's required.<p>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.
I don't understand why battery failure is a "when". The only batteries I've ever had fail in rechargeable electronic devices were replaceable packs where water got into the compartment. Perhaps I've just gotten lucky?
Battery failure is a "when" because batteries have a limited number of charge-discharge cycles. Modern lithium-ion batteries have a life expectancy in the range of 300-600 cycles. So if you've never had such a failure, it probably just means you're not a heavy user of your devices.<p>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.
All li-ion batteries degrade over time, they may not fail completely, but the capacity will be diminished for sure.
How many years do you use them?
My take is they didn't optimize for something that a small percentage of users would have problems with.
It's not really a small percentage of users. All users will have trouble with the battery - eventually. My DS4s ran out of battery life in about three years of usage; I still have one of them that I use wired with my PC, but I absolutely cannot use it wireless. Likewise with my DS5s - one of them barely held a charge 2-3 years in. I'm sure with good battery management you can extend the lifespan to be closer to 5-6 years, like my M1 MBP from 2021 that still has a 9+h battery life (though down from 12 as I remember), but that only keeps them going for a little longer. It's just a fact of how Li-ion batteries work that they will lose their capacity eventually.<p>E: DS4 = DualShock 4, DS5 = DualSense; these are the standard PlayStation controllers for the PS4 and the PS5 respectively.
Props for using the Apple wording, I guess.
Battery life is shorter, and some are a tad heavier.
> 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.<p>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.
Except for an up-to-16% reduction in capacity, and slightly increased weight, depending on the product.
You mean an up-to-5% increase in capacity, and slightly decreased weight, depending on the product?<p>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.<p>Besides those two, the general idea is that the capacity is the same with 2-3% extra weight.
The 16% is for the Pro Controller though, to be fair.<p>The Switch 2 itself loses 1% of battery capacity, most other products none at all.<p>Your framing seems a bit selective to the point of being misleading.
seeing as the product itself already advertises that it's best to not charge it to 100% feel like nothing's being lost here no matter how one tries to spin it
Important to understand non-functional requirements (NFR). They’re saying the core features are the same. They are not saying they’re identical in weight, repair cost, water/dust resistance, battery lifetime, or cost.
Amazes me they don't just sell it like that everywhere because it sounds a lot like a product improvement...<p>> 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.
According to their latest fiscal report [0], Europe sales-volume of Switch2 is ~24% of the total global sales volume.<p>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.<p>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...<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2026/260203_2e.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2026/260203_2e.pdf</a>
Quite a few of these aren't EU members, some aren't even in Europe; do we know why they were added? e.g.: Switzerland or United Kingdom; but also Oman or United Arab Emirates.
It's easier for Nintendo of Europe to switch over everyone than to stock and supply 2 versions of every product. Also I'd bet most of their sales come from the EU countries where the replaceable battery requirement is forcing this new SKU deployment anyways.
Norway is in the ECC together with Iceland, but for some reason Iceland is not on the list where these SKUs will be available.
Storage, and distribution costs.
It's everywhere Nintendo of Europe (the subsidiary in the EU) operates.
It’s infuriating that it’s not just the default, especially for a game console where the majority of profit is coming from software sales.<p>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.
> Amazes me they don't just sell it like that everywhere because it sounds a lot like a product improvement...<p>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.<p>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.<p>(Hot swapping the batteries really was awesome, though)
I had an Apple laptop that had two bays, one on the left and one on the right. Usually, you'd have the battery on the left and the CD drive on the right. But for lots of people, battery life was more important than a CD drive on a laptop, so you could double your battery life by putting in a battery on both sides.<p>Tech used to be fricken cool :-)
Phones used to work like that too. I think all my feature phones and first Android phone worked if it was plugged in with the battery removed.
The thing about the TI powerbook was, it didn't have to be plugged in to hot swap the battery. You could do it when running <i>on battery power</i>. (It had a tiny internal battery, that could run it for like 20-30 seconds, so long as the screen was closed).<p>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.
Compulsory Apple-defending post is compulsory.<p>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.
> Non-replaceable batteries<p>Most batteries are replaceable. The difference is the level of effort involved.
> The fact that you "do not miss" a better world, does not mean it is not better.<p>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.
Brussels effect, please do your magic; thanks.
>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.<p>>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.<p>Understandable, but maybe that shouldn't be buried in the FAQ...
Related page posted on 04-jun-2026: "Compliance with EU Directives and Regulations" <a href="https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Corporate/Consumer-Information/Compliance-with-EU-Directives-and-Regulations/Compliance-with-EU-Directives-and-Regulations-625942.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Corporate/Consumer-Informatio...</a> (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48402926">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48402926</a>)
Interesting, in the fineprint they actually confirm that they set the "Switch 1" End-Of-Life by Feb.2027 and stop selling it.<p>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...<p>...or not, because console sales is generally dropping and there's actually no competition to Nintendo in the handheld console segment...<p>Bleak times ahead for the gaming industry, and for the gamers...<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2026/260203_2e.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2026/260203_2e.pdf</a>
Are the batteries in the Nintendo switch locked in anyway? Wonder if its viable that third party batteries could have an increased capacity.
So now the rest of the world will try to put a hand on these models. Lets see how this goes.
Honestly, amazing stuff. For all the flak that the EU gets this is absolutely an essential regulation
One might argue that this is one of the reason why the EU is getting flak: because it sets up regulations that lower some companies profit.
They will still get all the flak, facts never mattered.
And just like everything moving to USB-C, they won't get credit for the Switch 3 et al having replaceable batteries world-wide.
I'm preparing to release my first app to the App Store and they're currently requiring me to dox myself if I want to sell in the EU. Which facts am I missing that makes this not very inconvenient for me?
This. The top problems facing the world are gaming consoles' charging sources. Everything else is thankfully solved.
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Shameless plug: we're building an e-bike battery (compatible with Bosch controllers) that's also repairable, if some people like that idea!<p><a href="https://infinite-battery.com" rel="nofollow">https://infinite-battery.com</a> :)