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Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

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Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#161

Post by Grombobulous »

brookst wrote: post #35
Grombobulous wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. 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.

Shorter battery life is just fine

For sure, and I don’t find carting a spare external battery around horrendous…it just seems like a non-water resistant device like the switch should have an easy battery replacement.

For one thing, Nintendo loves selling overpriced accessories.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#162

Post by asdff »

cogman10 wrote: post #137
deaton wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torx is also common and also way way better than philips. Really we as a society need to phase out philips screws yesterday.

Philips is great for what it's designed to do, strip out. But for electronics I basically never want that behavior.

I've stripped out every sort of head. It isn't the heads fault really. Lack of thread treatment and/or correct application of torque is the cause and can happen to any head.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#163

Post by philipallstar »

jackb4040 wrote: post #127
Waterluvian wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think customers need to be protected from themselves. If they don't like the hardware but buy it anyways because they really like the game, that's a choice. And I feel that when we're dealing with luxury goods, we should give consumers very broad discretion to vote with their money.

"Vote with money" is such a funny talking point in this discussion. It's a metaphor for actual voting, with votes, which the people already did, for politicians who are now protecting their interests. You just don't like corporations being told what to do.

"Voting" with money is an extremely direct way of influencing something - you clearly want it or you don't want it. People definitely wanted Switches already, hence Nintendo is a going concern.

Voting for politicians (if you even bother) who might someday vote for or against something like this is a far, far weaker signal, if any at all. Politicians can easily do things that are vastly unpopular - e.g. in the UK the mass immigration that is clearly deeply unpopular but politicians refuse to change it.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#164

Post by bmacho »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #144
arghwhat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, all the mentioned Nintendo products are already designed for battery replacement, with well-contained battery units and easy connectors, and the batteries are available and problem-free to replace unlike for a certain fruit company. 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…

Phillips Heads: The design is often criticized for its tendency to cam out at lower torque levels than other "cross head" designs. There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners.[15]: 85 [16] There is no good evidence for this suggestion, and the property is not mentioned in the original patents.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives#Phillips

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#165

Post by Animats »

The push for replaceable batteries is coming just as battery life is increasing.[1] We're already seeing that with electric cars. When solid-state batteries finally come out in volume, they should outlast the devices they go into. The big players are saying that solid state batteries in phone size should start shipping in 2027. Cars are further off.

[1] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/05/20/...

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#166

Post by yincrash »

Waterluvian wrote: post #82
nolok wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. The market will not decide on that, at least for the nintendo product. Your or your kid want the switch and the pokemon and mario and others game, you're buying the switch, you don't switch to something else because the something else allows battery switch. 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…

I don't think customers need to be protected from themselves. If they don't like the hardware but buy it anyways because they really like the game, that's a choice. And I feel that when we're dealing with luxury goods, we should give consumers very broad discretion to vote with their money.

As a regulatory decision, this isn't about protecting the consumer. It's about preventing an externality being handled by all of society, specifically reducing e-waste.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#167

Post by graypegg »

murderfs wrote: post #145
arghwhat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, all the mentioned Nintendo products are already designed for battery replacement, with well-contained battery units and easy connectors, and the batteries are available and problem-free to replace unlike for a certain fruit company. 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…

> Also, as the device is Japanese, it uses JIS screws rather than Philips (in addition to triwing), which could surprise some. My understanding is that Europeans also generally tend to not use Phillips screws, but Pozidriv instead.

Philips in PZ screws is generally going to cam out like a regular philips head, just because you're not biting into the top with the PZ... triangle bits? I'm sure there's a technical name haha. So you can get by with that, a self-selected crappy philips experience when you could've chosen pozidriv bliss.

Philips in JIS screws is an exercise in anger management. IIRC, JIS has a much wider angle on the bottom of the drive, making it sink into the head less than a philips drive would, so it's a great way to turn your philips driver into an artisanaly-rounded single-hole punch.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#168

Post by doctorpangloss »

arghwhat wrote: post #92
Zambyte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be clear, all the mentioned Nintendo products are already designed for battery replacement, with well-contained battery units and easy connectors, and the batteries are available and problem-free to replace unlike for a certain fruit company. 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…

Your comment is interesting but next time say "Apple," right to repair isn't really about this Portlandia-esque mealy mouthed nerdery your rhetoric trades in. The batteries cost "$1" so I should be able to just buy them and quickly replace them. It's that simple.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#169

Post by jacekm »

arghwhat wrote: post #92
Zambyte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be clear, all the mentioned Nintendo products are already designed for battery replacement, with well-contained battery units and easy connectors, and the batteries are available and problem-free to replace unlike for a certain fruit company. 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…

I think I've read somewhere that JIS was phased out after Philips standard included some of JIS features and that theoretically modern Philips screwdrivers should be compatible with JIS.

Re: Nintendo announces new product revisions in Europe with replaceable batteries

#170

Post by lapetitejort »

Kankuro wrote: post #130
arghwhat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, all the mentioned Nintendo products are already designed for battery replacement, with well-contained battery units and easy connectors, and the batteries are available and problem-free to replace unlike for a certain fruit company. 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…

I recently changed the battery of my Switch 1, if for most of the process it was easy, and I really struggled on two points. 1) the plastic part into which the screws are screwed broke, and it is tough to remove them. 2) ungluing the battery with isopropyl alcohol without breaking anything was very long for me. I recently changed the USB port of my Fairphone 4 and it was just unscrewing and screwing. So for me it is…

There's been some recent developments with removing batteries glued to the device: use floss or some other thin string and saw through the glue. The string won't pierce the battery and can fit in tight spots.
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