Some Nintendo Switches are Developing Cracks

[Shreyas1]

It turns out that some Nintendo switches are developing cracks along the backside

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the issue appears to be related to the type of plastic used on the console, and (we assume, as we're no experts here) its reaction to the high levels of heat kicked out when the machine is running at full pelt, either in handheld or docked mode.

Furthermore, it seems that Nintendo ( in the UK at least ) is charging £180  to fix the problem, even though a poll conducted by Nintendo Life has 20% of all users who responded have the issue

 

Here is a story by someone who also had the problem

 

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Recently I saw an article about Switch consoles cracking under pressure. Mine did this and cracked right near the power button, so I sent it in for repair to Nintendo UK. They emailed me, saying that it would cost £150 to simply put on a new back cover. Now this isn't really that complicated of a job, so why it would cost so much is beyond me. I phoned them up and they simply said that the pricing was fixed, and that whilst they thought it was expensive, they didn't get to decide. I told them that it wasn't my fault, and it was a fault of the system, so really I shouldn't have to pay, let alone pay £150, but they didn't really recognise my point, so I ended up just asking for it to be sent back.

 

This is the poll: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/07/poll_is_your_nintendo_switch_cracking_under_the_pressure#comment4561851

 

Luckily, if you live in North America, there seem to be no reports of this issue yet

 

My Opinion: I really don't like how Nintendo doesn't cover this under their warranty, and why does this even cost so much? Its literally a piece of plastic. You have to send in your switch to Nintendo too, and then they inform you as to whether your Switch is covered or not.

 

Source:http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/07/nintendo_uk_is_asking_for_as_much_as_p180_to_repair_cracked_switch_consoles

 

 

 

[bcredeur97]

I mean you can tell the thing is built as cheaply as possible...

 

im not really that surprised.

[divito]

Given the portability of the Switch, and the thin nature of the plastic in that region, it's going to be hard to say concretely whether it's solely related to heat and no other aspects of force, though 1 in 5 seems fairly high.

 

Perhaps it's down to a certain regional/production batch that may be affected, as to why there hasn't been reports elsewhere. They'll just continue collecting information so as to how to approach it.

[79wjd]

7 minutes ago, divito said:

Given the portability of the Switch, and the thin nature of the plastic in that region, it's going to be hard to say concretely whether it's solely related to heat and no other aspects of force, though 1 in 5 seems fairly high.

 

Perhaps it's down to a certain regional/production batch that may be affected, as to why there hasn't been reports elsewhere. They'll just continue collecting information so as to how to approach it.

20% of people who responded to the poll -- not 20% of switch owners. There's a massive difference between the two.

 

Only people who frequent Nintendolife.com (/any place it was reposted) or explicitly searched for "cracked switch" are going to respond to it.

[Cheezdoodlez]

I'd take this poll with a grain of salt. People with the cracks are far more likely to have answered. Meanwhile people without the issue might never have heard of this. I'm one of those people. 

 

That said the dock is pretty interesting. There is vents at the bottom of the switch but the dock blocks one of them and the other one is pretty obstructed with the back flap closed. The cracks seem to all be on the side where the vent is blocked off. Most of the cracked switches seem to have the cracks located on that side of the console. 

 

 

[Taf the Ghost]

I read that title wrong at first. haha

 

For a consumer device like this, since it's use case is pretty new, there were always going to be some wonky issues to arise.

[Shreyas1]

22 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

20% of people who responded to the poll -- not 20% of switch owners. There's a massive difference between the two.

 

Only people who frequent Nintendolife.com (/any place it was reposted) or explicitly searched for "cracked switch" are going to respond to it.

 

12 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

I'd take this poll with a grain of salt. People with the cracks are far more likely to have answered. Meanwhile people without the issue might never have heard of this. I'm one of those people. 

 

That said the dock is pretty interesting. There is vents at the bottom of the switch but the dock blocks one of them and the other one is pretty obstructed with the back flap closed. The cracks seem to all be on the side where the vent is blocked off. Most of the cracked switches seem to have the cracks located on that side of the console. 

 

 

True and valid points, but this is still a pretty big problem, and keep in mind that only UK users seem to be getting this issue, so maybe some of the people who responded are not from there and have no chance of getting this issue at all

Edited July 12, 2018 by Shreyas1

[PlayStation 2]

1. The poll does not address all Switch users; this only addresses those who visited Nintendolife and happened to catch the poll.

2. 1119/5 (~20%) is probably 224 users in the poll. While this sounds dire, remember that there's more Switches around than Wii Us. 224 (although realistically, the problem is probably affecting more than 224 consoles) is not even close to 0.5% of all the consoles sold, and even if it affects that 1%, that's still not a huge number.

 

If this is a genuine build quality issue with the Switch, I agree, Nintendo really should address it, but there's honestly too little information to really tell if it's a genuine problem with the build quality or treatment of the system.

[Cheezdoodlez]

6 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

 

True and valid points, but this is still a pretty big problem, and keep in mind that only UK users seem to be getting this issue, so maybe some of the people who responded are not from there and have no chance of getting this issue at all

Why would only the UK market be affected though? I don't think the UK have a completely different SKU than the rest of the world.

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

Why would only the UK market be affected though? I don't think the UK have a completely different SKU than the rest of the world.

The compound holding the plastic together stayed with the EU.

[Shreyas1]

1 minute ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

Why would only the UK market be affected though? I don't think the UK have a completely different SKU than the rest of the world.

It seems to be a plastic issue, so maybe the materials that they use to make the switches there are of a lesser quality

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

got a switch, never had issues...

 

ppl just need to stop ramming them up their assholes

[Cheezdoodlez]

14 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

It seems to be a plastic issue, so maybe the materials that they use to make the switches there are of a lesser quality

Yeah but that's what I was getting at. Why would the UK have different materials in their switches? 

 

Is it possible the switches just got fed up with all the "it's coming home" crap and just cracked from frustration?? 

 

Also Nintendo actually responded and claimed they haven't received a notable numbers of inquiries on the matter. That might be total bs but for the time beeing I'm gong with that. 

[DeScruff]

42 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

Yeah but that's what I was getting at. Why would the UK have different materials in their switches? 

 

The only thing I can think of is a bad batch?
That or there are multiple factories making Switches and Factory C's (which happened to all go into the UK) are faulty.

[ScratchCat]

Apple to Nintendo: Now go forth into this fruitful world young Padawan, charging excessive prices for repairs and remember the one holy rule, only admit your fault after your customers have paid for the repairs.

[davehkiin]

Huh. Unlike Nintendo to let something like this happen 

[Zodiark1593]

2 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

I read that title wrong at first. haha

 

For a consumer device like this, since it's use case is pretty new, there were always going to be some wonky issues to arise.

Well, keep in mind Nintendo was never aggressive on pushing the hardware front prior to the Switch, meaning cooling was a minor concern. The 3DS barely ever gets warm at all (It's predecessors even more so), the Wii U used pretty frugal components, and the original Wii was essentially a die shrunken GameCube (which itself didn't throw off that much heat). Dealing with hot components in a small chassis, a handheld one at that too, is probably a new challenge (eg: headache) for the design team

[Stefan Payne]

4 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

20% of people who responded to the poll -- not 20% of switch owners. There's a massive difference between the two.

 

Only people who frequent Nintendolife.com (/any place it was reposted) or explicitly searched for "cracked switch" are going to respond to it.

That is true, however that seems like a rather high failure rate and a design flaw like on some other products that don't have underfill on some chips that than later cause Problems with some Touchy thingy.

 

Nintendo needs to solve this with a redesign of the product. There doesn't seem to be another ways.

 

PS: and why isn't there an 128GiB Version??

[Christophe Corazza]

6 hours ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

got a switch, never had issues...

 

I know a guy who can change that for ya...

 

 

[Christophe Corazza]

Self-selected internet polls with no verification and tiny "sample" sizes. Which is to say, they are basically meaningless. The most that they prove is that you can get a few hundred people to claim they suffered cracking when asked anonymously on the internet.

[Christophe Corazza]

1 hour ago, VegetableStu said:

because the paint wasn't strong enough to survive peeling the vinyl skin off

 

Seriously?!?!  

[Christophe Corazza]

25 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

for real. o_o (old advice does not apply now though, as mentioned previously)

- snip -

 

That's actually funny and sad at the same time...

[Amazonsucks]

9 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Well, keep in mind Nintendo was never aggressive on pushing the hardware front prior to the Switch, meaning cooling was a minor concern. The 3DS barely ever gets warm at all (It's predecessors even more so), the Wii U used pretty frugal components, and the original Wii was essentially a die shrunken GameCube (which itself didn't throw off that much heat). Dealing with hot components in a small chassis, a handheld one at that too, is probably a new challenge (eg: headache) for the design team

I guess you dont remember the SuperFX chip from the SNES back in 1991 or the N64, which was related to a rather exotic SGI workstation CPU.

 

Unlike modern consoles that break with normal use due to inferior manufacturing, those still work to this day as well?