I pray none of these nightmares happen to my Switch, or yours for that matter.
This montage by CrowbCat on YouTube is basically a lowlight reel of everything that has gone wrong with people’s Switches. Screen corruption the second the Switch fires up. Joycon straps getting horribly stuck and not coming off. Audio that sounds like a DJ scratching in a toilet. Touchscreens refusing to respond. And Zelda: Breath of the Wild hard crashing out of nowhere. Or refusing to load. Or not being recognised at all.
It’s a video for masochists, basically.
I pray to all that is holy that you encounter none of these issues.
Comments
65 responses to “Every Nintendo Switch Nightmare In One Video”
Looks like Nintendo saw my post and actually took it as a challenge.
Not to make a mean joke but I’m starting to think we’ll be hearing of Nintendo starting production up again for the Wii U until they make a new revision of the Switch.
EDIT: Just watched half the video and I don’t want to see anymore. What I’m seeing is basically the same as I saw with the Star Trek BluRays; complete and utter absence of quality control.
It’s a new console, I get that. There will be teething issues, I also get that.
But the sheer volume of problems is making this alarming. It’s almost as if Nintendo has seen the “Wii Have a Problem” Web site and have decided to see if they can out do the strap failure!
Come on…..
The issues aren’t that wide spread. EVERY launch has dead on arrival issues and out of box issues like this.
The only ones they need to address are the joycon sync/interference, the wi fi drop outs (patch maybe?) and the screen scratching dock imo because those are actual design flaws or bugs.
The rest looks like the usual launch issues for any hardware, we just see more coverage and more incidents because so many people are buying the switch all at once.
EDIT: posted this before the above edited the comment
Yeah, even if there were 100 dead Switch consoles in that video, it would represent les than 100th of one percent of units. Every piece of electronics shipped has a failure rate, it is just that these days they can be compiled into a video and thrown up onto the net and people can get on their high horses about it immediately.
I usually go by:
Probability X Severity
This video is comprised of all sorts of issues.
* The screen being scratched from docking and un-docking
* Joycon disconnects
* Joycon grips getting stuck (both ways correct/incorrect)
Seem to be highly probable yet aren’t so severe as to stop you from using it. But the high probability of them occurring makes them just as substantial.
You can’t help but think they rushed this product, when you see how that dock just scratches the screen it’s meant to hold.
There are bunch of strange design decisions that scream “the dock was an afterthought” from the get go.
You can’t attach the charger with the kickstand ?!
Have you tried to play it while it’s charging via cable in hand? How does the fan noise fair?
* The screen being scratched from docking and un-docking
* Joycon grips getting stuck
* You can’t attach the charger with the kickstand
Nintendo used to be very considering, I too think this is so not Nintendo…
Joycon grips getting stuck <- same as Galaxy note’s pen trouble
Can’t attach the charger with the kickstand <- should’ve flip the screen and joycon connector in the 1st place (or simplly put the charge port at the top).
Console warping…
http://bgr.com/2017/04/03/nintendo-switch-warping/
ironic tho… ↓
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/02/satoru-iwata-put-lots-of-thought-into-the-nintendo-switch-says-miyamoto/?utm_source=Kotaku+Australia&utm_campaign=c429eab802-kotaku_2017_02_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_886b7a604a-c429eab802-279745225
I think they did get it right in the overall strategy for this generation and beyond, but just failed to finalize the product design or had amateur industrial designers . Either way, it needed another year or two in the oven.
That would have helped them with the launch lineup as well.
Not to mention smartphones and internet for everyone. I had no idea the PS2 suffered any launch issues until I was told it did. People doing dumb stuff (smashing tv screens with their wiimotes, slapping a kid while playing kinect) and as well as these launch issues for hardware are so much more prevalent because we have the accessories to record and share it.
but
* The screen being scratched from docking and un-docking
* Joycon grips getting stuck
* You can’t attach the charger with the kickstand
theses are inevitable…
Nintendo used to be very considering tho…
The switch has a lot of issues but I don’t think this video is really any indication of much.
Every electronic (and mechanical) device in history has an accepted fail rate because when millions are produced, there will always be some that are faulty. Think if it were RRoD or Note 7 levels of broken we’d be hearing lots more people complaining.
Doesn’t help that half the video is people putting the wrist strap on backwards then complaining about it being stuck – hint: don’t put it on backwards… That’s more of a personal problem than a flaw in the hardware.
For a product aimed at children (amongst others) not having the straps be easily removable if put on the wrong controllers is a pretty bad design flaw. They should be designed so that you can only put them on the correct way.
I tested out putting mine on the wrong way and they came off just as easily as the normal way. There doesn’t seem to be any physical difference in the release mechanism at either end.
I think there may be more than one way to ‘put them on the wrong way’.
Oh yeah I forgot to add the superglue 😛
How quickly people forgot about he Xbox 360 red ring of death. That affected millions of people. I personally went through 4 consoles before I got one that lasted for more than 3 months.
Does this mean it is a rubbish console? By all means no. Electronics are fickle things and you expect some level of defects. Also lol at people complaining detachable joycons have a little play in them. Are they retarted? If something detaches it is bound to have some play, you cannot make a detachable unit 100% secured and wiggle free. That’s physics!
Haven’t forgotten. While a manufacturing issue from the get go it still took some time before the failure rate reached 1 in 3.
Not at this scale though. Nintendo’s Switch is rapidly approaching the point where it has huge design flaws and manufacture defects and at this rate it will actually pass the RRoD fiasco sooner rather than later.
Overall, we are not forgetting anything; we are becoming more skeptical as the volume of faults rise.
Yeah but people complaining when they put things on the wrong way are fundamentally retarted. You don’t put your right shoe on your left foot then complain on the internet about shitty shoes having design flaws.
People complaining about play in the joycons don’t complain that their office chairs have a little wiggle in them.
I will admit the noise and screen issues need to be addressed but given the amount they have sold the failure rate would be at an acceptable percentage similar to the LCD panel industry.
People are just over entitled retards that think the world is a perfect safe space for them. Guess what if things didn’t fail there would be no need for a fuckinn warranty.
It’s time people stop blowing things out of proportion because they are butt hurt that they are the absolute minority % of people that fail within the failure rate. It’s time to be an adult and just deal with the fucking issue instead of going on a smear campaign pretending that Nintendo is stealing your hard earned dollars and kicking puppies and aiding terrorists.
Come on man, this thing is for children also. The issue the grips is a ridiculous one because they should have designed one way latches to stop this from happening.
There is nothing intuitive about it because you naturally think it would be designed to stop you from fitting them the wrong way. These people aren’t even forcing them on, there is clearly very little resistance to let you know its the wrong way.
Ahhh no. If its broken they have every right to be pissed (they dont sound unresonably so). The Joycons not working is actually a serious and widespread issue considering you need them to play the console. Sure these screens could just be a few bad apples in the bunch but the docking station and Joycons aren’t. They are defective and poorly designed until Nintendo actually demonstrates otherwise.
Which will be hard considering all the scratched screens.
> You don’t put your right shoe on your left foot then complain on the internet
> about shitty shoes having design flaws.
Not the same. You can still pull your foot out with ease.
They prob never heard of Galaxy Note’s pen incident.
Would you prefer the finger in the electric pencil sharpener analogy?
You have actual numbers on this?
Is probably also worth mentioning how well the whole RRoD fiasco was handled by Microsoft. I had my launch console RRoD on me after about 18 months. Figured I’d give them a call, worst case they’ll tell me to suck it and I’d pick up a new one in the sales. Instead they repaired the console for me free of charge. The repaired one is still kicking on to this day.
Versus Nintendo’s policy that seems to be the consumers fault for everything.
As having spent 17 years in the electronic/electrical industry mainly in manufacturing based industries, no they are not. It comes down to poor construction for the vast majority of issues. Poor quality parts come in second. The red ring of death was a manufacturing issue. They blame excess heat which it was but only through a low quality lead free solder that had a low melting point. Cheap construction. Mere cents cost per console more it never would have been an issue.
None of these are to be expected from a reputable manufacturer. You can easily make wiggle free detachable units. It called good design and materials. But good design and materials cost money.
I think we are dealing with a Nintendo diehard here.
Just like old times when it was SNES vs Genesis.
Call me what you want. Yes I have every Nintendo console. But I also have every Xbox console and PlayStation console and sets console. If I am a die hard anything I am die hard gaming fan and a die hard anti idiot fan.
If the vast majority of electronics are poorly made and become fickle the. Rule of majority comes into play.
And I would love to see all these haters and people pissing on Nintendo, or any other manufacturer design better units. Fucking put your money where your mouth is.
No, it was due to mostly untested materials being used at the dawn of things needing to be rhos compliant, not cheap materials. It was a learning experience for the entire industry. Graphics cards also suffered because of it at the time, hence the popularity of “baking” cards of the era to fix them.
Our kids (8+) are loving the Nintendo Switch. Imaginators and 1-2 switch are working perfectly, maybe it’s just Zelda? Their only regret is they cannot have Pokemon or Minecraft.
No big problems with the joycon or gripper.
We had one freeze when they didn’t realise they needed to pair the second joycon, but it was just a case of ‘read the FAQ’ to know to hold the power button down for a count of 12, and use the controller icon to go in and pair it.
No problems with the straps – the 1-2 switch game shows them on the screen how to take the straps on and off, and has a clever tactic to teach how to use a small set of games before unlocking a bigger suite and team battles.
Great that the parental control comes early in the setup, and great that we can type passwords on the console rather than up on a large screen where the kids can sneak a peak at the keyboard.
Definitely needed the extra charging grip for the joycon, however, hope they work on this design – it would be good to turn off while in the gripper, and to know the charge level.
there will always be “some” that are faulty
* The screen being scratched from docking and un-docking
* Joycon grips getting stuck
* You can’t attach the charger with the kickstand
Not “some”, theses are inevitable…
Cant help to thing that something must have went wrong inside Nintendo, Nintendo used to be very considering imo.
The issues are not widespread, as others have said, and honestly the Switch launch is one of the best recent console launches. The PS4, Xbone and Wii U all had pretty meh launches, the Switch has actually sold incredibly well and it’s no surprise to see that a handful of the 2 million+ units sold have issues.
So far mine hasn’t had any issues……
This Youtuber has sort of a ‘niche’ for this sort of thing. A lot of his stuff is other people’s video content, just stitched together humorously.
SWEET….SWEET…..SWEEEEEEEET…..CANNNN
The video was… horrifying. I pray my switch is okay in a few months time. :S
I was thinking of this movie scene while watching that video
The dead pixels not considered a defect is pretty disgusting. “Small numbers of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect.”
Look in your computer monitors warranty.
Chances are they say the same thing. Only a few LCD manufacturers have a 0 dead pixel policy. I just went through this whole ordeal with Acer.
I’d just take it back to the retailer and have a red-hot go at using the Australian Consumer Law to say that the screen wasn’t fit for purpose.
As a retailer I can tell you he only recourse you will have is if you have a dead pixel from the box. If it develops within a reasonable period of time you are kinda screwed. The fit for purpose argument doesn’t hold up with lcds and there are numerous case studies of people who have tried to claim that and lost at tribunal. The best arguement would be a reasonable person would not have bought the unit knowing that it had a dead pixel. I would recommend you ask he sales person to boot up the one you are buying to make sure it is defect free before you leave the shop.
Fair points. With the dead pixels in the video it is pretty intrusive. Thankfully I’ve never had any dead pixels on anything I’ve bought so far.
Even if a dead pixel develops well after purchase you take back to the merchant and send it away as an ACL claim, the key word in the law when requesting a warranty outcome from the ACCC is ‘reasonable’, and it is reasonable to expect the screen to develop to any defects within the warranty period. Have submitted countless claims through JB hifi & Harvey norman and always worked in my favour. Managers, or businesses can say what they want but at the end of the day a reasonable person would consider the product faulty and want it replaced.
ACL is increasingly vague when it comes to dead pixels in screens. At most they will send it away for repair under what is deamed a reasonable period of time.
But getting a replacement or refund and trying to claim it wasn’t fit for purpose is just going to end up you losing your case at tribunal if it even gets that far.
I’ve worked for EB Games & now work for Telstra, they cannot refuse to send it away as an ACL claim to do so would be denying your rights as a consumer. The ACL has never been vague when it has come to the literal hundreds of phones I have sent away for dead pixel, they have ALWAYS replaced them.
Oh I am not saying they won’t send it away. Just be prepared for an uphill battle. That has been my experience. And that is working for a computer retailer and as a customer.
It’s normal for just about every company. Pretty sure you could push it and get a replacement. Or just return it to the store and get another one. Thankyou Australian Consumer Law.
So far my Nintendo Switch hasn’t had any issues, but touch wood, it continues to stay that way.
I couldn’t watch the whole video. It scares me that something will happen to my Switch. 🙁
Yeah, all the weird Zelda glitching makes me worry that it could be something that I won’t pick up on since I’m not playing it, then by the time anything does come up it’ll be lol too late.
Don’t worry, the Australian Consumer Law is your friend 🙂
Hopefully. Didn’t seem to be when my 3DS got bricked.
What happened there?
Firmware update failed, console was bricked, it was two years old at the time, NAL said “lol out of warranty soz” and… I can’t remember exactly, Fair Trading were less than helpful. Gave up on the whole thing because it was causing me too much anguish.
It would depend on what happened with the firmware update. If something on your end like a power failure or internet failure caused the firmware update to corrupt then you have 0 recourse as it was something on your end and not the firmware itself that bricked the unit. However if it was a faulty firmware you would have a case. I suspect if it was a faulty firmware then there would be a huge amount of reported cases.
Nothing wrong on my end, it was on the charging dock just as instructed and there was no power outage or internet outage (though even if there was, their system shouldn’t be attempting to install a firmware update that has corrupted or only partially downloaded, I understand checksums and such are supposed to be a thing). Update process went through until it had done installing, then came up with “an error has occurred, please turn off and try again” (not verbatim) and so I did so. It never booted again.
Looks at some of those glitches reminds me of my first PC gaming days. Those artefacts can happen if there is a bad driver (so in those cases hopefully a firmware update will fix it).
The other cause though is heat or poor voltage causing erratic behaviour.
Overall, I think Nintendo have tried to keep up with demand and have contracted the manufacture of the Switch out to multiple factories.
As what were are seeing are faults specific to runs from specific manufacturers who most likely are not keeping to the same level of quality control as others.
If you bought a new console and there was something wrong you’d be pretty vocal about it most likely. The millions that got one and nothing wrong? We are all busy playing Zelda.
I’m not usually superstitious; but in honest truth have a actual wooden desk just so I do just that when code is released to the live system.
This video is incredibly misleading. There are some clear design flaws in the console, the charging port, the joycon connectivity issues, the strap issues. They’re unfortunate. This video is the first time I’ve seen most of the hardware issues though. They are not as widespread as the video would have you believe.
There were sections of controllers not responding, and you could clearly see that the joycons were synced individually (you can tell by the lights on the joycon grip). The leading image of the “dead pixels” from the video has clearly been dropped. You can see dents in the bottom of the console below the dead pixels.
The charging port isn’t even really a design flaw. The port needs to be on the bottom so the unit can be docked.
Lol don’t bring reasoning into the equation! That black magic is not welcome on the internet!
I would suspect that they will make a charging cord that can be used when the unit is in table top mode. Like an L design or something like that
Could have been placed on the back and the unit slides backwards into the dock and locks in that way. It would also allow the touch screen to be accessed in dock form in the event that was needed for any gaming options, settings, updates etc. The bottom really is a poor choice which is why the high-end tablets place then on the sides as the default position for gaming & media consumption is horizontal.
Too late now anyway which is unfortunate.
It would have been very difficult to design the dock with the port on the back of the unit. You wouldn’t be able to simply slide it in the way you do now, you’d probably need to have some kind of front or back opening flap or something. It wouldn’t be very elegant. They also couldn’t put it on the sides because it would get in the way of attached joycons.
There’s really no other place they could have put it aside from maybe on the top, but that would mean it would need an additional port at the bottom to support docking anyway.
Also, tablets generally don’t get hooked up to TVs like this.
They could put it on the top and have dock upside down.
Why would it matter which orientation it’s docked in?
Mines fine… is this really that widespread?
Mine is fine also. I think the reporting of the problems is more widespread than the problems themselves…
So I ended up giving in and getting one myself.
My biggest issue….(other than the stupid joycon disconnecting all the damn time) is the battery life, I am LUCKY to get 2.5 hours playing Zelda.. couple times it has died under 2 hours.
IMO this is the biggest issue by far… its a portable device with a MUCH lower resolution than my phone, arguably worse visuals than some of the high end android games and a charge lasts less than 1/5th the amount of game time of my phone.
I have had the thing less than a week and it is already being left at home because of the inconvenience of charging.
Honestly once I’m done with Zelda I’m just going to sell it.