Yeah, it’s cute, it’s folklore, people used to blow into the cartridge slots of their Nintendo games in the olden days if they were having hardware issues. The thing is, it was all bullshit. It didn’t fix them, if anything it made things worse. Yet so strong has the urban legend become that, in The Year Of Our Lord 2023, enough folks are still blowing into their Switch that Nintendo has felt the need to warn against it.
In a tweet posted by the company’s Japanese support page, Nintendo say:
In the game card slot, there is a terminal to read the game card. If you clean this with a cotton swab or insert a game card with a broken terminal, it may get caught in the terminal and break.
Please do not touch the inside of the game card slot.
If dust gets inside the game card slot, use a vacuum cleaner to suck it out. Please do not blow on it. Saliva may adhere to the terminals and cause parts to rust or corrode.
ゲームカードスロットの中にホコリが入ってしまった場合は、掃除機で吸い出してください。
※息を吹きかけるなどの行為はしないでください。唾液が端子部に付着し、部品のサビや腐食の原因となる恐れがあります。— 任天堂サポート (@nintendo_cs) June 30, 2023
The initial advice, that’s fine, that’s normal, people might honestly make those mistakes, cotton swabs are always being used where they shouldn’t be. But I’m glad they spelled the latter section out in all its gross details, because this is what you need to know! You’re hurling human spit into an electronic device every time you blow in it, that’s super gross — ”Saliva may adhere to the terminals” is not a fun sentence! — and you are not helping anything, you are just risking damage to your Nintendo Switch!
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