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by Chazprime 2269 days ago
What strikes me about Nintendo is that their hardware quality is rather lacking. Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple et al., but my Switch feels quite the opposite of premium in the hand.

I'm not sure quality is the issue, all of my old Nintendo consoles still work years later (SNES, GBA SP, Gamecube), they simply seem to eschew cutting-edge (and often less reliable) technology.

I've owned four Xbox 360s, three PS1s, two PS2s and two PS3s...there's often a price to pay for packing too much new technology into a game console.

2 comments

The joycons will unfortunately break with use to the point Nintendo now replaces them for free in the USA outside of warranty if they have stick drift. The joycons are essentially a badly designed disposable part.

If you want to play your switch in a decade buy the Pro controller.

> I'm not sure quality is the issue, all of my old Nintendo consoles still work years later (SNES, GBA SP, Gamecube), they simply seem to eschew cutting-edge (and often less reliable) technology.

There is a very well known issue with Switches analog sticks failing en masse, with people having to replace them after short period of time, less than a year.

And since Nintendo uses Apple approach to pricing, the replacement joycons are insanely expensive.

It's noteworthy precisely because it's relatively unusual for Nintendo.

I mean, I'm one of the ones complaining about stuff like this, but I also have a NES, SNES, GC, and their peripherals working like a charm. Meanwhile my Xbox 360 just randomly stopped working and my original Xbox died a long time ago.

I can't speak for the quality of ps4 or Xbone controllers (seems fine?), but as far as intensely-used technology goes Nintendo does vastly better than most hardware.

(I also still have a working Gameboy, which puts it alongside only a Nokia phone I have as far as durability goes. That piece of tech has SEEN things).

EDIT: I will say the joy-cons definitely aren't the best Nintendo has put out, but the problems there pale in comparison to the D-Pad issues we've had GC-on.