The Nintendo Switch has been criticized in the past for some of its physical flaws, including an easily scratched screen and disconnecting controllers. Users are now reporting a problem that could be a little bit more serious – cracks in the system itself.
Nintendo Life’s Damien McFerran noticed this week that his own Nintendo Switch — which he has had since it launched last year — had developed small cracks along its top. On his unit, they were primarily located in the small plastic bars running along the console’s vents at the top, as well as next to the game card slot.
Several Twitter users replied to McFerran’s initial report with the same issues. The majority of these also occurred on the top of the system, with one person adding that it eventually spread to the back of the case and required a repair under warranty.
Despite the reports on Twitter, Nintendo says this issue doesn’t seem to be a trend. Nintendo of America has released the following statement.
“We haven’t received a notable number of consumer inquiries on this topic, but as with all our products, we encourage users who experience any issues to visit http://support.nintendo.com for assistance from our Consumer Support team.”
In short, the problem isn’t currently recognized as a known issue – which isn’t a surprise. Nintendo wouldn’t want to give users reason to worry by overreacting to reports. While the tweets have made the rounds, the group reporting such problems is still small. Only time will tell if it becomes more widespread.
All things considered, the current console generation has suffered from relatively few hardware issues. Xbox One systems have occasionally run into disc drive trouble (including one of our own), and original PlayStation 4 systems occasionally ejected discs due to the heat-sensitive touch buttons. Problems such as these are far less severe than those that plagued the Microsoft Xbox 360, which had an unfortunate tendency to die after a couple years of use. Sony’s PlayStation 3 had its console reliability issue, though it was much less common.
Hopefully the Switch won’t become the exception to this generation’s reliable consoles.
Update 7/9/2018: Added Nintendo’s statement
