Would you call the Nintendo Switch easy to repair, what with its infamously drifting joysticks, glued-in battery, tiny and easy-to-damage ribbon cables, and lack of official repair instructions and replacement parts?
That’s not a place where Nintendo is playing ball —- although New York right-to-repair law may require Nintendo to provide parts for the Switch 2 in the USA, as iFixit points out in its blog post.
iFixit isn’t dissing Nintendo nearly as hard as Samsung, though.
“The original Switch still has bright spots: its modular design philosophy for the joysticks, replaceable (and expandable) storage, and mostly straightforward internal layout all remain commendable.
But when compared to newer devices that also offer standardized M.2 slots, socketed components, and widely available parts and repair documentation, the Switch shows its age,” writes iFixit.
Would you say that the Nintendo Switch is easy to fix given its notoriously swaying joysticks, glued-in battery, small and easily broken ribbon cables, and absence of official repair manuals and spare parts?
iFixit no longer holds that opinion. After praising Nintendo’s handheld device when it debuted in 2017, the online repair site iFixit claims that the Switch no longer meets 2025 standards. As a result, it is halving the Switch’s repairability rating from 8 out of 10 to 4 out of 10.
I happen to open every handheld game system I test for The Verge, so I can understand iFixit’s reasoning (in this blog post), but we’ve never placed a lot of weight on repairability scores. Joy-Con drift isn’t the cause; rather, the industry has advanced.
By 2025, it will be much easier to access and fix many handheld gaming PCs, and gadgets are starting to come with replaceable batteries instead of requiring laboriously removing the glued battery—a delicate and potentially damaging component—from their frames. With a shock of electricity, some iPhones can now even remove battery adhesive.
Furthermore, the Steam Deck created a perception that businesses who genuinely wish to provide repairable handhelds will sell their parts to the general public, possibly even through iFixit. Although iFixit notes in its blog post that the New York right-to-repair law may compel Nintendo to supply parts for the Switch 2 in the USA, that is not a place where Nintendo is playing ball.
This isn’t the first time iFixit has decided to publicly criticize a major tech company after changing its mind. In 2024, for example, iFixit ended its partnership with Samsung because the company refused to provide official parts and forced customers to purchase batteries that were affixed to phone screens, among other things. I wonder if they will put Logitech under the same amount of pressure.
But compared to Samsung, iFixit isn’t criticizing Nintendo nearly as harshly.
There are still some positive aspects of the original Switch, such as its largely simple internal layout, replaceable (and expandable) storage, and modular joystick design. However, iFixit notes that the Switch is outdated in comparison to more recent models that also feature socketed components, standardized M.2 slots, and readily available parts and repair documentation.
