It's not planned obsolescence if your device is meant to last for decades. You could argue about the joycon if they had done that on purpose, but given that they ended up having to replace a bunch of them it seems pretty likely that their business model is to sell you four pairs to play with friends, not to keep reselling you more as they break.

Nintendo's business is not based on the product becoming worse artificially to upsell you on a replacement. Their model is to keep making incremental replacements and then drop a generational upgrade every decade or so. That's not how planned obsolescence works. You don't get artificial performance degradation, deliberately fragile parts or artifical restrictions to repair via signed components. People can (and many do) repair Nintendo hardware on third party repair services with third party replacement parts, and from what iFixIt is saying that doesn't seem to have changed.

Which is not to say Nintendo put ANY thought into repairability here. They clearly expect you to buy a Switch 2 and keep it until you buy a Switch 2 Lite. This thing is very new and that may yet change in both directions. But so far all I see here is the same old "we built this to be cheap and durable", which is fundamentally not Apple's "you'll buy one of these every two years and if it breaks you will come to us for a replacement and like it" approach.

Probably depends entirely on what games you play, and how sensitive you are, but hall effects feel like trash and destroy the joycon battery life. I tried playing Celeste with hall effects and wooooow was it bad. Basically unplayable past the early chapters.

I mean, it's clearly not meant to last decades given the battery situation.

You'd think, but I have Nintendo handhelds from the 2000s that still hold a charge fine, and so does my launch Switch 1, which is about a decade old.

The Switch 2 is the first one of these they ship with a battery care charge mode, too, which is interesting. I think as they abandon their old single-threaded, no-multitasking design, for a more mobile-like architecture they're also having to make similar adjustments to their battery management, so it'll be interesting to see if the Switch 2 battery struggles with degradation more than older devices. It sure is more power hungry, and it does get hotter so you'd expect more charge cycles per year and less durability. It's going to be an open question for a while.

Still not the worst battery health in a Nintendo product, no matter what happens. That'll always be the WiiU controller. That sytem laster just a couple of years and I still had to replace the battery for an aftermarket one and ended up using it plugged in anyway.

For example, coming into effect in 12 days, on the 20th of June, for smartphones and tablets:

• Durability: Devices should be resistant to accidental drops and protected against dust and water.

• Battery longevity: Batteries must endure at least 800 full charge and discharge cycles while retaining at least 80% of their original capacity.

• Repairability: Manufacturers must make critical spare parts available within 5 to 10 working days, and continue offering them for 7 years after the product is no longer sold in the EU.

• Software support: Devices must receive operating system upgrades for at least 5 years from the end-of-sale date.

• Repair access: Professional repairers must have non-discriminatory access to any required software or firmware.

They will also have to include a sticker on packaging that has standardised information on it concerning energy efficiency, battery life, repeated drop test results, battery endurance in charging cycles, repairability score, and water/dust protection rating:

Source

I mean, it's not a car. The joycon are expensive, but not THAT expensive. Still, they absolutely had to provide replacements to stick issues (which they did, to their credit).

It's extra important on this run, because the new ones are even more expensive. They better last.

Also, I'm writing responses to things people say, not excuses. Companies aren't football teams, I don't need to root for or against any of them.

Does that go into effect for all devices on sale, or only for devices released after that date? Also, that software support section is great. That basically means all phones need atleast 6 years of support

Probably depends entirely on what games you play, and how sensitive you are, but hall effects feel like trash and destroy the joycon battery life. I tried playing Celeste with hall effects and wooooow was it bad. Basically unplayable past the early chapters.

As a fellow celete player, I'm sorry your experience was like that, but I'm also currently using hall effect sticks on both my 8bitdo ultimate and my guillikit kong 2, it feels absolutely mint on both with no tinkering. I'm gonna have to ask you to name and shame the hall effect sticks you're using, please. Thanks!

I thought Nintendo devices were built like tanks, nes, snes, all old consoles are still playable. How long did the new Nintendo devices like switch last? I think the screen and battery are the main limit of devices life.

It's a known and proven shit solution. Have any of you ever actually used hall effect sensor joysticks? The centering is worse, the polling rate is far worse, they use a ton more power (already a limited resource in the individual joycons) and most of all they get absolutely screwed by electromagnetic interference... Interference like, say, magnets holding the joycons on.

Ifixit is kind of full of shit here- the joysticks are the "same" only in that it's using the same general design as every other non-hall effect sensor joystick that's ever been used and most of those didn't have problems with drift.

It's not the same part as the original joycons, so the issue could be fixed- from what the switch welcome tour was saying, it seems pretty likely in fact.

Not a problem. I wasn't gonna buy one amyways.

Buddy says they were gulikit, yes (wasn't my joycons). Tried them out on chapter 2 golden and some c sides. He liked them (didn't play anything like Celeste) but had noticed the reduced battery, I could feel the reduced polling rates sometimes causing latency and throwing off timings.

I see, thanks! I'll come back and make an edit if I start having any similar issues.