My Nintendo Switch Lite, sticky trigger, ‘damage’ saga

Steve Nash
Nov 3 · 8 min read

I felt the need to document my ongoing mini battle with Nintendo. I still love Nintendo. But I’m a little lost at how a company with so much imagination can have such poor hardware support. It’s a small, ($70) but principled battle. 🧐

When the Switch Lite was announced I was pretty excited. I very rarely use my Swtich (regular) docked and it’s a bit bulky in handheld mode. I’ve also had two sets of controllers drift. So getting a nice shiny new portable only console seemed like a good idea.

It’s a great console. I really like(d) it. The controls just feel nicer. The plastic on the control stick is a bit more rubbery and the buttons for some reason just feel more satisfying to touch. Life was great, I slowly built up my rankings on Splatoon.

About three weeks in my console kind of broke itself. I don’t really know how or what happened. I was mid game (Splatoon) and felt a piece of plastic in my hand. I didn’t really realise what it was at first but then I looked at my console and saw a hole up the top right near the trigger. Boo!

Ouch :(

I’m not really that precious about marks on my stuff but there’s something that really irks me about a piece of tech that’s quite new literally just falling apart in my hands. I was determined to get it fixed and assumed Nintendo would have a way to see that it was defective.

I’ve returned drifting Joycons to Nintendo Australia before so was aware of the process. The only way to contact support in Australia is to call them on the phone 9–5, Monday to Friday. The support line is detached (on purpose) from the tech department. They typically explain to you on the phone that if the tech inspecting your device believes it’s not defective you’ll need to pay a fee to get your device returned to you. In my case this was $50. I went ahead anyway.

The saga begins.

A junior rep gives me a call a few days later saying that the Nintendo Technical rep found that the device had ‘physical damage’. He wasn’t saying I was responsible but suggesting that it wasn’t defective. I probed him a little further as to how that could have happened. He did suggest that maybe I had pushed the buttons “too hard”. I quoted this back to him later in the call and he seemed to back-track a bit. He advised I could get the console back (broken) for $50 or repaired for $70. I told him I was disappointed with the result and would take it further but keen to pay the $70 and get it back as soon as possible. As soon as I’d said this it seemed to trigger some sort of exception process. He put me on hold. Several minutes later he came back stating he had spoken to his supervisor and now the console would not be returned but instead be reviewed by a tech again and I’d receive a detailed report of how it happened alongside a call from a more senior representative in two to three days.

A day later I get this report;

The report had less detail than my original submission to Nintendo. It was a circle around the hole as if I’d sent it in for repair and hadn’t realised there was a huge hole in it. Lol wot? The original tech suggested the report would take several days as it included inside photos and internal diagnostics of what happened. These photos and details were missing or never taken/captured. The senior rep called a few minutes later and kept saying there was nothing they could do since there was “physical damage”. He asked if I still planned to complain, I confirmed. He then said he couldn’t return the console until all complaints were resolved “in case something changes”.

I objected and suggested to him that it sounded like they were holding my console hostage unless I dropped the complaint. He stuck to his script and went in a circle again saying its physical damage, there’s nothing he can do, if I want to complain its my right to, but they have to hold the console “in case something changes”.

After a few minutes going in circles I told him I was (reluctantly) happy to pay and mark it as ‘resolved’ just to get my console back. He took my credit card over the phone and charged me immediately. It’s on its way back to me now (3/11). I think it will be a refurb or new console, I’ll update it here if the serial number changes.

To him it was resolved but I immediately submitted complaints to the ACCC and the ACL questioning whether withholding a device until a complaint is resolved is acceptable or legal. It seems like something that shouldn’t be. Anyone know?

So why am I writing about all of this? In my complaint I asked for my $70 back. But I think this fee is entirely reasonable for a fix had it been clear I caused this damage. But it’s not. It’s so disappointingly unclear that I wanted to put this out there and do a bit more research to if it’s happening to others.

I’ve since found this post on Reddit surprisingly similar to where my issue started.

I’m on my third Switch Lite, and I’m pretty disappointed with the build quality. The first one had d-pad issues, the second one had a loud creaking sound on the right side where you rest your hand. Any sort of pressure put on it, I could feel the plastic move inward and it made a noise. The third one had the same issue as the second, but not as pronounced at first. It has since then gotten worse.

There’s quite a few people reporting problems across multiple threads on both the left and right triggers. There’s also videos and even a guy who is physically cutting his console to remove this issue! If there’s creaking and friction behind very thin plastic … physical damage from long term use seems plausible. Right?!

My console seems to be the only one I can find that has progressed to physical damage from something to do with the triggers. I can’t really 100% confirm my issue is the result of the squeaky trigger issue ongoing but I do know I did not drop it and my triggers squeaked like this prior to it breaking. If you look at the picture of my device the bottom of the trigger (white) is in the centre of the circle. The hole itself appears as if it were punched out from the inside not damage resulting from me dropping it on the corner, or an impact on the top front right of the console. A drop would usually result in a longer crack. I’m not really an engineer so I could be wrong. If anyone has any more detailed advice here I’d appreciate it.

I’ll keep updating this with progress, results from the returned console. If you’re facing a similar issue I’d love to hear from you. 😃

Thanks for reading
Steve.

My friend code is SW-3681–0580–7911. Add me!


Update 6/11/2019

Nintendo sent me a new console. Unfortunately it’s unusable since it seems to crash when opening the store. I’m constantly presented with this error page (only on this new console) when attempting to launch the store.

Error code 2137 – 3922. The server is operating normally. Wtf?

Looks like I’ll need to contact support again and query why normal operation of their server is a problem.


Update 7/11/2019

After calling Nintendo the CSR seemed a bit confused with the error and couldn’t help me on the phone. He called me back several hours later to tell me they were still working on it. A few hours after that I received this email:

This seems to have resolved the issue. Seems a bit odd to me it took the team several hours to perform a fairly basic operation.

Following that I received an email from NSW Fair Trading summarising my case and their conversation with Nintendo Australia.

I refer to your correspondence dated 30 October 2019 regarding Nintendo Australia Pty Limited.

Your concerns were brought to the attention of Jodie, Customer Service Manager, Nintendo Australia Pty Limited. The representative has advised that the technicians assessed the device and determined that it had suffered physical damage, the written report is clarification of the verbal report provided over the telephone. The representative clarified that the report that was supplied is the only report that they are able to supply, and they do not offer a further, in depth report with photographs of the internal components of the console.

The representative advised that they do not determine how damage to consoles may have occurred and the determinations that are made are based on the assessments completed by the technicians. The representative advised that they typically request that consoles are left with them if the matter is to be escalated externally, this allows them to provide additional information or photographs if requested during the external dispute resolution process.

The representative has advised that the $70.00 fee was paid to replace the console, they are not willing to refund this fee as they believe they have accurately determined that the console has suffered some form of physical damage.

Looks like its the end of the road. For now. I’m certain I didn’t cause the damage and very unsatisfied with the response but not much more I can do. I plan to watch Reddit and other Nintendo forums to see if this happens to someone else. I have a five year period should I want to escalate the case to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Watch this space ;)

Steve Nash

Written by

Designer, developer, gamer.

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