Reggie on Switch - Joy-Con connectivity and dock scratching issues, standalone dock

Yesterday, TIME posted a new interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. He was finally asked about the various issues some people are having with Switch.

[ElectricFeel]

I think that this may have been a bad batch of units personally. If Nintendo themselves have never come across this issue.

[porkChop]

It would make sense, because I honestly haven't had any problems. It sucks for the people who are having these issues though.

[masterfox]

"bad batch", what? just someone with a bit of logic would know a damn screen can get scratch if you slide it up and down continuously near millimeter close object.

[_-EDMIX-_]

He might be referring to the joy con syncing issue.

[_-EDMIX-_]

For my understanding it specifically just based on the actual design I couldn't even understand how they would design a different dock that's different from the ones everybody else is receiving at the end of the day there's a hard piece of plastic rubbing up against an LCD screen.

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that something bad is going to come from that

If you're referring to the actual Joy cons it is definitely a possibility.

[ElectricFeel]

Yes I was more referring to the joycons and powering on issues some users have been receiving. These seem to be isolated issues as it isn't happening to everyone, this leads me to believe it could indeed just be a bad batch. I think the screen scratching thing could just be people being careless with how they're placing it into the dock, although the design itself could certainly be improved.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@elec- no worries I figured you meant that.

[The 10th Rider]

I do wonder if there are some docks that are worse when it comes to scratching, though. Some people are reporting it after very minimal use, others have had no scratches after significant use. I doubt all the dock scratching reports are from stupid people, so there must be some sort of variable that increases the scratchiness of the dock.

[gamer7804]

It's not a bad batch for the left joycon. The antenna is smaller and near a metal covering that creates an environment of poor reception. this has been confirmed by a teardown and having to open up the left joycon and soldering a longer wire and not using the one that's tucked behind the metal plate. This is a design flaw, Nintendo will have to replace day one buyers and start manufacturing a different left controller.

The dock scratching seems widespread but not enough data on the actual cause that I've seen.

[XanderZane]

Do you think they would tell consumers if they did actually get scratches? Hell no. Nintendo loves to blame everything on the consumers so they can just wash their hands of the problems. Sony is good for doing this as well. Sure, they want to hear from the consumers, but they won't be saying anything back to the consumers anytime soon.

[YEP414]

Exactly!!!

[dreadz74]

Yo lol Damage control @ it's finest coming outta you.. This is a bad launch hope people get it sorted or refunded.

[rocketpanda]

Bad batch! This isn't some food that goes bad. Wow, these excuses.

The RROD wasn't due to a bad batch, it was a design flaw that was eventually corrected. Dock scratching happens because he screen is exposed plastic.

[Orionsangel]

I think Nintendo is selling us Wii U 2.0. It feels like they upgraded the Wii U and we're still on the same wave as Wii U. It's all smoke and mirrors. Since most the Switch games could have come out Wii U in the next 2 years if the Wii U had survived.

[Gemmol]

wrong, because even the extras that are coming to mario kart deluxe could not work on the Wii U......look at digital foundry article on fast RMX for the Switch and how it could not run on the Wii U.....and best part you can have 4 players in handheld mode and still do 60 frames.........while the Wii U could only do 30 frame and could not do 4 players

[Altovoltage]

Haha do you think they're going to come out and flat out say that they encountered those problems while hardly testing it?

[Orionsangel]

@Gemmol This happens every time with new Nintendo consoles. I say the system is gonna flop and loyal Nintendo fanboys attack me for it. Then the system bombs and I'm proven right. Don't you even realize Nintendo is repeating itself. It's basically walking down the same path as the Wii U. No matter how much Nintendo and their fans wanna spin it (It's a really a handheld, yadda yadda) Nintendo is once again setting itself up for failure. That doesn't mean the system won't have some bright spots. The Wii U did as well, but on the whole it will flop.

[rainslacker]

They might. MS eventually had someone come forward and admit that about RROD. They knew that was a design flaw, and would cause problems, but they didn't have time to fix it because they had to get it to market before their contract with NVidia left them without a console on the market, which would have probably been more disastrous for them.

I don't expect them to accept responsibility now. This is Time magazine. The place where gamers aren't getting their news. This is to stem the tide of what gamers are saying from affecting the general perception among those they're actually targeting with this device.....which would be people who read Time magazine....so in other words, people who go to the doctor and can't get good reception on their smart phones, or people over 50 who got suckered into buying a magazine subscription from the poor kid who is selling magazines door to door to improve his lot in life.

[_-EDMIX-_]

This Is The Answer regarding the dock scratching situation

"we haven’t seen it. So this is one where if it is happening,"

.... this is one of the saddest things I've read in a long time

whoever does Nintendo's PR needs to be fired and they need serious restructuring because this seems like one of those things where we're going to look back in history and start pinpointing when this company decided to go software only.

What I believe they need to say is that "we were not aware of it until we began extensively testing it ourselves, we apologize and users could go on this specific site to replace the screen".

That's it, no back and forth, no trying to make it sound as if it's an isolated situation and you're unaware that it exists

This is just terrible customer service could you guys imagine if Microsoft did this regarding the red ring of death?

[MASTER_RAIDEN]

I think this is one of the worst comments I've ever read on this site. Not because I don't like what you said, but because you didn't even finish half the sentence you were pretending to quote. Then went on a long tangent about how the quote you purposely gutted/misused made you feel.

[The 10th Rider]

And then said the company should say that they've begun extensively testing the issue themselves, even if that isn't the case. What if they have been testing it and haven't run into the issue . . . They should just lie about it and replace the screen of anyone who wants to send their Switch in?

[_-EDMIX-_]

No misuse bud.

I even tell you in which contexts I'm telling you then it was in.

It was answering a question regarding the docks.

What I'm saying is relevant to the issue

[porkChop]

Uh, Microsoft *did* do this with the RROD. Microsoft denied the red ring was an issue for almost 2 years, until they couldn't deny it anymore. That's when they finally admitted it was a serious problem and extended all Xbox 360 warranties to 3 years. And with the RROD it was worse, because the launch batch had a 68% failure rate from what I remember.

[MyDietEqualsGames]

it was closer to 53-54% failure rate.

[Oner]

porkChop is correct with his "launch batch had a 68% failure rate" comment ~

http://venturebeat.com/2008...

[dillydadally]

I don't get why you're so upvoted. I mean, do we actually have any idea what percentage of people have been seeing screen scratching? They could be isolated incidents from people being careless and Nintendo is just saying we haven't seen a single instance of this personally and so we'd like people to reach out to us and let us know how it happened.

[rainslacker]

If they did that, it just implies they rushed it to market, because for a system which showed this thing being pulled in and out of the dock itself, the reasonable thing to assume is that they did that themselves thousands of times in testing.

There is no way Nintendo didn't know this would happen. They have an army of engineers who would have told them so. Nintendo has been making consoles with their own screen longer than anyone. They aren't clueless. That'd be like Sony making some new headphones where they didn't realize that putting in rough form plastic around the earpieces, and not using any padding would be uncomfortable for the user, and then suddenly being surprised when people said it was uncomfortable.

They just wanted it to look snazzy, and likely when they realized there was a design flaw, they didn't have time to actually fix it, or find something to remedy the situation for the end user.

this whole dock issue could have been resolved by just having a dock where the back of the console sits on a kind of stand. Something similar to that crap they put into the Kid Icarus 3DS game....only with output connectors. There was no need to insert the whole thing into a big plastic cradle. That wouldn't make for cool action oriented marketing which really showed off how the console could be used though.

[Ninte]

I spoke to my eb games today and asked him if there has been any problems and theres only been one dead pixel switch so far.

[vikingland1]

Haven't had any of these issues sooo.

[Zarock]

In before Reggie Fils-Aimé leaves Nintendo and joins Valve. It's all going downhill so brace yourselves 2017 will leave so many people behind with broken hearts and promises, with Scorpio around the corner and Sony winning E3 like the previous years, and Nintendo Inevitably being left In the dust.

[Pennywise138]

My switch screen doesn't show any signs of scratching yet but that scraping sound it makes every time I pull it in and out of the dock is nerve racking. Every time I feel I'm sure munch screen just scratch but not yet.

[deafdani]

Seriously, buy a tempered glass screen protector. Better safe than sorry. This is the one I bought:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/a...

It hasn't arrived yet (or my Switch for that matter), but it has pretty good reviews and seems to be a respectable brand. I can tell you about my experience with it once I get it.

[Pennywise138]

Right on thanks for looking out. I'll check this thing out.

[YEP414]

I disagree I call bullshit!! I know at least 30people having this issue in Milwaukee alone And that's just people I know.., like Nintendo go come out and say yes our new system is having issues.. he spinning it

[Gemmol]

tell all 30 people send me their friend code this way I can believe you

[Auron]

Reggie is freaking ugly.

[demonicale]

Not had any of these issues with my switch.

[Einhander1971]

Like wise no issues at all with mine, with the dock I take the switch out really slowly also have a screen protector so no scratches.

[ElectricFeel]

I love that I get down voted to hell and get told I'm damage controlling for stating my opinion. I honestly try to enjoy using this site but the people on here remind me time and time again it's just cancer.

[deafdani]

Yeah, the community here is extremely toxic. A lot of users here spend more time just hating on the other company's articles here, instead of looking up news of things they actually enjoy. It's sad and pathetic.

You won't see anywhere near this amount of negativity towards Switch and the new Zelda, and Nintendo in general, on other gaming sites, not even close. In fact, the consensus for Zelda and Switch is overall pretty positive almost everywhere except N4G.

[ElectricFeel]

Yeah, I've also noticed that they like to project their own irrational hate onto the rest of the internet and act like everyone feels that way, when in fact it's quite the opposite.

[DivineAssault]

That really sucks and i fell for those dealing with this.. Do a damn recall immediately.. I never had any problems but im also not taking mine out of the dock constantly or using the joycons.. Maybe early adopters will get new equipment.. After i finish zelda, it will be sitting there unused for a while so its best they do it fast so people arent inconvienenced too long.

[FreakyFox]

Anyone in the right mind can see this console is still in beta, with very bad design. The docking station is a disaster.

And to think that Nintendo are going to start charging for online play in a few months time while these problems exist is a absolute joke. This is going to be somthing that scares 3rd parties from bringing software to the system.

[FPS_D3TH]

Bad batch? Lol. Zero quality control testing will get you these results too.

[rainslacker]

He never said that that bad batch wasn't the initial couple million they made to ship out in the first month.

[IceKoldKilla]

Lol I come to these articles for the comments. The amount of blind fanboys that won't admit it has issues is insane. Bad batch... Hahahaha

[ShelbyGT350]

I have two Nintendo Switches and the left Joy-Con is extremely sensitive beyond short distances when docked. This also includes the additional set of colored Joy-Cons I purchased. The Pro Controller doesn't have any problems. Undocked in the same location the left Joy-Con range is slightly better, but not as good as my Xb1 or PS4 controllers. Hopefully Nintendo will replace the left Joy-Con with one that includes an improved antenna.