Sales of the Nintendo Switch kicked off to an impressive start on March 3, selling 80 thousand units during it’s first weekend. This is double what the Wii U managed when it debuted but lower than consoles such as the Wii (105k), the Xbox One (150k) and the 3DS (113k) although it does shine a positive light on the future of home consoles for Nintendo.
The Switch hasn’t been without it’s problems, however, with some users complaining about dead or stuck pixels and light or dark patches on their screens even though they’ve bought them brand new. Swarms of people have flooded to online forums to discuss the issues which Nintendo have claimed are “normal” and not defects at all. “There are black or bright dots on the Nintendo Switch screen that do not go away, or there are dark or light patches on the screen” Nintendo said, “Small numbers of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect.”
Dead pixels are those that don’t light up and were common during the early days of LCD technology and customers who wish to trade in their “defective” consoles will have no support from Nintendo to do so. This is similar to something that happened after the release of the Nintendo DS but the company relented after persistent complaints and offered replacements.
Another feature, or lack of, that seems to be bugging users is the inability to back up or transfer data. The console only has 32GB of internal storage which means that there’s a good chance that those who play and save a lot would eventually have to delete old progress to make room for new. Users are unable to save any data to a memory card, cloud storage or onto another console and have found this a baffling move from Nintendo considering the portable nature of the console.
In terms of Switch hardware, there’s been minor complaints about the left Joy-Con controller which has been said to de-sync during play. This seems random, and Nintendo have attempted to address the problem in the troubleshooting guide for those who finding that this is a problem. Signal interference is a big cause for problems such as this, and Nintendo have advised against using the Switch close to devices that have the capability to block or interfere with the console’s signal such as TVs or even microwaves.
It’s not all bad news though, there’s a novelty easter egg packed into the Pro controller in the form of a hidden message that reads ‘thnx2 allgamefans!.’