Media: Nintendo Prepares Switch 2 with User-Replaceable Battery
According to Nikkei, Nintendo is readying an updated Switch 2 for Europe — the headline change being that users will be able to swap the battery themselves.
This step appears driven by new EU rules: the so-called "right to repair" directive and tighter battery regulations. From 2027, devices sold in the EU that contain batteries must let users replace them safely without a trip to a service center. That requirement extends to the console and to the Joy‑Con controllers as well.
No launch date has been announced by Nintendo yet. Whether the same user-replaceable design will show up outside Europe is unknown; Nikkei notes it could reach the U.S. and Japan, but only if local consumer-protection laws move in the same direction.
Meanwhile, Nintendo hasn’t stopped at hardware tweaks. System-level updates for the Switch 2 are still rolling out — a recent patch added the Handheld Mode Boost feature to help older titles run more stably on the newer internals.
It’s a practical adaptation to regulation more than a flashy redesign, I guess — some players will welcome the convenience, others will wonder about trade-offs. We’ll have to wait and see how broadly this change spreads.