Be Wary Of Inserting Faulty Switch Game Cards Into Your Console, Warns Japanese Repair Store

So far NO.
But i don't want it happens to me.

Thanks for the PSA, but how do they even get damaged in the first place?

@AcridSkull
As a heavy handed person who's ruined an SD card I would say repeated insertion and removal with little care in handling would be the cause of damage, I have this same fear with my switch carts so I've had to re-train myself in handling them

I'm always super careful when inserting/taking out game cards. Don't rush the process. But I don't have kids and never will. My electronics (Nintendo, Apple, Tamagotchis haha) are my children so I take really good care of them!

No, but sometimes my switch does not like some game cards, have to take them out and put them in a few times before it recognises them.

Not the Switch but the metal contact on my old DS Lite doesn't work anymore meaning it can't play cartridge anymore. I had to replace it with a brand new one later on just to be able to play cartridge again.

My cards are either in my switch on in the card box, so very little risk of damaging one.

Thanks for telling us

The digital future doesn't need more assists.

@Damo someone should probably phone the police about those people.

have these people heard of caeses for game cards

@Damo exactly & especially kids. kids tend top be fairly careless with this type of stuff. i haven't had this issue, but i also tend to keep the few switch games i have in my 3ds case on top of 3ds games.

"One of the big advantages the Switch has over its rivals is the fact that it uses reasonably robust game cards as the delivery method for its software, rather than delicate and easily-damaged optical media."

B/c we all like getting game carts with only half the game on it, getting empty boxes with no carts in it, and occasionally paying $10 per more per game, ie the Switch tax, b/c Nintendo charges more for carts than other companies charge for discs.

Rather than "one of the big advantages" I'd say "carts are the price we pay for not having cheap large discs so we can have games on the go that don't need to be installed to a HDD".

Not a big advantage, a trade-off at best.

@rjejr There are disadvantages for sure, but how many times do we see digital games get price cuts like most physical do when inventory is being cleared. I would put money that a lot of the Wii U eShop stuff is still selling for $60 even though I can purchase Breath of the Wild physical for around $25 at Walmart right now.

Never happen to me but you know that's what you get nintendo for making the game cards so cheap.
I know nintendo can make those game cards less cheap.

Reminds me of a slightly broken SD card I tried to put in my Wii once, back when I was younger and stupider about these kinds of things.

A bit of plastic kind of snapped off of the top of the card. It didn't seem too bad, as I was able to snap it back into place, and it went in and read like it normally would. Crisis averted, or so I thought.

One day, that piece of plastic came off and got stuck inside the SD slot when I pulled the card out. Cards would still read, but now I had to physical hold them in the slot with my finger, as they would no longer "click" in. Not a good thing considering how easily these cards can get corrupted. Luckily, this wasn't long before the Wii U came out, and I transferred my data there pronto.

@Timsworld2 "then maybe the practice would stop."

Gaming has been falling part for years now, doesn't seem like we can do much to stop anything. Belgium outlawed loot boxes, which was nice, but then companies simply stopped selling games in Belgium.

The mostly digital future seems to be fast approaching. But that's just a philosophical debate. The FACT is the Switch cartridges are smaller and more expensive than discs, and that does affect some Switch games more than games on PS or Xbox. So while they do have their advantages, we've been affected by their shortcomings as well.

The future dont' look good though for physical media, not at all, Pandora's box is open on all things digital. I was just flipping through my FF7 manual in the box. No matter how much FF7R costs is wont' come with one of those.

@Darknyht Physical and digital have their trade-offs, just like carts and discs have their trade-offs. I just can't see carts as "One of the big advantages the Switch has over its rivals". It's not even a little advantage. It's not necessarily a detriment either, but it's a trade-off.

@rjejr I wholeheartedly disagree. A trade-off? Pfft. I rarely get half a game on a cartridge - mostly if there's any download it's a small update that takes a few minutes.

Now I've had my fair share of lovely moments with playstation and xbox, and I can say this with absolute certainty: I would ALWAYS take cartridges over optical media, ESPECIALLY if opting for on-the-go play.

Back when I got my hands on a ps3 I went to buy it around noon, and instantly went back and plugged it in. I was able to play at like 11 pm... Or so I thought. After finalizing OS bs and installing the game (my god it takes ages to install), it had bloody updates that were also mandatory afterwards.

Same story happened with my ps4. Anytime I hadn't used it for a while, there would be some big update or when I wanted to play a new game it'd need to spend HOURS installing.

So far my "worst" Switch experience has been inserting a cartridge and being prompted to download ~1.2 GB, which took me a good 15 minutes.

The average is popping it in and launching the game immediately. AKA that's what usually happens.

Also, wew. Glad I am the sole person handling my cartridges. I'll never experience this.

@rjejr I agree that digital is going to win eventually. I think there already is an Xbox out there with no disc slot, and I would be curious how many people have purchased it. I will get worried about Nintendo when they get serious about offering a Game Pass type of service for their back catalog/older releases.

I do know my gaming library has already shrank somewhat this generation because the price cuts are not happening on new/used at the rate they used to. I find myself back to getting 1 major title and a few eShop games in a year versus my ability to pick up a lot of titles cheap.

@Blizzia "I would ALWAYS take cartridges over optical media, ESPECIALLY if opting for on-the-go play."

If I opted for on-the-go play I may feel similar. But I only play on my couch, and I never take my Switch out of the dock. Putting discs in and out - eject from software is nice on PS3 and PS4 - I'm really not a fan of changing cartridges on the Switch. I know for anyone who had a Gameboy, DS or 3DS they're used to it, but as someone who has only ever gamed at home, disc swapping > cartridge swapping.

You make some good points, it's only been a few games that have been hampered by the cost and limited size, but those do exist even if you haven't played them yourself.

For me it's a trade-off, but I'd rather have discs on my home console, much easier to use. Installation is a slow pain, but those Nintneod download speeds are so ridiculously slow patches and updates bother me almost as much. And I have my Switch plugged in, Hulu and Youtube stream fine, it's just the Ntinedo eShop that's slow.

@Darknyht I had completely forgotten about Xbox SAD. It's so ridiculous - I think I read a tear down that the slot is still in the box, they just covered it - that my brain keeps thinking it's an April Fool's joke and writing it off.

https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-one-s-all-digital-edition-still-has-eject-button-and-disc-drive-port-inside

I own one game and it stays in the switch

HULK PLAY SWITCH!
(jams game card in and breaks something)
WHY SWITCH NO WORK FOR HULK?! HULK SMASH!
(hours later...Bruce Banner walks in)
Annndd, this is why I don't get to play video games? Tony! I thought you put an otter box on this thing?!

@rjejr Ah yeah, I guess we view the Switch fundamentally different. For me it's a handheld that I can connect to the TV whenever it isn't occupied. I'm also very much a handheld person, being more of a fan of GB, GBA, DS, 3DS, Vita and so on.

And yes, the games exist, but they're not widespread enough to be considered a general con. I own quite a lot of Switch games (like 120) and I've only had the issue on a few of them (the "issue" being a long wait before being able to play, and 90% of this "issue" being actual digital downloads/DLC and not physical cartridge games hah).

Not sure why downloads are slow for you though, I know the Switch has a bit of a low limit, but I've never had system updates and other things like that take ages. Game/digital content downloads are fast as well.

Oh no! I better be careful! 😱

Oh nevermind, I almost forgot I don’t do physical media. Haha! One less reason to do physical.

Digital all the way!

I play lots of rentals, and it never crosses my mind to examine the cart before inserting it. Haven't really been doing my due diligence in that regard...gotta do better before I wreck my Switch. Especially since I'll never buy a digital game that costs more than $20...

This actually did happen to me once, and it was the copy of Breath of the Wild I pre-ordered too... I didn't realize the problem until I had already tried inserting the cartridge in and it couldn't read. Thankfully my Switch still seems fine and I haven't encountered that same problem with any cartridges since. But as a first time experience I had with the Switch, it was extremely disappointing.

Though the fact that the plastic strips are actually quite flimsy is very worrisome. I had thought it was just a fluke before.

@Blizzia I dont' know why Nintedo has always seemed slow, but they always have. Over the past few years I've had my internet increase from 5, 10, 25, 50, 60 and now 100. And PS3 and PS4 have always had much faster downloads than Wii U and Switch over my same wired network. My kids and I ahve always just assumed it's Nintneod's servers. And on our PC Steam on the same network downloads stuff twice as fast as PS4. They've invested in some hardware on those Steam servers, every download flies from there. Well I've never tried to download a big game Day 1 when the masses are all competing for bandwidth, but when ever I get a game on sale it's faster than I think should be possible.

@sixrings digital future. After ten years server is shut down. Yea I think that's worse than a cartridge breaking as you can buy a new cartridge.

@rjejr I have way faster dls with Nintendo than with any other service. It could be location. If your located far from the Nintendo servers and closer to say steams then you would have faster steam dls.

I've actually had to send my Switch into Nintendo for repair because it wouldn't read cartridges. However I've only bought Switch games new so it must have been a manufacturering error.

@Dirty0814 I'm in New York. That could be it actually, Nintnedo servers probably are in Washington state. Steam must have servers everywhere in the US. Not sure about Sony, I would think California, but you certainly could be on to something. I shall investigate it further, thanks.

Yea Nintendos are in Washington for the US. As for steam yea they are everywhere and Sony's It is in California and one in Texas so still closer than Nintendos. So yea it probably is your problem.
I would expect Nintendo to be placing a new server somewhere eventually like NY, especially with the success they are having with their online brands aka Smash, Mario kart, Arms and Splatoon. I would expect more to come as well.

@BensonUii Yeah, unfortunately these things only have a limited number of “read & write” cycles on them. Also, you could just have a faulty cart.
I’ve burnt through a few cheap SD cards. FYI, the Chinese/EBay cards are usually the worst. I even have a friend that has gone through numerous consoles & caused a few game discs to no longer work.

@rjejr

Everything can be damaged, but the card certainly do seem more robust than the disks used by competitors. People in general have gotten used to the disks and take better care of them, but I remember when CD/DVD based games, music and movies were still relatively new, and I remember all the people I knew who quickly ruined them.

I remember one time seeing the dumpster behind my local Game Stop full of ruined PS1 PS2 and Gamecube discs. There must have been hundreds!

@rjejr Seems a bit strange for sure, but then again, I can't comment too much on my own speed regarding digital releases as I've preloaded nearly everything, and the games I haven't preloaded I bought a while before wanting to play so they were on my Switch anyway.

Oh well.

@MrVariant That's a great gif. You might say good times even.

BTW, should you ever feel like embedding one, surround that link with the letters IMG between square brackets at the beginning then after the link put /IMG in between the square brackets. Dont' forget the / or it won't work.

@Blizzia You know, I've been gaming for over 20 years and I'm pretty sure I've never pre-loaded a game. Most stuff I still buy physical and the digital stuff I usually buy months later when it's half price. Even on my PS3 and PS4. Most of those preload games, sports and FPS, don't interest me.

I did buy the Switch Mario Odyssey bundle Day 1 that came with a digital copy of the game but Ntineod was too cheap & lazy to download the game for me in advance in a $380 bundle so I still had to download that after getting it home. So even that game wasn't preloaded.

The day is probably coming though. Next gen they'll probably be pushing it even more.

@rjejr thanks, much better once I edit.

@MrVariant It worked, congrats reading my hieroglyphic instructions.

@rjejr Haha, dw, the amount of games that are "real" pre-loads for me are limited to a few. I dislike all the random sports/fps games as well.

I've pre-loaded smash bros ultimate, pokemon eevee, dark souls remastered, diablo 3 and... Okami?

Fairly few real pre-loads, with only two (SSBU/Pokémon Let's Go Eevee) being "new". I play D3 with a friend (we take turns duo-ing D3 and MHGU), and play PLGEevee when my girlfriend is in a generous mood to indulge me.

The main "pre-loads" I've done consisted of buying the games when I knew I was closing in on the end of another game so that I'd have the game purchased and downloaded before starting it.

Well, except the Atelier Arland trilogy. I bought that day 1, still haven't gotten past the 1st game's 1st chapter. I like them, but they're "too" chill at first.

@Blizzia I have most of those physical. Or my library does. My library has a pretty big PS4 collection and a few Switch games. It's only a weekly loan but lately they've been auto-renewing online twice so I actually have them for 3 weeks. Let's see Stadia pull that off.

I actually have had an issue where some of my games won't read when inserted into my switch. I've been able to fix this error with some rubbing alcohol and a q-tip, cleaning the contacts on the game and drying out before reinsert in. I take immaculate care of my switch and my cartridges and I don't let any dust get to them so this puzzles me. Also if I remember correctly my Zelda game would not read day 1 out of the box back in 2017 and I had to reinsert several times. Must be a manufacturing error like the Joycon drift.

@rjejr Ah, capitalism at its best. Cheaper to assemble the same machine and just put a cover over it. I would curious when the mods to "fix" that will start showing up, because if I remember it is a cheaper Xbox.

@Darknyht I honestly wouldn't think enough people would buy the Xbox SAD to be worth anyone's time to try to mod it. It's $249, normal Xbox S is $299, so it's probably cheaper to buy the regular S than mod the SAD. Like Stadia SAD seems way overpriced for what you get. They took out a $100 ultra HD blu-ray player and lowered the price $50.

@rjejr So when the inventory goes on clearance we will see the mods then

@Darknyht Ok, ya got me there. I bought the original Xbox One (pre S and X) for $178 clearance at Target. It came with Ori, Rare Replay, Gears of War 1 remastered, and a 1 TB HDD. After about 8 months of playing all that I traded it in towards a Switch, got $110 at Gamestop. Also played Sunset Overdrive, bought on clearance for $8, one of the most fun games I've ever played. No regrets.

But I'm not buying a SAD to mod it, even for $48.