The Nintendo Switch repair subscription service many fans hoped would come to the west has now been cancelled in Japan after just a year.
As reported by Nintendo Life, Nintendo announced on its Japanese website it will no longer offer new subscription contracts or renewals as of August 31, 2023. Customers with a contract at the moment will retain the repair subscription until that contract expires.
The service launched in July 2022, and while Nintendo said it didn’t have anything to announce regarding a similar service coming to North America or Europe, many fans hoped it would. Costing ¥200 (around $1.50 / £1.25) a month, the service entitled subscribers to up to six repairs a year including two hardware repairs.
Fans were perhaps hoping for it because, while the Nintendo Switch hardware itself has proven fairly sturdy, the same cannot be said for the Joy-Con controller. These have become infamous for “Joy-Con drift”, which Nintendo hasn’t been able to properly address in the Switch’s six years on the market.
It announced a free repair service for this specific issue back in 2019 but reports said the repair centres were so overwhelmed that mistakes were made when the controllers were meant to be fixed. The issue is so persistent that Nintendo has faced several lawsuits as a result of its Joy-Con malfunctions.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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