Nintendo

I do hope Nintendo use better quality screws on Switch 2, as this is a problem that has likely caused no end of problems for repair technicians. I have repaired a Wii before and its screws were of a far higher quality.

I'd go further and say I'm hoping one of the reasons for the higher Switch 2 prices is better quality components overall. I loved my Switch 1 but good god the build quality was disappointing, in particular for the joycons - had so many problems with those.

One of the reasons I'm holding back on a potential Switch 2 purchase is that I want to see someone do a really good teardown of that console when it's out and see how much they have improved it. If we can go back to the good old times where we joked that their consoles were built out of "Nintendium" I'd say the $450 price tag becomes a lot easier to digest.

Thanks for the replacement tip. I'm not sure much is going to change moving forward though. Nonstandard screw heads are used to keep bored people (especially kids) out. Only the invisible sky wizard knows how much stuff was saved from my preteen curiosity by not being a Philips or flathead. (RIP my old Walkman, sorry I never figured out how to put you back together properly.) Do you know how tempting those clips on the top of NES carts were to me as a kid? I poked at them even knowing the security screws were there. Had those been anything I could undo with my dad's tools, you bet your ass I'd have them disassembled, inspected, running back and forth across the carpeted floor (which also served as the work table) to get more carts, seeing if game boards could fit in another case to prank my brother, the whole nine yards.

If one of those ~$50 games ended up not working (whether by carpet-fueled ESD or a literal misstep or whatever), best case scenario is that I would have been out of a game if my parents didn't find out. (Worst case, my mom wouldn't be able to play Tetris anymore and I may not have survived third grade.) Because they certainly weren't going to buy "it just stopped working" from the kid that disassembled Optimus Prime. I can see other parents buying the sob story though, making a big scene at the store or on the phone (and these days, online), demanding a refund/replacement regardless of warranty status.

Of course none of that impacts hobbyists - we just get the right tool and go to town. But nonstandard screw heads work well enough at keeping out kids (and idiots) that they're likely here to stay.

And we both know the answer to the fastener quality issue: if you can shave a penny off of a part that'll be used hundreds of millions of times, well, that's what you're gonna do. There's precious little in the way of (regular) user-serviceable parts in anything anymore. The manufacturers don't want us in there. Is that going to stop us? No.

We can hope for better, but IMO "this makes a great replacement part" is awesome info on its own.

Thanks for reading my very long-winded "thank you." ^_^;

I just replaced the left joystick last night and it didn't even dawn on me to get replacement screws. I did buy a repair kit, which had the tweezers, spudgers and the necessary screw drivers, all of which came in handy. I really wish you would have posted this 12 hours sooner, though replacing the triwings would be fairly easy.

It is super nice to have a guilikit hall effect stick. I didn't touch the right one for now, as I wanted to make sure the left one was working given a few of the Amazon reviews. But so far, so good.

I've switched my joysticks a lot and the screw settings failed. So mine kinda have a frankenstien look to them. I drilled a small hole for a bolt and a nut with the cap to keep them together. Not the sleekest but it works. Cant use the joycon grip depending which ones you replace.