 Well, we gotta talk about a major feature for Nintendo Switch 2 because we now know that this is going to come into existence because of some new regulations that got passed out in Europe and chances are that Nintendo will just do this across the board since they're being forced to in one territory. It reminds me of the regulations happening over USB-C and the way that Apple handles their products and how it's highly likely they start moving everything over to USB-C, possibly starting even with their next iPhone, remember iPhones and stuff like that or their Magic Keyboards, these are some of the last little Bastions still using their old Lightning cable. Well, here's the thing. Why do we know this? Well, it appears that a law was just passed in Europe that goes into effect by 2027 and look, any new product coming up the line, not even new, just products being sold that haven't been manufactured yet. So if you manufactured products in 2026, you're fine, but if you're manufacturing them in 2027, they must adhere to this. And basically it's going to make Nintendo Switch 2 much more user-friendly to repair, especially in a major way that's going to extend the life of your platform without needing to potentially go to expensive repair shops. Also, even if you do go to those repair shops, it's also really good for them and it's mostly a big win for right to repair. Now, that being said, before we jump into this story, I want to let you guys know that our channel is sponsored by Into The AM. I'm actually wearing one of their newer shirts right now because they just sent me a batch of brand new shirts right here. You'll see some of these during some upcoming videos. This one actually also has the design on the back. Into The AM creates amazing printed shirts. They are super soft and comfortable. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing I think their products are. 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So go check out IntoTheAM.com slash Nintendo Prime 10 and get some shirts that they have basic colors as well that wear for undershirts or whatever your needs may be. All right, we need to dive into this story and it's because this is a really, really interesting one. I wanna give a small shout out to Spawn Wave. He's a fellow content creator. He posted something on Twitter that brought this to my attention over the weekend and maybe really wanna talk about this. And as you're seeing here at this verkill.wtf, gaming handhelds like the Switch and Steam Deck will need to have a replaceable battery by 2027. Now you might go, well, you already can replace the battery in these, right? Like you could take them apart. It's a bit of a pain in the butt. The glue is really, really whatever. You guys maybe even saw beat them up at one point trying to do it on his, like take out the battery and have an explosion. Yeah, I wouldn't say that that's very user friendly to repair. Now a professional repair person would have no problem or even someone like me that's taken apart electronics many times doesn't really have a problem replacing a battery in a Switch, but I would not call that user repairable. That is more so it can be done, but it's kind of a pain in the ass. And you can understand why people wouldn't be unwilling to do it and wanna go to a professional service. Now, what is going on? And why is this really about Nintendo Switch 2 and not Nintendo Switch? Well, let's get into what it says here. Newly adopted European Union regulation has outlined how all devices sold by 2027, including those founding gaming handhelds will need to have a user replaceable battery. This regulation adopted by the European Council just this week aims to strengthen the sustainability practices around the entire life cycle of a range of portable batteries. And this includes right to repair power for end users. So this is a massive win for right to repair. So this is what you need to know. The EU regulation wants all devices to have replaceable batteries and EU official confirmed to overkill the supplies to gaming devices. Legislation won't go into effect till 2027, four years from now, obviously giving companies time to implement this stuff, which by the way, that does mean that our iPhones and Androids all have to have user replaceable batteries. I'm just pointing out how big of a W this is because we're gonna have to be able to actually be able to take those apart easily. Right now they're not so easy to take apart. Anyways, it'll likely only impact new products. So any products currently out now, it's probably not gonna do anything for because they'll just stop making them. The regulation will likely face pushback from hardware makers because of course it will. Going on, so what does this mean for gaming devices? Well, this EU law on paper at least suggests that portable gaming handhelds sold within Europe, such as the Steam Deck, the ASUS ROG Ally and Nintendo Switch. Again, they're focusing on the gaming handheld side here would need to have removable batteries. Overkill spoke directly with an EU source who conformed that yes, the batteries of gaming handhelds are covered by the batteries and waste batteries regulation. Of course, it's worth noting that this regulation would likely only apply to new products. So it's probably more accurate to say that this could impact the Nintendo Switch 2 or the follow-up Steam Deck, for example. Now it's important to note, these regulations were already known about, so chances are if Nintendo was smart and figured this regulation might go into effect at some point in the future, they probably already planned for Switch 2 to have a user replaceable batteries. But what does that mean exactly? Because again, with special screwdrivers you can open up your Switch and you can technically replace the battery. It is not like soldered to the board or anything, it is taped in, it's a pain in the butt, can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, but it is possible, so can't you say Switch already has replaceable batteries? Not exactly. So the lengthy regulation document outlines how any device brought to the market that has a battery needs to ensure that the batteries, and these are in quotes, this is exactly from the regulation document, are readily removable and replaceable by the end user at any time during the lifetime of the product. It goes on to state, a portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools without requiring the use of specialized tools unless provided free of charge with the product. Now what I find interesting when he talks about that is you can argue that it is commercially available to purchase like the specialized tools that you need to take a part of Switch, you can buy it off Amazon or whatever, but what they really mean obviously is being able to walk into your local hardware store and just buy it, walk into Walmart and just buy it, right? What Switch does is they use specialized screws and while you can get an iFixit kit or other things, they're saying, hey, no, you're gonna have to use something more standard. So what this would mean is that it would be standard screws, so Phillips head, flat head screws, and et cetera, and just something that are really basic that you would need to use. Also that it needs to be a user removable battery. It means the tape method they're using right now, that's not considered user removable. There are other ways you can do it. You can just put little plastic clips in there and just push on the clips and have the battery pop out. Also you can argue they might need to work on how the battery connects to the product because right now sometimes people are pulling wires out even with professional tools. So it would have to be basically an easier way for batteries to connect and easier way to take batteries out and an easier way to access the battery and take the thing apart. Now, obviously this is companies don't want you messing with everything in general, a super easy thing to do on Switch too and they can do this on phones as well is just make a certain plate on the back that you can take off to remove the battery. Pretty simple, like literally, they can just take the back of your Switch here and they can put out like the batteries over here, they can just put a square here and then you can just, you know, take it out. But we have more to talk about here a little bit. The document goes on the note that product manufacturers will need to include instructions and safety information to help aid with the removal of the replacement of these batteries. So they gotta include instructions now that can't just be like do it at your own risk or something like that. They also can't say, hey, you know, avoid your warranty if you replace the battery. No, it has to be allowed. The regulation has been a long time coming and was first proposed last year. However, as a nine to five Mac suggests, which is another website and discussing how this would impact smartphones, the regulation will probably face plenty of pushback from hardware makers and compliance with this legislation will no doubt be interpreted in a handful of novel ways. So when is this gonna happen? Well, I think the intention is generally a good one. Parts of the EU's proposals are solid, particularly on reducing waste because that's the whole idea, keeping devices around longer. I imagine the regulation will face a decent amount of opposition before it becomes a reality. So basically it could get played out for many, many years in the court systems and all of that. Now it was passed. Again, it's technically law right now, but there's likely to be appeals and other things, especially from companies like Apple and Google, Samsung, you know, the big phone manufacturers who really don't wanna take the iPhones and make them easy to open. They don't want that. Like it's not that it's hard for them to do it. They don't want it. They're gonna be like, oh, it affects our design language. It affects our, you know, batteries are proprietary or something. Like we have proprietary battery technology. Users shouldn't be messing with it. Batteries are dangerous. They could explode as we've been replacing double A's and triple A's all our life just make things, you know, it's not that hard. We used to have replaceable batteries in laptops. Remember when you could push a couple of tabs, pile a battery up, buy a new one and shove it in there? Like it's not that hard to have user replaceable batteries. And again, there's so many ways to tackle this because we used to have user replaceable eye on lithium batteries. Like it's not, this isn't even new. It was just taken away from us over time as devices got smaller and never really given batteries. There are still some phones to this day, more so on the cheap end, that still allow you to pop the back off, pop the battery out and put a new phone battery. Remember that used to be a way that we used to get extra battery time on our phones as you would just keep like three or four batteries with you. And if you weren't around a charger, you could keep your phone running for days. It was actually pretty convenient. So I do like this legislation and while it's going to get some pushback, the obvious thing is some form of this legislation at least is going to be enforced. And it would be really highly smart for Nintendo to consider this legislation when releasing this device. So they don't got to make alterations to it later. Chances are since this stuff has been, you know, basically debated for so long that Nintendo was probably already planning as are some of these other phone manufacturers alternative designs to include a user replaceable battery and what form Nintendo decides to take with it again. I talked about how they could still keep it like this internal thing and just still fit within the law but just make a couple alterations to make it easy. They also could just make it even easier and have it literally just be a battery you could pop in and pop out like that. That's entirely possible as well. Again, that used to be a form of removable battery such as like with laptops. So there are many, many ways that Nintendo could approach this in the future. Some of those ways could actually be like a reusable battery that can be forward compatible with new devices as well. So again, lots of things to consider here with this regulation. I think it's mostly a good thing. I'd like to see something similar past here in the United States. You know, you get something similar here plus in Europe, you're guaranteed this is gonna happen. But while this is obviously a more general thing for the whole of technology, it's obvious that this is going to impact Nintendo Switch 2 at some point, even if it's not right away at launch. I'll say that the system launches next year. Oh, Nintendo doesn't have to worry about this for a few years, but they still gotta worry about it. So maybe Nintendo gets away with it at launch but then they would probably have a revision come out. Now, I would just like to see this happen right away. And let's just be honest, I miss when we could use or replace batteries. It was super easy to do. And now they've just made it overly complicated which you can go to a repair shop and then they can't guarantee your device because it's not legally allowed to replace batteries and it's just silly. Anyways, guys, thank you so much for being here. And you know what? I'll catch you guys in that next video.