No Refunds If your Nintendo Switch has Dead Pixiels.

It’s always sad when something dies, but nothing breaks a hardware fan’s heart quite like a dead pixel. These tiny black blotches simply won’t go away, and when you’ve got a fancy new screen, having to glance at those dead clusters can be an endless headache. Unfortunately, folks are already reporting that their fancy new Nintendo Switches are getting dead pixels, which must be a huge buzzkill… but perhaps not as big a buzzkill as the fact that Nintendo is saying that a few dead pixels doesn’t count as a problem on their end.

From the Swtich’s new, updated FAQ page:

Q: There are black or bright dots on the Nintendo Switch screen that do not go away, or there are dark or light patches on the screen.
A) Small numbers of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect.

Horrible! Terrible! How is it fair that you should pay 300+ for a device with an annoying screen? Well, as it turns out, this isn’t exactly a case of Nintendo being uncompromising for its own sake: they are, in fact, normal for LCD screens, and most tech companies agree with Nintendo’s policy. Plus, Nintendo’s screens are actually very small, so a dead pixel or ten would actually be fairly easy to ignore.

While Nintendo seems unwilling to offer discounts for small amounts of dead pixels, I’m sure if there’s a sizeable number, you’d still be eligible for a refund. Not that anyone’s come forward to try that, as of yet.

Anyway, something to bear in mind if you decide to try and get a Switch: no refunds if your fancy new screen has a few black dots here and there that won’t go away, or change color.

Still, I wonder how many people have discovered the problem to warrant getting its own FAQ page…