Nintendo doesn’t want you blowing into your Switch like it’s the ’90s

We all did it

This is a story that hearkens back to the ye olden times of gaming. The official Nintendo customer service Twitter account is now warning people not to blow into their Switch console in any attempt to fix any issues. More specifically, it doesn’t want you to utilize your own spittle in order to clear out any dust that may be lurking in the cartridge slot.

A tweet from the company says the area in which you insert your Switch game “has a terminal” which is used to read the said game. It then goes on to say that one should not clean this area out with a cotton swab, nor should a cartridge that’s damaged be inserted, lest it corrupts the terminal inside the machine. This is accompanied by a simple diagram illustrating this faux pas.

ゲームカードスロットの中には、ゲームカードを読み込む端子があります。
ここを綿棒などで掃除したり、端子部分が壊れたゲームカードを差し込んだりすると、端子部分に引っかかって壊れてしまうことがあります。

ゲームカードスロットの中は触らないであげてください。 pic.twitter.com/XsQhIeNsYN

— 任天堂サポート (@nintendo_cs) June 29, 2023

Nintendo then strongly urges people to not blow into the cartridge slot, for similar reasons mentioned above (only with more saliva). Instead, Nintendo advises Switch users to use a vacuum cleaner if there is dust in the slot in order to “suck it out” instead.

Back in the day

For many of us, this practice of blowing into game consoles or their proprietary game cartridges is a tried and true method. It could be detrimental to the terminals, but millions of us were guilty of doing so (and getting away with it).

This pretty much goes back to the NES (and eventually the SNES) days, and is something that has struck plenty of older gamers for decades. Some of us are now adults with jobs and responsibilities, but plenty of us remember taking our game out of the console because it wasn’t working, blowing into the cartridge like some form of gaming mouth-to-mouth, and putting it back into the system. More often than not, it worked. But it really shouldn’t have.

It’s interesting that Nintendo is tweeting about this now, given how long its hybrid console has been out. Perhaps there’s been a swathe of people attempting to blow the dust out of their aged machines. But at least people have stopped tasting their Switch cartridges though, right?

Andrew Heaton

Andrew has been a gamer since the 17th century Restoration period. He now writes for a number of online publications, contributing news and other articles. He does not own a powdered wig.

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