Movin on up
[Update:It turns out this may be a case of YMMV. After this story broke during the week, outletGo Nintendo reached outto Nintendo of America to confirm if the company would be providing exchanges on any units. In a PR statement, the company confirmed that is is not offering such a service.
“We do not have a Nintendo Switch exchange program. We always want players to enjoy their Nintendo Switch systems, and if anything ever gets in the way of that, we encourage them to visit http://support.nintendo.com for support, or to contact our consumer support team.”
The official policy may be that this offer doesn’t exist, but some people have had success in getting new units. Your best bet would be to call Nintendo for yourself and see if it is willing to do an exchange for you. If not, you could always return the unit to whichever store you purchased it from if you’re still under the 30-day warranty.]
Accordingtomultiplesources, Nintendo of America is allowing anyone that purchased the older Switch model after July 26, 2025, to trade-in their unit for the upgraded one with better battery life. For those unaware, ahardware refresh was released into the wild last monththat increased the Switch’s battery life from 5.5 hours to around 9 hours in portable mode. Since the announcement came out of nowhere, many people may have purchased the older unit unaware that a better one even existed.
The discovery came from aReddit threadthat asked about the possibility of trading in a launch day unit for the new one. Nintendo told user DarthMewTwo that only consoles purchased after July 17 would be eligible for exchange. YouTube channelGameXplain confirmed the report, as didoutlet Digital Trends. There are no strings attached, other than Nintendo requiring you to pay postage for shipping.
If you think this may apply to you, you’ll have to first confirm you have the older Switch model. The easiest way to tell is if the packaging contains a white background as the newer model is in a mostly red box (like the header image). If you’ve thrown out the box, then check the serial number. The newer models all start with “XKW” for their serial number. Once you’ve confirmed everything, send an email toNintendo’s support addressand they’ll give you all the information you’ll need to get the newer Switch revision.
Nintendo will allow you to trade in your Switch console for the revised model under certain conditions[VG 24/7]
