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[Hoo-doo]

How DOES a friction lock work exactly, if there's anything beyond that explanation.

It holds stuff in place by creating .. you guessed it, friction.

It's preferable over physical plastic latches, notches or locks seeing as they have no give, and a single drop of the device could simply snap the latches and make the entire thing unusable. A friction lock would just give way during impact without damaging the locking mechanism itself.

 

[cr_blah_blah]

The fuck? All because a NeoGAF thread made him look like he's misrepresenting your favorite toy?

It truly is children in a sandbox.

 

[Kaizer]

I pray for the day people realize Gertsman is an idiot and stop praising him.

This is a step on the right direction.

Really? Ooooookay........

 

[Two Words]

Just did

https://www.engadget.com/2006/07/21/nintendo-fesses-up-to-ds-lite-hinge-defect-will-fix-for-free/



And?

Haha, no. Those hinges constantly broke under typical wear and tear. There was a reason the fat DS never had this problem, the DS Lite had it constantly, and then the problem went away with the DSi. That 0.02 figure is bullshit.

 

[ArtHands]

Who is trying to get "the clicks" here?

OP needs the click

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Haha, no. Those hinges constantly broke under typical wear and tear. There was a reason the fat DS never had this problem, the DS Lite had it constantly, and then the problem went away with the DSi. That 0.02 figure is bullshit.

And I'm sure you have sources to back up that figure being BS?

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Of all the things to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt on, I'll stick with durability.

 

[bar mitzvah]

It blows my mind when people take other people more seriously than that other person takes themselves.

They have a lighthearted approach, but in terms of ethics Giantbomb is unimpeachable. I think Jeff takes it all very seriously. Sure, they had a funny way of showing that the locking mechanism isn't foolproof, but the point stands that it doesn't take a whole lot to get those joycons to pop off. Giantbomb simply gives zero fucks when it comes to showing products (possible) warts and all.

That being said, I cannot wait for Friday.

 

[marrec]

How DOES a friction lock work exactly, if there's anything beyond that explanation.

It works by keeping the two things locked in place until enough force is applied at which point the mechanism releases and the two are separated.

The 3DS hinge is an example of a friction lock. You can increase or decrease the locking force depending on how often you are expecting the consumer to lock and unlock the mechanism via force.

You can also pair it with a more traditional latch that can be pressed to release the lock. For example on the extendable handle in some pieces of luggage.

 

[Mikey Jr.]

Seems like it would have been a better option to have to joycons click in from the bottom. Then gravity wouldn't be your enemy.

In close quarters on the subway, hitting someone's bag could easily cause this.

I won't lie, this is a pretty bad gif. Bad for Nintendo I mean.

I mean, there is no context behind it.

Having said that, I doubt dropping it on concrete would cause BOTH latches to break simultaneously.

 

[Nerazar]

Haha, no. Those hinges constantly broke under typical wear and tear. There was a reason the fat DS never had this problem, the DS Lite had it constantly, and then the problem went away with the DSi. That 0.02 figure is bullshit.

Yes, my DSlite also broke after 2-3 years. It was still usable, but without the hinge... well... :/

I don't see the Switch having similar issues. The joycon desync-problem is much more of a game-changer than the hardware design which seems pretty sturdy. Of course you would have to handle a $300 device with care like with anything else.

I wonder how children get to use their iPads and why there is nearly no negative publicity for Apple, because those things can and will break if they're being mishandled. With a Nintendo device, however, people seem to still think that the device is cheap and a kids toy which should not be handled with care. The Switch is one of the few times recently in which Nintendo actually made competitive hardware (in the handheld space) and maybe this is clouding people's judgement.

 

[Gutss]

It's nice to know that the locking mechanism isn't so rigid that it will break if dropped I suppose. Nice design.

Thread backfired lol, thanks op now we know we getting a great product.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Yeah a frictional lock makes sense for this sort of utility.

 

[Liabe Brave]

The problem with the design you suggest is that it would not be as elegant for docking mode. Now you can easily click the joycons on/off if the device is docked.

And then you cannot detach them anymore when it is in the dock, you did not think this through.

You wouldn't be able to detach them from the dock.

So how would you detach the Joy-Cons in the dock, then?

Just apply a tiny bit of imagination. What if, instead of requiring the Joy-Cons to slide all the way off the device upward, they slid a third of the way downward? Gaps in the rails could than allow them to be moved laterally away from the Switch. Because of the height of the dock, the Joy-Cons could then still be easily removed while docked, while remaining in the same orientation.

There are no apparent disadvantages to this design, and two advantages. First, if the connection is too loose, there's no chance of Switch sliding due to gravity. Second, if the connection is too sticky, you can get the Joy-Cons off without possibly lifting Switch partially out of the dock and off the connector.

Switch may not have any real issues with either scenario, but let's not pretend the design couldn't be even better.

 

[DeuceGamer]

A mechanism that will release if given enough pressure isn't exactly some new patent that we need to wait and see with. This kind of design is something that we deal with all the time in everyday objects and has tons of engineering and testing hours behind it.

I think "over time" it will likely work exactly as it does now.

For how long do we expect it will work "exactly as it does now"? It's unreasonable to expect that it will never wear down and will always work like it does now. At some point it will wear out, but that may be a reasonable amount of time that most agree is to be expected.

I have said it multiple times but I do get the concerns but also think it has been overblown by some.

 

[Hattori]

It's likely just a friction lock, that removes the friction when you press the button.

My guess is they tested it with a full on locking mechanism, and if you apply the correct pressure at the wrong degree you could break the mechanism. This is likely done for safety concerns.

bump so it doesn't get buried

 

[Vitacat]

I won't lie, this is a pretty bad gif. Bad for Nintendo I mean.

I mean, there is no context behind it.

Having said that, I doubt dropping it on concrete would cause BOTH latches to break simultaneously.

Has another press person with a Switch, who hasn't dropped/damaged it, been able to do that, the way it's done in that gif?

So far, I haven't see any such reports. And you'd think there would be, if it was happening for anyone else like that. The disconnection issue, for example, was very quickly corroborated by multiple press outlets.

 

[stilgar]

Yeah a frictional lock makes sense for this sort of utility.

Yep.
This is as ridiculous as this infamous PSP gif with the umd ejecting

Found:

 

[DragonGirl]

Had a lady in Gamestop who couldn't buy games that used the gamepad for the WiiU due to a defective screen. The defect? Her kid headbutted the screen and smashed it.

That said, I can see the Switch being more delicate than past Nintendo products. One, it has more moving parts. People will abuse those joycons, especially kids. Not much you can do about that, no design expertise would have saved the above mentioned gamepad. Also, Nintendo's plasticy toy like designs everybody hates also adds to their durability. The Switch is a sleek high end device and is going to have sleek high end vulnerabilities.

 

[Skyzard]

Has another press person with a Switch, who hasn't damaged it, been able to do that, the way it's done in that gif?

So far, I haven't see any such reports. And you'd think there would be, if it was happening for anyone else like that. The disconnection issue, for example, was quickly corroborated by multiple press outlets.

I've been asking and no replies yet. I watch GB because they tend to think things through, especially Jeff - and ask questions others don't.

 

[Two Words]

And I'm sure you have sources to back up that figure being BS?

Well they have sold over 93 million DS lites worldwide. To make the math easier, lets just call it 100m. Feel free to find US sales, but I'm going to guess it is half US sales, so put that at 50m. .1% of 50m is 50,000 DS Lite units. I used to work at GameStop during that time and I saw hundreds of busted DS Lite hinges. I can confidently say that I have seen over 500. I had to ship out so many of them weekly. To make the math easier, I'll just put it at 500. 500 is 1% of 50,000. since they said .2%, cut everything in half. I strongly doubt that me working at a single GameStop lead me to seeing 0.5% of all DS Lites affected by the broken hinges. It was a real issue that was due to a weak design. Basically, they made it small enough to easily fit in a pocket, but it couldn't handle those physical conditions.

 

[Mikey Jr.]

Just apply a tiny bit of imagination. What if, instead of requiring the Joy-Cons to slide all the way off the device upward, they slid a third of the way downward? Gaps in the rails could than allow them to be moved laterally away from the Switch. Because of the height of the dock, the Joy-Cons could then still be easily removed while docked, while remaining in the same orientation.

There are no apparent disadvantages to this design, and two advantages. First, if the connection is too loose, there's no chance of Switch sliding due to gravity. Second, if the connection is too sticky, you can get the Joy-Cons off without possibly lifting Switch partially out of the dock and off the connector.

Nintendos whole thing is "switch". Two halves the joycons snapping together is their whole thing. Its in all their marketing.

In your scenario, it would be a joycon moving a little bit down then being pulled out? Not very marketable or sexy.

 

[marrec]

For how long do we expect it will work "exactly as it does now"? It's unreasonable to expect that it will never wear down and will always work like it does now. At some point it will wear out, but that may be a reasonable amount of time that most agree is to be expected.

I have said it multiple times but I do get the concerns but also think it has been overblown by some.

At our manufacturing company we test to make sure it will last at least a few months past the warranty period without a reduction in operation. Dunno what Nintendo tests for though 🤷

 

[Zen_Arcade]

The fear is that over time these latches will become less secure via normal wear and tear.

Everyone seems in a hurry to dismiss this and focus on him dropping it. Which by the way will happen to people.

It would probably be wise to not skip the warranty.

Well if the only reason it would happen is because it's broken because some one dropped it, it's not very fair to blame the company as if they made a design flaw. This situation could happen with literally any expensive electronic device.

If him dropping it is the catalyst to why their Joy Cons fly off then that's probably what we should be focusing on anyway.

 

[Shaii]

I've been asking and no replies yet. I watch GB because they tend to think things through, especially Jeff - and ask questions others don't.

Have you reached out to Nintendo for an official statement?

 

[Jedi2016]

Where's the video of that guy shaking the living shit out of his 3DS and then complaining that the hinge was loose?

 

[Skyzard]

Have you reached out to Nintendo for an official statement?

I imagine it would be faster to ask reviewers and get a response, than anything meaningful from Nintendo.
I kinda worry sites will fear a potential backlash though and so will get less clicks on their Nintendo content.

At the least we'll have confirmations come launch day, with people testing to see if you need to press the release button on theirs before taking it off.

Hopefully we'll hear something more concrete before then.

 

[7DollarHagane]

It's a hardware launch for a commercial product, most of us are treating with the proper amount of reverence and seriousness.

And I assume you also won't look to use the thing to crack open coconuts or pound loose nails into your walls.

What GB was doing was unusual rough behavior and misuse for the purposes of testing it's durability.

This wasn't a case of normal use and whoops everything fell apart

 

[King Gilga]

It's not like nintendo isn't known for making shoddy hardware or anything.

The nintendo defense forces in these threads are hilarious.

Do the controllers slide into the tablet form either top or bottom or only from the top

 

[PAULINK]

Yep.
This is as ridiculous as this infamous PSP gif with the umd ejecting

Found:

man, classic gif.

 

[Skyzard]

^It looks like he actually presses the release mechanism (left side) in that gif lol.

The triggers aren't that far in.

 

[marrec]

It's not like nintendo isn't known for making shoddy hardware or anything.

The nintendo defense forces in these threads are hilarious.

Do the controllers slide into the tablet form either top or bottom or only from the top

Only the top.

 

[Shaii]

I imagine it would be faster to ask reviewers and get a response, than anything meaningful from Nintendo.
I kinda worry sites will fear a potential backlash though and so will get less clicks on their Nintendo content.

At the least we'll have confirmations come launch day, with people testing to see if you need to press the release button on theirs before taking it off.

Hopefully we'll hear something more concrete before then.

I think you should reach out and ask how Nintendo plan to compensate future buyers of the system.

I'm thinking an ambassador program of some sort would be fair.

I can understand why you are Very Conserned about reviewer backlash. I'm sure Nintendo is already doing everything they can to cover up this mess

 

[fabricated backlash]

It's not like nintendo isn't known for making shoddy hardware or anything.

The nintendo defense forces in these threads are hilarious.

Do the controllers slide into the tablet form either top or bottom or only from the top

The selective ignorance on display in this thread is amazing.

 

[lastplace09]

OJbloodyglovedoesntfit.gif

 

[HammerFace]

A mechanism that will release if given enough pressure isn't exactly some new patent that we need to wait and see with. This kind of design is something that we deal with all the time in everyday objects and has tons of engineering and testing hours behind it.

I think "over time" it will likely work exactly as it does now.

No you're totally right it's most likely nothing, but the video shows that joycons can loosen up (that second gif where the dude taps the red joycon did not look like a lot of applied force) which can be a potential annoying problem. But the problem I guess I'm having is people acting like dropping your your switch or getting knocked into by a person on a bus is some crazy never gonna happen event. Especially when a design decision like sliding the joycons up would circumvent that. But ehh let's hope for the best, because I'd hate for my switch to break like that.

 

[darkside31337]

My DS lite hinge cracked and my 3ds xl slider snapped in half thanks to smash, decided to wait on a switch for a bunch of reasons, one being just because hardware issues can definitely be a thing with a device that has this many moving parts. Seeing folks attack GB for pointing something out with their system seems weird as hell.

 

[Karanlos]

Hopefully we'll hear something more concrete before then.

Nice pun

 

[King Gilga]

Only the top.

I was thinking why not do the reverse, slide them in from the bottom so whatever hook or thing that prevents them from sliding in backwards keeps the screen up so you can't even force it down.

But then I guess the controllers could fall, but a fallen controller is much better than a screen.

That's assuming these get loose enough over time that this is even an issue.

 

[Clefargle]

Nintendos whole thing is "switch". Two halves the joycons snapping together is their whole thing. Its in all their marketing.

In your scenario, it would be a joycon moving a little bit down then being pulled out? Not very marketable or sexy.

Also less intuitive and maybe too complex for dumb/young users to grasp.

 

[Maximus.]

Rorie just taps it and it goes flying though, doesn't seem like much force at all and it's only been a few days, imagine if it gets looser and looser.

What's the point of the release button?

Yea conclusive evidence the mechanism is weak from one outlet. A lot of people like jumping to conclusions. It's like these companies don't do any sort of quality/durability testing.

 

[NimbusD]

Yeah should probably be stronger, but I'm pretty sure I'll never be in a scenario where I'm putting force in the switch in that way. Also if I do it looks like the friction keeps the screen from completely falling anyway.

I do think it's weird that they didn't opt for them to slide downward to prevent the screen from ever being able to slide downward. Just put the USB c on top and mount upside down. Maybe they thought that extra step made is too complicated idk.

 

[Grief.exe]

How DOES a friction lock work exactly, if there's anything beyond that explanation.

The easiest explanation is put something on the table, then apply a very light force to that object with your finger, continually increase the force bit by bit until it starts moving. That is a friction lock, it takes more force to break the friction than it does to slide the object afterwards.

A locking mechanism would be a piece of metal that slides into a hole, when you press the button it physically unlocks the device. Friction lock is just held into place by friction alone.

If they went with a physical locking system over friction, then I can see scenarios where a strong force comes in at the wrong angle and completely breaks the controller (outright dropping, banging hard against a table, etc). Where the system shown in the gifs the trade off is the locks won't prevent you removing the controllers if you apply a strong force in the correct area, but you also can't destroy the controller.

 

[SgtFlowers]

I saw that UPF, I'm glad you made a thread discussing this OP.

I wonder if the joycon locks broke due to the drop, I hope this is the case.

Defeats the purpose of a lock mechanism on the joycons if they of course can't lock on to the device,

 

[BRocknRolla]

I imagine it would be faster to ask reviewers and get a response, than anything meaningful from Nintendo.
I kinda worry sites will fear a potential backlash though and so will get less clicks on their Nintendo content.

At the least we'll have confirmations come launch day, with people testing to see if you need to press the release button on theirs before taking it off.

Hopefully we'll hear something more concrete before then.

So we've got press too afraid to speak about the issue added to the mix now. Certainly that must be why we haven't heard more. I mean, that didn't stop people from talking about desyncing, but this is obviously different.

Honestly, what do you think Nintendo should say in their reply? "Yes, we can confirm that if you grip the joy-cons and press down on the top of the Switch hard enough, you can disconnect the two. In testing, we found that this scenario was highly unlikely and would generally only occur if you were actively trying to do it, in which case, it was thought better to allow the pressure to overcome the latch, rather than breaking it." Would that be satisfying, or would we have a lot of junior designers offering their improved solutions?

 

[ASIS]

^It looks like he actually presses the release mechanism (left side) in that gif lol.

The triggers aren't that far in.

Nah i remember it happening to me. But the disk didn't exactly fly off though. It just popped, I returned it and resumed playing.

 

[IlGialloMondadori]

I won't lie, this is a pretty bad gif. Bad for Nintendo I mean.

I mean, there is no context behind it.

Having said that, I doubt dropping it on concrete would cause BOTH latches to break simultaneously.

Jesus Christ. No it's not. The system survived falling on concrete, and he pushed down and applies some force. The system does not break, and the screen does not fall out. The latch disconnects so it doesn't snap.

Whyyyyy are people still talking about this hahah.

 

[Skyzard]

http://jeff.zone/post/157739365996/yeah-pardon-me-if-id-rather-formulate-my-own

Nah i remember it happening to me. But the disk didn't exactly fly off though. It just popped, I returned it and resumed playing.

I believe you, but in that gif lol, his left index finger slides along where the release mechanism is and has no reason to be there.

 

[King Gilga]

http://jeff.zone/post/157739365996/yeah-pardon-me-if-id-rather-formulate-my-own

Hah, with people like this in the thread.

I pray for the day people realize Gertsman is an idiot and stop praising him.

This is a step on the right direction.

Sure backs it up.

 

[Skyzard]

Hah, with people like this in the thread.

Sure backs it up.

The guy he's quoting is from this thread

Jeff is fantastic. He asks questions before they become an issue, has a lot of foresight. It's a lot to do with why he's so good to watch. At least for me. Messing around is a big bonus too.