Nintendo is officially rolling out a revised version of the upcoming Switch 2 featuring user-swappable batteries. The hardware adjustment is a direct, forced response to the European Union’s sweeping Batteries Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1542), a right-to-repair mandate that legally requires all portable appliances to use easily replaceable power cells by February 18, 2027.
To meet the strict regional deadline, Nintendo is abandoning the industry-standard glued-in battery design exclusively for European gamers. Buyers in the region will be able to identify the repair-friendly consoles by checking the retail box. The new units retain the console’s standard “BEE” product prefix but carry a specific “OSM” identifier printed on the packaging.
Nintendo classified this “OSM” hardware as a separate product strictly for regulatory purposes, meaning the swappable-battery edition will not be sold in the United States or Japan. The compliance announcement noticeably excluded any mention of the original Switch generation, according to a report by Engadget, indicating the older hardware will be entirely phased out of the European market before the 2027 cutoff.
How the EU Mandate Ends the Era of Industrial Adhesives
Nintendo has a proven track record of introducing quiet, under-the-hood hardware adjustments. In 2019, the company rolled out a revised version of the original Switch that dramatically improved battery life and patched an Nvidia chipset exploit without making any exterior cosmetic changes. This new European mandate forces a much more physical engineering reality on the tech giant.
Hardware makers across the consumer tech industry rely on strong industrial adhesives to pack larger batteries into ultra-thin devices. The 2027 EU law requires manufacturers to secure batteries with mechanical mounts that any consumer can access using basic screwdrivers without risking damage to the logic board. Legacy hardware that cannot be easily retrofitted faces a hard regulatory block at the border.