All of Nintendo of America’s repair centers are closed, effective immediately, due to the spread of COVID-19. That means players can’t send in repairs of Nintendo Switch consoles, controllers, or any other hardware.
The announcement appeared on the customer support page for Nintendo of America where it cites “federal and local guidelines” regarding coronavirus preventative measures as the cause for the closures. Many states have enacted shelter-in-place orders, calling on all non-essential businesses to close.
No notice was given on when repair services will resume, but players should not send in any hardware for repairs as it may be “sent back as undeliverable.”
So what happens to existing orders? According to the FAQ, orders in transit will likely be sent back to customers. However, if your order was already received by Nintendo at one of the repair centers, it will “remain there until repair services resume.”
Since there is no telling when that might happen as the coronavirus continues to spread, players could go without their Switch or Joy-Cons for an unknown period of time.
Orders that were already opened will remain so for the next 180 days, roughly six months, so many people won’t have to open a new order. Nintendo of America will also honor any warranties that expire during the repair service closure.
In the meantime, players who encounter problems with their hardware or the annoying Joy-Con drift issue should wait patiently for the service to open up again.
The repair closures are exclusive to North America, but Nintendo warns that the coronavirus pandemic may delay the service and shipments.
“We are working hard to maintain high customer service standards during the current challenging times, but please understand that there may be delays in responses to messages and processing repairs,” Nintendo U.K. stated.
It could take up to three weeks for repair orders to be completed in the U.K. However, Japan already saw production shortages and delays of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons-themed Switch and other hardware. So far, the same hasn’t happened for the North American or European regions, and Nintendo hasn’t said it expects that to happen.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.