Nearly ten years after launch, the original Nintendo Switch will vanish from European shops next year. Blame a new EU rule on batteries, not the Switch 2.

Nintendo will stop selling every version of the original Switch in Europe from mid-February 2027, The Verge reports. That lands weeks before the console's tenth birthday. The cull covers the Switch, the Switch Lite and the Switch OLED model. Sales to retailers and through the Nintendo Store will both end.

Blame the battery rules

A new EU regulation drives the change. From 18 February 2027, portable devices sold in the bloc must let owners swap out their own batteries. Nintendo will phase out current models and roll out revised ones that comply, starting this summer. It promises “no difference in functionality” between the old and new versions.

The Switch 2 gets the biggest overhaul. A version with a user-replaceable battery should reach shops in the autumn, Engadget reports. The trade-offs are tiny. The new battery holds 5,172mAh against 5,220mAh, a drop of about 1 per cent, and the console gains roughly 10g. Revised Joy-Con controllers, the Switch 2 Pro Controller and the N64 and GameCube pads follow on a rolling basis.

What Nintendo drops

Not everything survives the switch. Nintendo will retire the original Switch Pro Controller, its Sega Mega Drive and SNES pads, and the Pokémon Go Plus+ accessory. None of them get a replaceable-battery successor. The rules apply across the 35 markets Nintendo of Europe serves, from the UK and Germany to Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

A quiet end, for now

Nintendo has not said whether the cull reaches beyond Europe. Stopping production of the ageing hardware everywhere may prove tempting, given rising manufacturing costs and the shift to the Switch 2. Even so, the old machine has life in it yet. Fresh first-party games are still on the way, including Rhythm Heaven Groove and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.

The battery rules were first aimed at phones. Now they will quietly close the book on one of gaming's best-selling consoles in its home region.