Today I Learned @lemmy.world Flying Squid @lemmy.world 3d ago

TIL Nintendo coats all of their Switch cartridges with extremely bitter denatonium benzoate to deter children from putting them in their mouths and swallowing them.

www.theguardian.com Nintendo admits it has made Switch cartridges taste unbearably bitter

Same agent as used in anti-nail biting treatment coats Nintendo Switch game cartridges to help prevent children swallowing them

81 comments

Can confirm.
Also called Bitrex, that stuff does leave an awful taste. Gets used as a denaturant in ethanol to keep people from drinking it. Company I worked at long ago had a stock of it, and our lab had to requalify it for use every 2 years. As careful as we were keeping it contained, it had a way of spreading everywhere. For the next two days everyone who worked in the area would randomly get that awful taste I their mouth.
I can't believe I'm going to get up, find a cartridge, and lick it after posting this. Damn you.

Edit: It's true.
But how do I remove the coating so I can chew on my switch cartridges?
- Sulfuric acid.
The ultimate gamer high is to take a deep breath from the Steam Deck exhaust, lick a Switch cartridge, hold your breath, and then chug down a G Fuel.
- This is peak gamer. I am in awe.
This post is a trick to make you lick game cards and find out
- And it worked. I just licked one. It tasted horrible.
  
  But, that might have been an outlier. You need to lick more just in case.
  
  Just what one of them would say.
- Silverchase's comment is a trick to prevent you from finding out how tasty switch cartridges are.
  
  I think mine has LSD on it.
- Would you be disappointed if I told you I originally heard about this with the DS/3ds, tested it, then tested it again when the switch came out to see if they were still doing it?
  
  A man of science
I couldn't resist.
- That’s good.
  
  It's makes them taste disgusting.
  
  Can I go now?
I learned that a ways back, told a streamer and gave him a buck to confirm it. Dollar well spent lol.
- No clip?
  
  Was a bit of a hunt but I found it, https://www.twitch.tv/anderoc/clip/ThankfulTriumphantPotYee
Jokes on them I can't taste it anymore after COVID, there is no longer any deterrent from me eating their cartridges
- If you do end up eating one, tell us how many bytes it took.
  
  Urghhh
- The covid's collateral effect in my case was in my heart, you're a luck guy
  
  Cant do stairs, activities, or "activities" without almost throwing up due to heart
  
  Its rough
  
  I wouldn't call either of you lucky. In fact, I feel really bad for both of you.
  
  Sorry to hear that, friend. Have a good friend who is also dealing with long covid for years. He's been on different drug trials but nothing had much of an effect. He's very slowly getting some energy back, but still can't work a full time job.
Either mine don't have the coating, or I'm immune to it somehow.
- I read somewhere that they stopped doing it. Not sure how often this happened or if it even happened to every game.
- I finally tried licking one recently, and it didn't taste like anything
  
  Did you buy it used?
This could probably be used to check for authentic game cartridges. I'm not going to be licking used games to find out if they're real, though.
- Coward.
Part of the ritual of buying a new Switch game for me is licking it. More difficult for digital downloads, but I was determined and found a way.
- Stick your tongue in the ethernet port?
  
  Can a human tongue discern the taste of a TCP packet compared to an UDP packet?
  
  Rj45job
  
  Help it's stuck
Many battery manufacturers do this with CR disc shaped batteries as well.
- Interestingly, this coating can cause issues for some products like the Apple AirTags. I know this because I used one of these batteries with a bitterest in the AirTag on my keys and the AirTag didn’t work.
  
  And what’s funny is that the solution is to lick the coating off either sides of the battery to get them to work.
I remember this being a whole challenge. I remember licking one and being unimpressed. Pretty sure most people were exaggerating how bad it was.
- It's not like "oh dear God" levels of bitter but it's enough to just be like "pteh ew" and spit it out.
I've known about this for years, and I'm still convinced that in a few years time you're going to see collectors and/or used game store clerks going "Ah see this one is valuable because it's got the bittering agent still intact. It hasn't all been licked off."
Because of this, I christen my cartridges by licking them.
I got my unsuspecting 10 year old to lick one of those just to see if the Internet was lying to me. It was as easy as "hey Nintendo made those cartridges bitter....you should lick it to see." Lol
- You are a terrible parent and also I hope you took a video and put it up on YouTube... because my kid is 14 and I won't be able to convince her.
  
  Lmao. Nope they did it too fast and without hesitation. I didn't have a chance and once the jig was up it was too late to try again.
- @SynopsisTantilize
  @FlyingSquid
  
  Next do the 9V battery trick
  
  Don't tempt me with a good time. I think that's a teenage party trick. I might need to wait a couple years. He's still kinda a wuss.
I've acquired a taste for them.
- I eat five a night.
  
  That sounds like an expensive hobby. Have you thought of trying cocaine instead?
All launch copies of Breath of the Wild have been licked. It's a rite of passage. (They taste worse than you'd think they would.)
- Hah ! That means I own the only unlicked launch copy of BotW in the world ! DM me your offers, starting at $1 million, serious people only, I know what I have /s
  
  I have another one unlicked, I accept $750.000.
And it apparently has the opposite effect, I'm guessing someone on Youtube or something licked one to show it off, because one of my nephews kept saying he wanted to lick one.
- My friend and her husband got a switch back when it first launched, I had heard about this and so the next time I was over I asked if they'd licked one yet.
  
  He said they hadn't, and he also denied my request to lick one.
  
  When he left the room, his wife got a mischievous look in her eye and asked if I wanted to lick one.
  
  I of course took her up on her offer and tasted a cartridge while he wasn't looking.
  
  I asked if she had tried one, and of course she had.
  
  They're both cool people, but of the two of them she's definitely my partner in crime.
is it named denatonium because babies hate it

81 comments