It is time to stop blowing your Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has tweeted out a series of helpful tips when dealing with problems in reading Switch carts. One of the main pieces of advice given is that you should stop blowing into your Nintendo Switch.
Traditionally, blowing into the cartridge slots to fix them has been a gesture closely linked to Nintendo. Ever since the early days of the NES having trouble reading carts, we all knew that the one fix that always (well, almost always) worked was blowing into it.
Granted, we were not blowing into the NES itself, as that would have been quite more difficult. However, Nintendo is advising that gamers stop blowing into their Switch’s ports and cartridges as saliva causes contacts to rust and corrode over time.
This is not a new thing. Back in the day of NES, the warning was printed on the back of all the carts. The advice was also carried over to the days of the Super Nintendo and even the Nintendo 64, when a stern warning of "Do not blow on the edge connector" was present on each and every game.
Nintendo was always one of the companies more careful about safety regarding their console and games. The company notoriously made the Switch carts taste terrible to avoid infants swallowing them.
The myth of blowing into carts to fix them was born mainly by accident. What was actually "fixing" them was not our sweet saliva, but the simple fact of reinserting them again. Sometimes the console just needed a good old "turn it off and try again", a classic trick for fixing any manner of gaming woe.
Still, with Nintendo still selling game on carts and despite this stern warning on Twitter, we believe the myth will carry on. Sometimes, all we can do is keep on blowing.