We’re not sure how many of you guys lick your gadgets, but if you do plan on picking up the Nintendo Switch and purchase physical copies of games, know that the Switch’s cartridges are apparently one of the worst things you could lick. This was initially discovered by GiantBomb’s Jeff Gerstmann who appears to immediately regret his decision.The foul tasting cartridge has since been confirmed by many other media outlets who also decided to lick the cartridge or put it in their mouths, and if you’re wondering why that is, it turns out that there is a very, very good reason for it tasting so foul. As you know, the Switch’s cartridges are tiny, and what kinds like to do is put things in their mouth, and the last thing Nintendo needs would be headlines on how a kid choked to death on one of their cartridges.
So in order to deter kids from eating it, Nintendo actually coated it with a special chemical to make it taste bad to prompt kids to spit it out immediately. This has been confirmed in a statement to The Verge in which Nintendo said, “To avoid the possibility of accidental ingestion, keep the game card away from young children. A bittering agent (Denatonium Benzoate) has also been applied to the game card. This bittering agent is non-toxic.”
For those wondering, the agent in question is used in medicine to help deter people from biting their nails, so it’s not exactly new and it seems to be relatively safe.
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