Today is the worldwide debut of the Nintendo Switch. The web is slowly filling up with reviews of the console and its main title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. At the same time, we must mention players' interaction with the new cartridges of the Switch, which are essentially memory cards. This detail made some bloggers and journalists put a cartridge in their mouths, only to discover the hard way that they taste absolutely awful. The reason is simple: Nintendo did it on purpose.
Without delving too much into the reviews of the Nintendo Switch because the console technically hits shelves today (although many users received their units several days in advance), and Nintendo still has to fix certain connectivity details, but what I can say is that the balance looks very positive (so far), and Breath of the Wild has received astonishing scores. I also haven't found any reports of problems with Nintendo's formal return to cartridges in its new system, at least... as far as functionality goes. The cartridges are small, almost like an SD card, and apparently someone had the idea to put one in their mouth. Jeff Gerstmann of GiantBomb may have been the first, and after his tweet describing the situation, others quickly followed.
The verdict is unanimous: The Nintendo Switch cartridges taste horrible. This isn't limited to Breath of the Wild, but extends to all games available on the console in that format. Why? What are the cartridges made of to leave adults cowering? The questions quickly reached Nintendo, and one of its spokespeople confirmed that it's a protective mechanism to prevent small children (and potentially animals) from damaging the cartridges with their teeth, or worse, swallowing them. The cartridges have a special coating of denatonium benzoate, an "aversion agent", and the bitterest chemical known.
In summary, a good decision by Nintendo, including the choice of denatonium itself, since it's not toxic. It's always preferable to have a child upset by a bad taste than to see that same child in the emergency room waiting to have a Zelda cartridge removed from their stomach...
