The Nintendo Switch doesn’t come with a Joy-Con Charging Grip

We knew from the recent glut of information that the Nintendo Switch includes a set of Joy-Con controllers along with a Grip attachment in the box. But a report from Eurogamer today notes that unlike the $29.99 Joy-Con Charging Grip that Nintendo sells separately, the bundled Grip simply is a plastic shell that allows the Joy-Con controllers to be more easily held in a traditional form factor. 

As can be seen when visually comparing the two, the Joy-Con Charging Grip has a translucent shell — similar to the Switch Pro Controller — and features a USB-C port on the top of the device to charge the Grip’s battery. Nintendo is claiming that the Joy-Con controllers (without the Charging Grip) should get around 20 hours of use on a charge, and take about 3.5 hours to recharge, whether that’s connected to a plugged in or docked Switch unit or in the Charging Grip. 

While fans may be disappointed at the exclusion of the charging feature in the bundled Grip controller, it does make some sense given that the Joy-Con units will charge whenever they’re attached to the main Switch device, while any extra Joy-Cons would need some sort of external method to recharge — like a Charging Grip, for example — given that they contain no charging ports of their own.

The Joy-Con Charging Grip will cost $29.99 and is scheduled to release alongside the Switch on March 3rd. Nintendo hasn’t announced at this time whether or not it will be possible to buy additional non-charging Joy-Con grips in the future.

The article was published on : theverge