Nintendo Switch Possibly Region-Free; Does Not Have 3G or LTE Support

The Nintendo Switch is barely a month away from an official reveal but that hasn’t stopped a steady trickle of information from reaching the public domain.

According to documents related to an FCC (Federal Communications Commission) filing for the device, it has been discovered by eagle-eyed Redditors that the Nintendo Switch will not have any 3G or LTE support. A perplexing omission that will have ramifications on how the device would be used as a handheld.

(Also see: Nintendo Switch Is Slower Than the PS4 and Xbox One: Report)

Digging deeper, users from popular gaming forum NeoGAF have stumbled upon the possibility of the device being region-free.

“AC Adapter input: AC 100 – 240 V, 50 / 60 Hz, 1 A is a power brick with worldwide compatibility. This heavily points towards the console being region-free,” suggests NeoGAF user Thraktor. Incidentally the Wii U had the same specifications.

(Also see: Nintendo Switch Price to Be $250 and $300: Report)

What this means is, like the PS4, PS4 Pro, and Xbox One S, the Nintendo Switch may not need a stepdown transformer or another adapter if you bought it in a country like the US but plan to use it in another like India or the UK.

It could also mean that unlike the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U, games could be region-free as well — so what you buy in a country that supports the NTSC U/C standard would work fine in other nations that use the PAL format like India and vice versa. Though this seems unlikely given that Nintendo made it tough to make Miitomo account if you weren't in a country where it launched.

(Also see: Nintendo Switch Release Date, Specifications, Games, Controllers, and Everything You Need to Know)

Other interesting slivers of information parsed from this FCC filing include support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wifi, including 802.11ac MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0, as well as having been tested in and confirmed to work in temperatures of 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) to 35 degrees C (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

As for games? Well, a slew of leaks in the recent past have given us a decent idea of what to expect for the Switch including a Mario RPG crossover, Splatoon, and perhaps even a Pokemon game too.

We discuss everything you need to know about Nintendo Switch and whether it’s likely to come to India on Orbital: The Gadgets 360 Podcast. You can either subscribe to via iTunes or RSS or just hit the play button below.