Nintendo had the foresight to make sure kids wouldn’t chew on video game cartridges for the Nintendo Switch by coating them in an anti-nail biting treatment to prevent them from accidentally ingesting it. The company has confirmed that the non-toxic bittering agent (denatonium benzoate) was applied to all their game cards.
But it doesn’t explain why game journalists took it upon themselves to “test” it by licking the cartridges, much less admit it publicly.
Not knowing how badly they tasted, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann first put a cartridge in his mouth, wondering how it tasted, and was unpleasantly surprised by its bitterness. He tasted it live on the show’s Feb. 24 “Unprofessional Friday” stream.
“I put that Switch cart in my mouth and I’m not sure what those things are made of but I can still taste it,” he later wrote on Twitter. “Do not try this at home.”
What would possess others to taste it anyway, especially knowing this? Perhaps his warning served as a weird incentive for others to taste it for themselves.
IGN’s Alanah Pearce gave similar feedback: “Okay, so, turns out Nintendo Switch cartridges taste awful so kids won’t eat them. I, uh, just licked one of them and can confirm: TASTES BAD MAN.”
On the Guardian, game journalist Alex Hern said he “wasn’t expecting the rumors to be true,” and thus “took a meaty lick of the top half of the cartridge, and it rapidly proved to be a mistake.”
No kidding. Others provided the same feedback. The ever-intrepid game journalists at Polygon report that they did their own “testing” and confirmed the analysis.
“It smells bad; you can feel it in your throat. It’s revolting, and the only thing I can equate it to is when you’re at the dentist and a drop of sour cleaning material hits the back of your tongue,” wrote Julia Alexander.
Undeterred by these reports, The Verge’s Dieter Bohn tasted it for himself, and reported that it “tastes like insecticide.”
“It’s literally the worst thing,” he said.” “It won’t go away. I don’t want to do this again.”
How brave. Now, I don’t know what insecticide tastes like, either. I’m not courageous (or brainless) enough to put things in my mouth that carry clear warning labels and aren’t meant to be tasted. Why even do this?
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
