If you can’t find a Nintendo Switch anywhere, you can always build your own

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The Nintendo Switch console is still sold out everywhere, with scalpers trying to get huge sums of cash for aftermarket ones on eBay, what’s a self-respecting gamer who just wants to repay loans to Tom Nook in Animal Crossing to do? Well, for one Imgur user, the answer is simple – source parts and build your own.

Yes, one crazy person with more electronic knowhow than sense has created a FrankenSwitch. Imgur user Sarbaaz37 had just hyped up Animal Crossing: New Horizons to his friends, but they couldn’t play the best simulation of capitalism because nowhere had the console in stock.

Craigslist and eBay just gave pages of overinflated prices, so Sarbaaz37 said they could make one out of spare parts. Their friends hired them to do just that, and about a month later all the parts were assembled and running like any retail Switch.

Image: Sarbaaz37 / Imgur

If you want to follow in his footsteps and have a modicum of electronics skill, the full build including parts needed is documented on Imgur. The best part? The FrankenSwitch costs about $199 to make. Add the cost of some Joy-cons to that, and you’ve got a handmade Nintendo Switch for less than the MSRP of a new one. You’ll even know how to fix it if it ever breaks down.

What do you think? Would you ever make your own Nintendo Switch? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• What to know about terraforming in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Borderlands 3 is in a great place, but is it enough to keep players coming back?
• New Nintendo Switch update brings button remapping and SD card game transfers
• With hanging out canceled, playing Dungeons & Dragons online is a respite in these trying times

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.