Let’s be real for a second. If you’re looking for a way to bake a Tegra X1 chip in your kitchen oven or 3D print a functional liquid crystal display from scratch, you’re going to be disappointed. You can't just "make" a Nintendo Switch in the same way you’d make a sandwich or a birdhouse. It’s a proprietary piece of highly integrated Silicon Valley (and Kyoto) engineering. But—and this is a big "but"—if your goal is to understand how to make a Nintendo Switch style device using off-the-shelf parts, or how to "make" your own custom version of the console through shell swaps and hardware mods, that is a rabbit hole worth falling down.
Building a handheld gaming PC or a "Switch-alike" is actually a rite of passage for many hardware geeks. It’s about the challenge. It’s about taking a Raspberry Pi or a discarded laptop motherboard and forcing it into a form factor that fits in your hands. People do this because they want the freedom Nintendo doesn't give them. They want hall-effect joysticks that don't drift, or they want a screen that doesn't look like it came from 2015.
The "Frankenstein" Method: Building from Spare Parts
The closest most humans will ever get to actually assembling the console themselves involves the secondary market. You can literally go onto eBay or AliExpress and buy every single individual component of a Switch. We’re talking the motherboard, the digitizer, the battery, the rail connectors, and the plastic housing.
Actually, many repair technicians basically "make" a Switch this way when they’re refurbishing liquid-damaged units. You start with the mid-frame. It’s the skeleton. Everything else screws into it. You’ll need a precision screwdriver set (specifically a Y00 tri-wing and a PH000 Phillips) because Nintendo loves their proprietary screws. Is it cheaper than buying one at Best Buy? Absolutely not. By the time you pay for shipping on twenty different tiny ribbons and connectors, you’ve spent $400 on a console that sells for $299. But the knowledge you gain? That’s different. You learn exactly where the thermal paste goes on the heat pipe. You see how tiny the speakers actually are.
Can You Build a "Switch" Out of a Raspberry Pi?
If your definition of how to make a Nintendo Switch is more about the experience than the literal hardware, the DIY community has some wild answers. You’ve probably seen the "NinTura" or various Pi-based handhelds.
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Basically, you take a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5. You pair it with a 7-inch touchscreen. Then comes the hard part: the controllers. Most makers use "Joy-Con clones" or they strip the PCBs out of existing controllers and wire them directly to the Pi's GPIO pins. You then run an operating system like RetroPie or Lakka. Honestly, it won’t play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It just won’t. But it will play every NES, SNES, and N64 game ever made, which, for some people, is exactly why they wanted a Switch in the first place.
The software side is where it gets hairy. To make it feel like a Switch, you need a front-end UI that supports "suspend and resume." That’s the "magic" of the Switch—being able to click a button, go to sleep, and wake up exactly where you left off. Getting Linux to do that reliably on a custom-built handheld is a nightmare. You’ll spend weeks tweaking config files just to get the battery indicator to show the right percentage.
The Components You’d Actually Need
If you were to try to replicate the official hardware, you’d be looking for a very specific list of tech. Nintendo uses the NVIDIA Tegra X1. It’s an "System on a Chip" (SoC). You can’t just buy these at retail. They are sold in bulk to manufacturers. However, the NVIDIA Shield TV uses a very similar architecture.
- The SoC: NVIDIA Tegra X1 (T210 or T214 "Mariko" variant).
- RAM: 4GB of LPDDR4. (Yes, only 4GB. It’s amazing what they optimize).
- Storage: 32GB or 64GB of eMMC NAND flash.
- Display: 6.2-inch or 7-inch (OLED) 720p panel.
- Battery: 3.7V 4310mAh Lithium-ion.
The "secret sauce" isn't the hardware, though. It’s the Horizon OS. This is Nintendo’s proprietary microkernel operating system. Without it, your hardware is just a very expensive paperweight. This is why the DIY scene focuses on "Homebrew."
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Why Modding is the Real Way to "Make" Your Switch
For most people, the quest of how to make a Nintendo Switch ends with customization. You take a stock console and you make it yours. This usually starts with a "shell swap."
Warning: shell swapping an OLED model is a terrifying experience. The screen is glued down with adhesive that feels like it was forged in the heart of a dying star. If you pry too hard, you crack the panel. If you don't use enough heat, you bend the frame. But if you succeed? You can have a transparent "Atomic Purple" Switch that looks like a GameBoy Color from 1998.
Then there’s the "Internal" making. This involves soldering modchips like the RP2040-based Picofly. This is not for the faint of heart. We’re talking about soldering wires thinner than a human hair onto capacitors the size of a grain of salt. If you slip, you bridge a connection and fry the CPU. But once it’s done, you’ve "made" a version of the console that can run Linux, Android, or backup your own game files. It turns a walled garden into an open field.
The Problem With DIY Handhelds
Let’s talk about ergonomics. Nintendo spent years and millions of dollars figuring out the weight distribution of the Switch. When you try to build your own using a 3D-printed case, you quickly realize how heavy batteries are. If you put the battery in the wrong spot, the device wants to tilt out of your hands.
Heat is another killer. The Switch has a tiny internal fan and a copper heat pipe that vents out the top. Most DIY builds forget about active cooling. They get hot. Fast. Within twenty minutes of playing a semi-demanding indie game, your custom-built handheld might start thermal throttling, dropping your frame rate to a slideshow.
Actionable Steps for the Aspiring Maker
If you’re serious about this, don’t start by trying to build a motherboard. That's impossible for an individual. Instead, follow this path to actually creating something unique:
1. Master the Shell Swap first. Buy a broken Switch with a functional screen. Buy a replacement housing from a brand like eXtremeRate. Disassemble the entire thing and move it into the new "skin." This teaches you the layout of the ribbons and the fragility of the ZIF connectors.
2. Experiment with the Raspberry Pi. Look up the "PiBoy" or "RetroFlag" kits. These give you a PCB that handles the power management and button inputs, letting you focus on the software side. It’s the best way to understand the "Handheld" architecture without needing a degree in electrical engineering.
3. Study the Schematics. Websites like iFixit have high-resolution "teardowns." Study them. Look at how the Joy-Con rails communicate with the main board using a 10-pin connector. Knowledge of the pinouts is essential if you ever want to build custom controllers or "make" a dock-less version of the hardware.
4. Explore the "Switch Lite" hardware. If you want to make a dedicated portable, the Switch Lite is actually a much better platform for modding because the controllers are integrated. It’s a tighter, more cohesive design that’s easier to "ruggedize" for travel.
Building or heavily modifying a console is a lesson in patience. You will lose a screw. You will tear a ribbon cable. You will probably swear at a piece of plastic. But when you slide that power button and the screen flickers to life—knowing you’re the one who put every single piece in its place—it feels a whole lot better than just taking one out of a box.
Understand that the "Nintendo Switch" is a combination of hardware and signed software. You can build the body, but the soul belongs to Nintendo’s firmware. Until someone releases a fully open-source BIOS that can replicate the Switch environment perfectly, your "made" device will always be a tribute. And honestly? That's more than enough for most makers.