The FCC Is About to Rank the World's Test Labs — and Console Hardware Already Sits on Both Sides

Excerpt: On October 29 the FCC votes on a rule that would stop recognizing electronics-test labs in countries that do not reciprocate American testing — China above all, which ran 83 percent of US device-certification applications in 2025. We read the agency's own equipment records for the console business. Every Switch 2 filing we checked is tested in Japan; Microsoft's wireless filings lean on Taiwan and the US. Sony certified the PlayStation Portal in Dongguan, China.

For most of this decade, which country is allowed to test a game console's radios has been a back-office detail on an FCC form that nobody outside the lab reads. On October 29, the Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on rules that would turn that detail into a market-access question — and the console business is already split across the line the agency is drawing.

The vote is the second act of an effort that began in the spring. In FCC 26-28 — a Report and Order paired with a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking — the Commission moved to harden the equipment-authorization program that sits behind every phone, radio, laptop and console sold in the United States. The order created a "Trusted Test Lab" fast lane: applications for devices whose testing was performed in the United States or in what the FCC calls "Reciprocal Economies" can be routed through a prioritized review track. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on May 15, 2026, and entered into force on June 15, 2026.

The second act is the harder one. The companion proposal carried in the same Federal Register release would stop the Commission from recognizing measurement facilities, Telecommunications Certification Bodies and accreditation bodies located in economies that do not offer reciprocal treatment to American labs. China is the target, and the framing is not subtle: the countries the FCC counts among its "allies and partners," including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, all hold mutual-recognition arrangements with Washington. China holds none.

The stakes are enormous. By a tally of the Commission's own Office of Engineering and Technology cited by ZeroHedge, labs in China tested 38,491 of the 46,402 applications for FCC equipment certification filed in 2025 — 83 percent of the total. A phase-out of those labs, which the proposal frames as an extended transition, would reroute the testing of most of the consumer electronics sold in America.

Almost none of that coverage has examined what the change means for game hardware. So we pulled the FCC's equipment records for the console business and read the "test firm" line on each filing.

Where the console industry actually tests

Every device that transmits in the US carries an FCC ID, and every ID traces to a grant and a test lab. Here is what the record shows for the platform holders and the peripheral tier:

The line

The pattern is stark. Nintendo's entire Switch 2-era radio portfolio that we checked — the console itself, its controllers, even the NFC reader — is tested at UL Japan's Shonan laboratory, in a country that holds its own mutual-recognition agreement with the United States. Microsoft's own wireless filings, the "wireless device" and "portable computing device" grants in its C3K file, run through labs in Taiwan and the United States. On the FCC's new map, those devices already sit on the fast-track side.

Sony is the interesting case, because it sits on both. Its DualSense controllers are tested at UL Japan's Ise laboratory, exactly like Nintendo's hardware. But the PlayStation Portal — the handheld remote player, certified under FCC ID AK8CFIY1001 as "Computer Entertainment System" model CFI-Y1001 — was tested at the Dongguan branch of Bureau Veritas, in Guangdong province. The company that sells the most consoles in America certified its newest piece of handheld hardware in a country its own regulator is preparing to stop recognizing.

The peripheral tier makes the pattern plainer still. Razer, one of the best-known gaming brands in the West, certifies its mice and wireless dongles at BTL Inc. in Dongguan, China. And below Razer sit the hundreds of small manufacturers that supply the retro, emulation and budget-handheld boom: most of them do not appear in the FCC grantee database at all, because they sell direct from Shenzhen and Guangzhou through online marketplaces rather than filing for US certification. Where that tier does certify, it certifies in China.

What the vote does and does not do

Three cautions are worth holding onto.

First, this is a proposal, not a fact. The vote is set for October 29, 2026 — five months after the final rule was published in the Federal Register on May 15 — and it is a vote on the Second Further Notice, not on a finished rule. Until the Commission adopts it, no lab loses its recognition and the transition window is not final. The fast track, by contrast, is already live: it entered into force on June 15, 2026.

Second, existing equipment authorizations are not retroactively voided. A console that already holds an FCC ID keeps it. What changes is the path for the next revision, the next accessory, the next hardware refresh — the filings that never stop coming for a platform in mid-life.

Third, a single filing's lab is not a corporate strategy. Labs are chosen for price, capacity, schedule and expertise, and brands move between them constantly. Sony can migrate the Portal line's testing as readily as it once chose Dongguan. The question the rule raises is not whether any given device is "banned" — it is which manufacturers already stand inside the trusted lane, and which would have to buy their way in.

On that reading, the FCC is about to hand a quiet structural advantage to the platform holders that already test inside the mutual-recognition club — Nintendo, and Microsoft on the computing side — while putting a clock on everyone whose radios are certified in China: Sony's handheld, Razer's dongles, and the entire direct-from-Shenzhen handheld trade that has quietly become one of the most active corners of game hardware.

Sources

• FCC 26-28 — Report and Order and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (PDF)
• Federal Register — final rule, 2026-09822 (published 2026-05-15)
• Federal Register — proposed rule, 2026-09821 (Second FNPRM)
• ZeroHedge — FCC proposal would end Chinese labs' role in US device testing
• Global Times — coverage of the FCC's planned October 29 vote
• TV Technology — FCC to vote on restrictions for device testing
• GMA Labs — FCC final rule 2026: fast-track certification for Trusted Test Labs
• fccid.io — Nintendo Switch 2 console, FCC ID BKEBEE00101
• fccid.io — Nintendo Switch 2 controller, FCC ID BKEBEE00801
• fccid.io — Nintendo NFC reader, FCC ID BKEOGO011
• fccid.io — Sony DualSense controller, FCC ID AK8CFIZCT2A
• fccid.io — Sony PlayStation Portal, FCC ID AK8CFIY1001
• fccid.io — Microsoft wireless device, FCC ID C3K2099
• fccid.io — Microsoft WLAN/BT adapter, FCC ID C3K2156
• fccid.io — Microsoft portable computing device, FCC ID C3K2149
• fccid.io — Razer gaming mouse, FCC ID RWO-RZ010567
• fccid.io — Razer wireless dongle, FCC ID RWO-DGRFG9