Three State Repair Laws, One Exemption: Game Consoles Are Carved Out of Every Statute We Read — and Minnesota Defines the Steam Deck as a Computer

The sentence that travels

America's right-to-repair movement has won laws in ten states. The statutes cover phones, laptops, farm equipment, powered wheelchairs and hospital scanners. They do not cover the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X — and in the three statutes we read in full this week, the exclusion is not an oversight of drafting. It is a clause, deliberately placed, and written three different ways.

The three approaches are worth setting side by side, because they show a single idea being fitted to three different political environments: in New York the console is named inside a federal-preemption savings clause; in Minnesota it is an explicit 42-word exemption attached to a 65-word definition; in Colorado it appears in the list of exclusions attached to the state's newest digital-repair law, effective 1 January 2026.

All three quote the same operative formula — "parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair" — which is the formula the repair movement itself uses to describe the right.

New York: a preemption clause that names one product

New York's Digital Fair Repair Act, General Business Law § 399-NN, "Sale of digital electronic equipment; diagnostic and repair information," was the first comprehensive electronics repair statute in the country. Subdivision 2 requires manufacturers to make documentation, parts and tools available to owners and independent repair providers on fair and reasonable terms for equipment "first sold or used in New York on or after July first, two thousand twenty-three."

Subdivision 3 then lists limitations. Paragraph (f) — sixty words — reads:

"Nothing in this section shall be construed to require any original equipment manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of digital electronic equipment in a manner that is inconsistent with or in violation of any federal law, such as gaming and entertainment consoles, related software and components."

Read it twice, because the structure is unusual. This is not a product exemption in the ordinary sense. It is a preemption clause: the state declares that nothing in its repair law may require anything that would violate federal law. And then it gives exactly one example of the equipment for which compliance would violate federal law — "gaming and entertainment consoles, related software and components."

In a statute that covers every category of digital electronics sold in New York, the console is the only product named in the federal-conflict clause. The phrase "related software and components" then extends the example past the box itself, to controllers and accessories.

Minnesota: 42 words, and a definition that decides what a console is

Minnesota Statutes § 325E.72 approaches the same result more directly. Subdivision 3, paragraph (d):

"Nothing in this section shall be construed to require any original equipment manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a video game console and its components and peripherals."

That is the exemption in full: 42 words, no conditions, no reference to federal law. It covers the console, its components, and its peripherals — which is to say the controller, the dock, the Joy-Con rail.

But Minnesota did something New York did not. It defined the term. Subdivision 2, paragraph (t):

"Video game console" means a computing device, such as a console machine, a handheld console device, or another device or system, and its components and peripherals, that is primarily used by consumers for playing video games but which is neither a general nor an all-purpose computer. A general or all-purpose computer includes but is not limited to a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or cell phone.

Sixty-five words, and the last sentence is the one that matters. The exemption's scope is fixed by what a console is not: it is not a general-purpose computer, and a tablet is a general-purpose computer.

The line the definition draws through the handheld market

Two devices can sit on the same shelf, run the same games, cost within a hundred dollars of each other, and fall on opposite sides of that sentence.

A Nintendo Switch 2 is "primarily used by consumers for playing video games" and is not a general-purpose computer. It is a video game console. The repair obligations do not attach.

A Steam Deck, an ASUS ROG Ally, a Lenovo Legion Go or an AYANEO handheld runs a general-purpose operating system, installs general-purpose software, and is sold as a computer. Under the Minnesota definition it is not a video game console — so the exemption does not reach it, and the repair duties do. The same is true of the federal definitions: the FCC filings for these devices routinely describe them as computers rather than game machines. One recent example: on 18 September 2026, Shenzhen Konkr Technology — the company behind the AYANEO brand — certified a device with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission under the product description "Portable Gaming Computer (Tablet computer)" (FCC ID 2A233AR16).

That is the whole asymmetry in one line. The handheld that ships with Windows gets a statutory right to parts and documentation in Minnesota. The handheld that ships with a Nintendo logo does not.

Colorado: the exemption survives into the newest law

Colorado's HB24-1121 expanded the state's existing right-to-repair statutes to "digital electronic equipment." The general assembly's summary is explicit about the timing: "Beginning January 1, 2026, the act expands the scope of the right-to-repair statutes to include digital electronic equipment manufactured and sold or used for the first time in Colorado on or after July 1, 2021." It is equally explicit about the exceptions:

"However, the act includes many exemptions, including exemptions for marine vessels, aviation, and motor vehicles; medical devices other than powered wheelchairs; certain safety and security equipment; certain construction- and energy-related equipment; and video game consoles."

Note where the console sits in that list. It is not grouped with medical devices or aviation — categories excluded because a failed repair can kill someone. It is appended after construction and energy equipment, in the catch-all tail of the sentence, as a category of consumer product that the legislature decided, separately, to leave out.

The federal right the New York clause points at

New York's clause does not say which federal law. It does not need to: the answer is in the Copyright Act. Section 1201 of Title 17 prohibits circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works, and the Librarian of Congress grants three-year exemptions. The current console exemption, at 37 CFR 201.40(b)(15), is narrow by design. As we set out on 29 October, it provides that for video game consoles, "repair" is "limited to repair or replacement of a console's optical drive and requires restoring any technological protection measures that were circumvented or disabled."

One component. The optical drive.

The current generation has been steadily removing that component. The Switch 2 has no disc drive. The Xbox Series S has no disc drive. The PlayStation 5 is sold in a digital edition with no drive, and the PS5 Pro ships without one. Whatever else is true of an American console owner in 2026 — a drifting stick, a failed USB-C port, a dead fan, a worn-out battery — the federal repair exemption does not reach it, because the exemption is about a part the hardware no longer has.

Put the two halves together and the structure is clear. A state legislature passes a repair law. The law either exempts consoles outright (Minnesota, Colorado) or exempts them by deferring to federal law (New York). The federal law it defers to permits console repair of exactly one component. The state law therefore does not create a console repair right and does not preserve one; it ratifies the absence of one, in statutory language.

On 28 October 2026 the Copyright Office published the notice of proposed rulemaking for the tenth triennial § 1201 proceeding and proposed readopting the existing exemptions, including the console sentence, unchanged.

Why the industry says the carve-out is necessary

The Entertainment Software Association, the trade body whose members include the three console platform holders, publishes its position on its website. The headline sentence:

"Right to repair mandates present unique security and piracy risks to the video game ecosystem."

And, below it:

"The manufacturers of video game consoles employ technological protections to safeguard their platforms and the games played on their devices from infringement, as well as to prevent network and piracy threats. These protections are undercut by so-called 'right to repair' mandates..."

That is the same argument New York's statute encodes — that a state repair mandate on a console would collide with federal copyright protection. We are not asserting that the ESA or any manufacturer drafted the New York, Minnesota or Colorado clauses; we have not seen the drafting history, and the similarity of reasoning is not proof of authorship. What the record shows is narrower and sufficient: the industry's published rationale and the statutes' operative text point at the same federal provision, and the result is the same in all three states.

What this does and does not establish

Observed. The statutory text of New York GBL § 399-NN(3)(f), Minnesota Statutes § 325E.72 subd. 2(t) and subd. 3(d), and the Colorado General Assembly's published summary of HB24-1121, each of which exempts video game consoles from the state's repair obligations. The text of 37 CFR 201.40(b)(15), which limits the federal console repair exemption to the optical drive. The FCC product description filed for AYANEO's device on 18 September 2026. Repair.org's list of ten states with electronics repair laws.

Inference. That the Minnesota definition places Windows- and SteamOS-based handhelds inside the repair law while excluding consoles — a reading of the definition's plain text, not a court holding. That the three clauses reflect a shared model of reasoning, not necessarily a shared draft.

Not established. We could not read the full statutory text of the other seven states on repair.org's list in the time available, and we make no claim about whether their laws contain the same exclusion. We have no evidence of who wrote any of the clauses, or of when in each legislative process they were inserted. No court has interpreted the Minnesota definition, and no enforcement action has tested it. Whether New York's premise — that a console repair mandate would violate federal law — is legally correct is a separate question from whether the statute says so.

Method

Statutory text was read from the official Minnesota Revisor of Statutes and from the codified text of New York General Business Law § 399-NN; Colorado's exemption is quoted from the General Assembly's published act summary for HB24-1121. The federal exemption is quoted from 37 CFR 201.40(b)(15). The FCC product description is taken from the equipment authorization record for FCC ID 2A233AR16. The list of ten states is repair.org's "Know Your Rights" index, an advocacy source, used here only to establish that more than three states have passed laws.

The console industry's position is quoted from the ESA's published "Right to Repair" issue page.

Sources

• New York General Business Law § 399-NN, Sale of digital electronic equipment; diagnostic and repair information — nysenate.gov; codified text also read at NewYork.Public.Law
• Minnesota Statutes § 325E.72 — revisor.mn.gov
• Colorado HB24-1121, Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment — leg.colorado.gov
• 37 CFR 201.40(b)(15) — ecfr.gov
• FCC equipment authorization, FCC ID 2A233AR16 (Shenzhen Konkr Technology), 18 September 2026 — fccid.io
• Entertainment Software Association, Right to Repair — theesa.com
• Repair.org, Know Your Rights state index — repair.org