No Joy: Nintendo Sued Over Switch Controller “Drifting” Issue

By Jarrett Passaglia

A Pennsylvania law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Nintendo last Friday on behalf of customers who have reported an issue with the Nintendo Switch’s controllers, or “Joy-Cons.”

The lawsuit, filed last Friday by Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith, claims that many Joy-Con controllers are defective due to “drifting issues,” and are currently seeking more and more Switch owners to join the suit, according to Polygon.

Joy-con drift seems to have affected many Switch owners. Comment sections and internet forums regarding the platform share a noticeable population of unsatisfied gamers. Drift is exactly as it sounds: the analog sticks seem to drift a little on the screen with each input. The issue seemed to be caused by a degenerative connectivity issue between the controllers and the game system, according to the suit. 

Tuesday, Nintendo responded to the issue giving a basic press release to The Verge stating: “At Nintendo, we take great pride in creating quality products and we are continuously making improvements to them. We are aware of recent reports that some Joy-Con controllers are not responding correctly. We want our consumers to have fun with Nintendo Switch, and if anything falls short of this goal we always encourage them to visit http://support.nintendo.com so we can help.”

At the moment Nintendo isn’t calling this a defect nor has the company issued a recall for their controllers.

Nintendo had an issue last year, particularly a connection problem with the left Joy-Con. The controllers have a hard time connecting to the switch from across a living room. They gave a similar statement at the time.

“There is no design issue with the Joy-Con controllers, and no widespread proactive repair or replacement effort is underway. A manufacturing variation has resulted in wireless interference with a small number of the left Joy-Con. Moving forward this will not be an issue, as the manufacturing variation has been addressed and corrected at the factory level.”

However, the company also issued this advice to those with an older model:

“We have determined a simple fix can be made to any affected Joy-Con to improve connectivity.

There are other reasons consumers may be experiencing wireless interference. We are asking consumers to contact our customer support team so we can help them determine if a repair is necessary. If it is, consumers can send their controller directly to Nintendo for the adjustment, free of charge, with an anticipated quick return of less than a week. Repair timing may vary by region. For help with any hardware or software questions, please visit http://support.nintendo.com.”

Nintendo did not make this “simple fix” public at this time.

So at the moment, the only way to fix your Joy-Con is by contacting Nintendo before your warranty runs out.