Nintendo doesn’t seem to have addressed Joy-Con drift with upcoming Switch

Nintendo declined to say whether it has fixed stick drift issues in its Joy-Con controllers on the upcoming new version of Nintendo Switch. It just states that ‘the configuration and functionality of the Joy-Cons are the same’.

The Verge, among others, asked in response to the arrival of the new Switch whether the problem with the Joy-Cons would be solved. While the company seems to be saying in fairly general terms in its response that nothing has changed about the Joy-Cons, Nintendo also states that it is aware that “some Joy-Cons do not respond properly” and that users mainly should contact customer service if this is the case.

What may be Nintendo’s strategy for this problem is to quietly fix it every time, completely free of charge, even when the warranty has already expired. In 2019, an internal Nintendo memo was released via Vice detailing this assignment to the service department. The shipping costs would also be borne by the Japanese company. Vice would have taken advantage of that and The Verge too.

Nevertheless, there are several lawsuits against Nintendo because of this shortcoming, of which IGN has made an overview. The European consumer organization BEUC also calls on the EU Commission to encourage national authorities to start an investigation into the Nintendo Switch.

With the Joy-Con drift, the controller registers input without the user touching the controller. This leads to characters moving or reacting in a game, without the user’s intention to do so. Nintendo has already apologized for it.

The upcoming new Nintendo Switch will have a 7″ OLED screen, 0.8″ larger than the existing Switch, and an improved stand for tabletop mode. The new console version also gets improved speakers and 64GB of integrated storage space. The dock also gets an integrated RJ45 connector for wired Ethernet. The new OLED model will appear on October 8 and will cost $350. The soc is unchanged.