Nobody likes the Joy-Con drift. In fact, Joy-Con drift is so bad that Nintendo has been hit with several lawsuits over the well documented problem. Well, Nintendo can add another process to the stack. A Canadian law firm, Lambert Avocat, filed a class action suit seeking compensation for anyone in Quebec who bought a Nintendo Switch, Switch Lite, Nintendo Switch Pro Controller or Joy-Cons.
If you and all your friends who own the Switch miraculously avoid the drift of Joy-Con, the problem is that after a while (sometimes not for very long), Joy-Cons starts firing phantom movements on the screen, regardless of you’re actually touching the joystick. Lambert Avocat notes that his client found that his left Joy-Con was adrift after 11 months. After sending them back to Nintendo for repairs two months later, the right Joy-Con started to derive. She then bought a second pair of Joy-Cons and a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller – which ended up showing Drift Joy-Con.
The company claims that the Joy-Con diversion “constitutes an important, serious and hidden defect” that was not adequately disclosed by Nintendo; consumers would not be able to detect defective Joy-Cons just by looking at them, and all in all violates Quebec Consumer Protection Law. (If you happen to live in Quebec and have purchased any of the products mentioned above since August 1, 2017, you, too, can apply to be part of the process.)
Nintendo’s Joy-Con derives legal problems span the globe. There is one in Illinois, another in California led by a kid and his mother, and another in Washington which was later changed to include Switch Lite a week after launch. Per IGN, at the end of last year, nine European consumer organizations said they had received almost 1,000 complaints about the Joy-Con diversion and called to consumers to report your issues as part of a potential investigation. A French consumer protection organization also filed a complaint against Nintendo, alleging that the drift and Nintendo’s continued failure to deal permanently with the drift were evidence of planned obsolescence.
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Clearly, there is a problem here and Nintendo knows that. Not, seriously, they know why, like our brother site Kotaku reported last year, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa apologized during a financial question and answer session. “With regard to Joy-Con, we apologize for any problems caused to our customers,” said Furukawa, before citing a class action lawsuit as to why Nintendo could not comment further on how it intended to fix this whole mess. He has since added an entire Joy-Con repair section to your customer support website.
Consumers and consumer protection organizations are right to be pissed, but it is not up to them to fix the Joy-Con problem. Your really experienced drift with two sets of Joy-Cons, both after less than six months of use. And while it’s good, Nintendo will repair Joy-Cons for fireand, it is debatable whether, after repairs, you continue to have the problem. Buying substitute Joy-Cons also loses its luster when there is a good chance that they too will end up going astray. What you end up with is a periodic repair or replacement cycle that was probably not considered in the initial purchase cost. In any context, it is not a good idea for any gadget manufacturer.
There are many theories about what really causes the Joy-Con drift – some say it’s dust and debris sneaking into the controller, others say it’s wear on contact pads. But until Nintendo clarifies why, publicly commits to a more permanent solution, or updates how the controls are designed, the Joy-Con drift is not going anywhere. Nor are the lawsuits.