The Joy-Con Drift Controversy

For the past year or so, Nintendo has been surrounded by controversy over the Nintendo Switch and its controllers. Countless people have and continue to experience joy-con drift. What is joy-con drift and what causes it? For those out of the loop, joy-con drift is a problem that many Nintendo switch owners have been experiencing for months now. Joy-con drift occurs after a pair of joy-cons, the switch controllers, have been used for a long period. After constant hours of use, the analog stick starts to move on its own without any manual input. Many fans have reported drift to happen after using them for about 6-9 months after first use. The drift can range from unnoticeable to being so apparent that it makes it almost impossible to play games.

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A Rocky Start

When the Nintendo Switch first came out in 2017, there were reports of glitches and bugs. Bugs and glitches are to be expected when any new game console comes out and are often fixed immediately upon notice. Complaints of joy-con drift have been around since 2017 when the switch was first launched. Fans quickly began to realize that the joy-con would drift after 6-9 months of use. People would complain to Nintendo and report the drifting, yet Nintendo wouldn’t do anything.

For the longest time, it seemed as if Nintendo was trying to avoid joy-con drift altogether.

Prolific Past

All of this doesn’t mean people hate Nintendo; quite the contrary. For decades Nintendo has been a revolutionary company in the gaming industry. Nintendo has released a large array of quality games and hardware that still stand the test of time. Nintendo has a long history of quality hardware made to withstand the most extreme conditions. The most infamous console known for its quality and durability was the Gameboy. There has been a record of a Gameboy that survived a Gulf War bombing and remained intact! The best part, the Gameboy is still able to play Tetris despite surviving a bomb. Even with a long history of quality hardware, joy-con drift has continued to be a problem. People have expected a certain level of quality when it comes to Nintendo products, which is why it’s so disappointing to find out such a simple issue that could be fixed continues to be ignored by Nintendo.

Growing Anger

It wasn’t until recently that joy-con drift became a bigger issue. With the start of the pandemic, people started buying the Nintendo Switch for the first time. The sudden boom of Switches being sold resulted in a console shortage. With the sudden rise of Switch owners, users began a sudden rise of joy-con drift. More and more people began to take notice of it. The number of people complaining increased, making the issue harder to ignore. Nintendo continued to ignore the complaints of their customers. Even with complaints coming in regularly, Nintendo never went out of their way to fix new joy-cons to prevent drift in the future. People were outraged that Nintendo would willingly sell joy-cons that were defective since launch and wanted overdue compensation.

Final Reprimand

For a while, it seemed as if Nintendo was going to stay silent. That is until October 5, 2020, when a lawsuit was filed against Nintendo regarding joy-con drift. The lawsuit claimed “Unlawful conduct” by Nintendo related to its marketing and selling of Joy-Con controllers. Specifically, this suit contains seven claims for relief, citing violations of California’s unfair competition law, false advertising law, the aforementioned Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, and the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. This wasn’t the first lawsuit filed against Nintendo for joy-con drift, but it did start a chain reaction of lawsuits. Lawsuits spanned everywhere across the globe.

Relief

Nintendo acknowledges the joy-con drift problem. Last year, Kotaku, a website full of gaming news, reported that during a financial meeting Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa made an apology when asked about the issue and whether or not the company would improve the product.

“Regarding the Joy-Con, we apologize for any trouble caused to our customers. We are continuing to aim to improve our products, but as the Joy-Con is the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the United States and this is still a pending issue, we would like to refrain from responding about any specific actions.”

Currently, Nintendo has made no further statements regarding joy-con drift. The company has offered to fix broken joy-cons through their repair service, but that doesn’t fix the fact that they willingly sell faulty products. Many people hope that Nintendo will redeem themselves soon and find a solution, but for now, we can only remain optimistic.

Written by Kiersti Vazquez