Consumer report blames Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift on ‘design flaw’
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A report from the consumer choice publication Which? shares findings that could prove your Joy-Con’s drifting is due to a “design flaw” in manufacturing, not because you’ve been banging it too much.
According to a survey by Which? problems with the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers are the result of a flawed design. Eurogamer (opens in new tab) cites the consumer magazine’s discovery that the Joy-Con’s “plastic circuit boards showed noticeable wear on the joystick slide contacts” despite having been used for only a few months. This means it might not be your gritty style of gameplay and button-popping that’s causing your analog sticks to suffer.
I feel vindicated on behalf of my nephew, whose mother has repeatedly berated him for breaking his Switch controllers way too easily. This report from Which? could be proof that it isn’t his fault after all.
It’s not you
Usually, controller drift happens when the internal mechanisms that would normally cause your joysticks to spring back to their default positions begin to fail. This results in a wandering cursor on the screen, which can go from annoying to game-breaking if you can’t find a way to solve it, so you can break down and buy a new one. It’s an issue that has affected Nintendo Switch owners since the console’s launch.
Notwithstanding repeated attempts to improve the Joy-Con, Nintendo has yet to fully resolve the issue. Not just Which? note that the controller’s plastic circuit boards showed wear and tear, which is part of why your pointer might go on a hike, but he also found “dust and other contaminants” present in the inner mechanisms despite Nintendo’s best efforts to keep them dust-tight to make .
After its discovery, Which? Says it has contacted Nintendo to request it “provide a compensation or refund plan to UK consumers who can prove they purchased a replacement Joy-Con due to drift.”
“We’ve been making continuous improvements to the Joy-Con analog stick since its launch in 2017,” Nintendo replied. “We expect all of our hardware to perform as designed.”
The note encourages anyone experiencing issues with drift or other glitches to get in touch Nintendo support (opens in new tab). It states that the company “will be happy to resolve openly and smoothly any consumer issues related to the Joy-Con controllers’ analog sticks, including in cases where the warranty may no longer apply.”
So it sounds like Nintendo Support is your first port of call if you can’t fix Joy-Con drift on your own.