Nintendo Will Reportedly Fix Joy-Con Drift For Free, Refund Past Repairs

Joy-Con drift has been the talk of the Nintendo community over the past couple of weeks, with Kotaku releasing a report on it and getting the attention of many. While the issue is nothing new, the attention is, which finally caused Nintendo to release a comment of sorts on the matter. Of course, this was after a class action lawsuit was filed against them. That said, a recent report from VICE has revealed that an internal memo sent to Nintendo's customer service department has instructed them to fix users' Joy-Con drift free of charge, regardless of warranty status.

The internal memo was provided to VICE Games by an anonymous source that is familiar with Nintendo's customer support documentation. According to the memo, customers will not have to provide a proof of purchase or confirm the warranty status on their devices in order to receive a repair. In addition to this, customers who have already paid for a repair can request a refund.

"Customers will no longer be requested to provide proof of purchase for Joy-Con repairs," reads the memo. "Additionally it is not necessary to confirm warranty status. If a customer requests a refund for a previously paid Joy-Con repair [...] confirm the prior repair and then issue a refund."

While this information was probably not meant to be made public in this manner, it is certainly a lot better than the comment that was issued by Nintendo recently that basically said they are aware of the Joy-Con drift issue and that all complaints could be directed at their customer support department. However, knowing that said department has been instructed to offer free repairs are all users affected by the issue, that will be the place Nintendo Switch owners will want to go.

It was also noted that a few troubleshooting steps will be gone through before the free repair is issued, but this is to be expected. At the end of the day, the Joy-Con drift problem is beginning to be rectified. Here's to hoping that it doesn't make its way to the upcoming Nintendo Switch Lite, which is set to drop on September 20th.

What do you think about all of this? Are you glad to see this kind of move by Nintendo regarding the Joy-Con drift? Do you believe there is more that should be done? Sound off in the comment section below, or feel free to hit me up over on Twitter @anarkE7!