New Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Drift Report Paints a Concerning Picture

Nintendo’s ongoing situation with “drifting” Joy-Cons sounds even worse than we once thought. Ever since the Nintendo Switch launched back in 2017, users have been reporting problems with the thumbsticks on Joy-Cons, which are the attachable controllers that come with the Switch. And while Nintendo has allowed Switch owners to mail in their Joy-Cons for repair since this problem has become widespread, this new report in question has unveiled that the repairing process behind the scenes has been quite a mess. 

In a new article from Kotaku, it was further detailed what happens when Switch owners actually mail out their Joy-Con controllers for repair. Rather than Nintendo fixing these drifting Joy-Cons for themselves, one company by the name of United Radio was actually the one that handled repairs. While this isn’t an uncommon practice by any means, it sounds like the mass number of Joy-Cons that were sent to United Radio were overwhelming, to the point that the repair process itself became of a low quality. One former employee was even quoted as saying that “easily thousands of Joy-Cons were coming through each week,” which led to an entirely new workspace being created internally just for these repairs. 

To make this problem even worse, United Radio was also explained to be a company that had a very high turnover rate with employees. As such, a number of people who worked to repair drifting Joy-Cons weren’t doing so for long. This then led to a high level of inexperience when it came to fixing these controllers, which lowered the quality of each repair.

In short, this report just goes to show that Joy-Con drift is a massive problem that Nintendo hasn’t even come close to getting under control. Not only is Joy-Con drift on its own an issue, but for Nintendo to also have these errors occur with a third-party contractor isn’t a great sign. No matter how you slice it, Nintendo has botched this entire saga with Joy-Con drift and it doesn’t seem like things are going to get much better on this front any time soon. 

Are you someone who has had trouble with your own drifting Joy-Cons? And have you had any poor repair experiences for yourself? Let me know either down in the comments or you can reach out to me on Twitter at @MooreMan12.