Nintendo Pressured to Compensate Nintendo Switch Owners Who Experienced Joy-Con Drift

If you're a Nintendo Switch owner who's had to pay to replace drifting Joy-Cons at any point, one consumer group thinks you should be compensated for your troubles and is pressuring Nintendo to make it so. The UK group Which? said as much in its report shared this week that went over an analysis of Nintendo's Joy-Cons, an analysis which saw Which? calling out Nintendo for what it said is likely a "mechanical fault" and "design flaws" affecting the Switch Joy-Cons.

Joy-Con drift is something that's been going on since the Switch launched years ago, and according to Which?, Nintendo's not doing enough to address the issue. The consumer group said it tested out five different Joy-Con sets from users who'd been experiencing drift and ran tests on them. Those tests yielded results saying that mechanisms in place to keep out dust and other contaminants weren't working as intended and that there was "noticeable wear on the joystick slider contact points" of the plastic circuit boards.

Nintendo responded to the findings from Which? by saying Joy-Con drift affects only a "small" percentage of users and that the company has been working to improve its Switch control scheme since launch.

"The percentage of Joy-Con controllers that have been reported as experiencing issues with the analogue stick in the past is small, and we have been making continuous improvements to the Joy-Con analogue stick since its launch in 2017," Nintendo said.

"We expect all our hardware to perform as designed, and, if anything falls short of this goal, we always encourage consumers to contact Nintendo customer support, who will be happy to openly and leniently resolve any consumer issues related to the Joy-Con controllers' analogue sticks, including in cases where the warranty may no longer apply."

But that's not enough, Which? says. The group called out Nintendo and said the company should commit to a "no-quibble" repair plan where it repairs or replaces faulty controllers for free. Nintendo should also "Provide a compensation or refund plan" to those (in the UK, at least) who can prove they had to pay to resolve their Joy-Con drift issues.

"Nintendo must get a grip on the problem and provide free repairs, compensation, refunds or replacements to any consumers who have been impacted by this issue since the launch of the console," said Rocio Concha, the Which? director of policy and advocacy.