Consumer group urges Nintendo to launch an independent Joy-Con drift investigation

A UK consumer group has urged Nintendo to open an internal investigation into the persistent issue of Joy-Con drift.

UK group Which? conducted a survey of 919 Switch owners and found that 40% of those surveyed experienced issues with Joy-Con drift, Sky News reports. However, only 73% of those who experienced drift contacted Nintendo about it.

Joy-Con drift has affected the Nintendo Switch since its launch in 2017, and despite revisions in the Joy-Con internals, it’s a problem that reportedly persists, even with newly issued Joy-Con controllers.

“Our research shows that drift problems continue to plague Nintendo Switch owners, yet too often they can be left footing the bill themselves to replace faulty controllers or face a lottery when they contact Nintendo for support,” said Which? director of policy and advocacy Rocio Concha.

“Nintendo needs to commission an urgent independent investigation into why this problem occurs and make the findings public.

“The video game giant must also commit to completely free-of-charge repairs or replacements for those affected by the problem and must promote this scheme so that consumers know that support is available.”

Earlier this month, a former supervisor at a Nintendo Switch Joy-Con repair centre in the US claimed the company was inundated with faulty controllers.

An ex-employee told Kotaku that at one point, “easily thousands of Joy-Cons were coming through each week.” They added: “We ended up having to set up an entire new workspace just for Joy-Con repair.”

Customers who sent in faulty Joy-Cons from 2017-2018 were reportedly sent new replacements, but after the first year, it’s claimed the repair centre was required to repair every set of controllers.

Further reading

A Nintendo US repair shop ‘saw thousands of Joy-Con drift cases each week’

Nintendo’s reliance on third-party contract labour is said to have exacerbated product faults

In response to the Which? investigation, Nintendo said: “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.

“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.”