A Literal Child and His Mom Sue Nintendo Over 'Joy-Con Drift' (wired.com) 104
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A boy and his mother today filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo for not doing enough to fix a hardware problem common among Nintendo Switch controllers. It is one of several legal efforts related to the issue of "Joy-Con drift" -- a phenomenon where the Switch Joy-Con controllers make in-game characters "drift" even when nobody is moving them. The complaint, filed in Northern California, was brought by a woman named Luz Sanchez and her 9- or 10-year-old son, who, as a minor, is referred to in court documents as M.S. The complaint describes how Sanchez purchased her son a Nintendo Switch in December 2018, when he was 8. Within a month, the complaint alleges, Sanchez's controllers began registering in-game movement when his hands weren't on them. Less than a year later, it says, "the Joy-Con drift became so pronounced that the controllers became inoperable for general gameplay use." Sanchez's mom obligingly purchased another set of controllers, but seven months later, the complaint alleges, they began drifting too.
Joy-Con drift is pervasive among Switch devices. (Anecdotally, I've experienced it on two sets of my own controllers). Characters inch left or right as if a ghost was operating the console. Nintendo didn't acknowledge the problem much until July 2019. That month, a thread on the Nintendo Switch subreddit calling out Joy-Con drift received over 25,000 upvotes. More than a dozen Switch owners filed a potential class action lawsuit (PDF) at the time calling Joy-Cons "defective." Lawyers said Nintendo had heard users' complaints for long enough; why didn't the company disclose the issue? The 2019 lawsuit has been moved into arbitration, and the plaintiffs' lawyers recently asked Switch users to submit videos describing their experiences with Joy-Con drift to help bolster their case. Last month, a French consumer group filed a complaint, too, alleging planned obsolescence. Nintendo began fixing Joy-Cons for free, post-warranty, in July 2019, and Nintendo's president apologized for the problem in a financial meeting this summer. But Sanchez's lawyers argue that Nintendo hasn't done enough to fix the issue or warn customers about it up front.
Joy-Con drift is pervasive among Switch devices. (Anecdotally, I've experienced it on two sets of my own controllers). Characters inch left or right as if a ghost was operating the console. Nintendo didn't acknowledge the problem much until July 2019. That month, a thread on the Nintendo Switch subreddit calling out Joy-Con drift received over 25,000 upvotes. More than a dozen Switch owners filed a potential class action lawsuit (PDF) at the time calling Joy-Cons "defective." Lawyers said Nintendo had heard users' complaints for long enough; why didn't the company disclose the issue? The 2019 lawsuit has been moved into arbitration, and the plaintiffs' lawyers recently asked Switch users to submit videos describing their experiences with Joy-Con drift to help bolster their case. Last month, a French consumer group filed a complaint, too, alleging planned obsolescence. Nintendo began fixing Joy-Cons for free, post-warranty, in July 2019, and Nintendo's president apologized for the problem in a financial meeting this summer. But Sanchez's lawyers argue that Nintendo hasn't done enough to fix the issue or warn customers about it up front.
Electrical contact cleaner (Score:3)
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While that should work, I wonder if you could have just voided any chance for Nintendo to swap out/repair your controller in the future should a permanent fix become available. They may see evidence of the cleaning residue left behind and seize the opportunity to reject you.
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If you use the good stuff, there is no residue. Also, there are a bunch of joycon replacement kits available that you can get for $15, including special tools, which should be easy to use if you have modest skills. I'd do that long before I sent anything away for a month.
Re: Electrical contact cleaner (Score:2)
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Easy, if you're not Helen Keller. I did this last weekend.
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Yes, but focus on the electrical contact cleaner bit, don't use regular WD40 lubricant. And after spraying it in, work the joysticks around vigorously for a while, and maybe repeat a time or two. If you are too poor for the contact cleaner, just work the sticks hard for a while and maybe that will help enough. It's the same routine we've been using on cruddy potentiometers and such for a hundred years.
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WD40 is a company. They make contact cleaner as well which doesn't contain what you think you're talking about. I sure as heck wouldn't recommend spraying their lubricant into electronics, but their contact cleaner is 100% light hydrocarbon and alcohol, no residue, no film, and sure as heck not attracting dust.
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I understand the confusion, though, as WD-40 means something: Water Displacer 40.
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Yeah but in defense of WD-40, that company has made more than just WD-40 for at least 20 years. :-)
Mind you the former name of the company was Rocket Chemical Co, but they never made any chemicals for Rockets so the company has a long history of stupid names
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WD-40 was originally designed for protecting the Atlas rocket from rust and corrosion, the name would seem pretty apt in that regard. That they were able to find a consumer application after the fact is another matter entirely.
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While you are correct, I think this thread illustrates the danger of telling someone to fix it themselves with "wd40 electrical contact cleaner".
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My sister was trying to get a door to stop squeak with WD-40 ... branded degreaser.
But to be honest, at some point ignorant people should be left to their ignorance. If you can type "wd40 electrical contact cleaner" into Google and the first link takes you directly to the correct product, then maybe some people should have adult supervision at all time :-)
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Hey you're not alone. My sister tried to stop a door from squeaking using WD-40 .... degreaser. *facepalm*.
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All WD40 products are crap, unless you need a water displacer for your carburetor. Then classic WD40 is still great (and still smells great.)
If you want to unlock rusted fasteners, PB blaster is better. I also have some other hot shit from Napa that said it was an accelerant or something. If anyone cares I'll check it out next time I'm around my chemicals.
If you want to lubricate something, white lithium grease, super lube, or silicone spray is better, depending on the situation. I like silicone because it
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Unfortunately WD-40 is the only product sold in most stores. In most areas you need to go to a specialty store to get something like good old cheap silicone lubricant. Even most auto parts stores in my area don't bother to carry much beyond WD-40.
wd40 rust loosener (Score:2)
Actually, their rust remover worked rather well for me.
We had spent a couple of *years*, off and on, trying to get a lugnut off of my '72 Eldorado. That tire couldn't hold air long enough to limp to the tire shop.
We tried everything, including enough force to flex a heavy breaker bar.
We were near drilling the monster out when I came across WD-40 rust remover.
I applied it generously, came back in 48 hours (much longer than the suggested period), and it was just another stuck lugnut.
It then turned out that
Re:Electrical contact cleaner (Score:4, Funny)
WD40 is a company. They make electrical contact cleaner.
Mind you my sister and her husband are the type of people who don't realise this either. They asked my father for help when they couldn't get the door to stop squeaking spraying WD40 into it. Turns out they bought WD40 degreaser...
Re: Electrical contact cleaner (Score:2)
Is this a confirmed fix? I noticed this playing skyrim trying to kill the time during a road trip. Normally I use the Pro controller. I had assumed my son had over strained the left stick. I had to buy some aftermarket stick modules to repair the WiiU gamepad a couple years ago for similar issue. Here I was thinking I might have to take apart a joycon and do similar. Still have those stupid Y shaped screwdrivers.
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Yeah I've done it to our JoyCons. Worked a treat.
You can also buy replacement sticks online, swapping them out isn't difficult.
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I don't think the push stick was the problem. The wii u has it, and so does every single xbox since the original and I've never heard of any of them having issues. I suspect it has more to do with the design they chose to get it to fit into such a small controller. As far as I know, even the switch pro controllers don't have the issue...only the joycons.
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99% isopropyl alcohol also works.
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Buy a can of WD40 electrical contact cleaner spray. Spray it under the little rubber cover at the base of the joysticks and the drift won't be an issue for quite some time.
That's not going to work at all here.
The metal spring clips that move along the carbon electrical contacts actually gouge into and completely scrape off those carbon electrical contacts.
As in they are completely gone in a track where the metal touches.
WD40 helps many things, but it can't clean an electrical contact that doesn't exist ;}
Physical contact ?! What garbage. (Score:2)
The metal spring clips that move along the carbon electrical contacts actually gouge into and completely scrape off those carbon electrical contacts.
Cabron electrical contacts ?!?
As in physical contacts ?!?
Given the amount of abuse that a game device takes (images of Gameboys surviving pretty wierd accident comes to mind), how come that in 2020 the switch is using (brittle, eventual failure prone) physical contacts ?!?
Almost two decades ago, the controller of the SEGA DreamCast used magnetic hall sensors [wikipedia.org]. Even the SEGA Saturn's optionnal 3D Control Pad which inspired it had them: and those things still work 25 years after leaving the factory.
I would und
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PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers also used ordinary potentiometer joysticks. Those are the most recent gamepads I've dissected so I can't speak to anything later. The PS3 controller I took apart to replace the battery. The 360 controllers I've disassembled were taken apart specifically to replace joysticks for exactly the same problem, jitter/drift.
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It is quite disappointing in 2020 just how often the potentiometer method is still used.
https://i.imgur.com/Nh7MGK0.jpg [imgur.com]
This is a joycon analog stick pcb, and the sliders at the top and left clearly baring their grindy little teeth.
The carbon pads on the PCB here is already showing visible and significant damage.
It has happened to three of my own joycons, and the teardown of one looks just as bad. (Might as well, it isn't like Nintendo is giving any form of replacement or compensation after the warrantee pe
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Buy a can of WD40 electrical contact cleaner spray. Spray it under the little rubber cover at the base of the joysticks and the drift won't be an issue for quite some time.
That's not going to work at all here.
The metal spring clips that move along the carbon electrical contacts actually gouge into and completely scrape off those carbon electrical contacts. As in they are completely gone in a track where the metal touches.
WD40 helps many things, but it can't clean an electrical contact that doesn't exist ;}
And yet it has worked on both of my Joycon controllers...
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And yet it has worked on both of my Joycon controllers...
And yet wd40 magically made electrical contacts poof out of nowhere on both of your joycons?
Sorry but no, you're clearly not experiencing the same problem. yet.
https://i.imgur.com/Nh7MGK0.jp... [imgur.com]
Once those carbon pads are ground away, there is nothing conductive left for the sliders to make contact with.
No one is trying to hold nintendo responsible for some dust getting in there that can be easily cleaned.
These lawsuits are about nintendo making a design with a high hardness metal rubbing over a very soft ca
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I don't understand you people. Have you even thought to stop and think about what is going on. The core nature of the problem and reality, what is actually really going on, the strange silliness of it all. People have an expectation that a device last beyond it warranty period, why, the idea is literally crazy. The warrantly period legally covers the expect LIFE of the device, you buy it, contractually legally, based upon that declared expectation of life by the manufacturer, how long the product will last.
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For example, a company builds a device that will probably last for 10 years. Through testing they know that 90% will require no repairs in the first 3 years. They figure the price of repairs for those 10% that require it and add that to the cost of all devices and set the warranty for 3 years.
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Firmware update? (Score:2)
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The answer to both your questions is yes: there has been a firmware update, and the controllers get jacked up enough that it doesn't matter.
They may look like they return to center but thanks to the firmware update with the recalibration options, you can see that they're still reading as being slanted sufficiently in one direction that trying to set a dead zone that large would effectively make them useless.
The cause of Joy Con Drift is apparently either a little rubber disc over the contacts starts to trap
Re: Firmware update? (Score:2)
You would think that they would be using an optical system by now. Is Nintendo really using old fashioned resistive potometers in their analog sticks?
Among other things, these potometers are prone to wearing out and becoming noisy (the "pffft-zzzt" sound you hear when they are used as a volume control and you try to adjust the volume), which can reak absolute havoc on the character you are trying to control. This is an unnesseary point of failure in addition to the springs used for the actual stick.
Hall effect (Score:2)
You would think that they would be using an optical system by now.
Exactly that!
Meanwhile SEGA has been using magnetic Hall effect sensors since approx. 20(*) ~ 25 (**) years ago.
Mine still work as of today.
Nintendo seem to have gone really stupid with intentionnal planned obsolescence.
--
(*): DreamCast's official Controller
(**): Saturn's optional 3D Control Pad
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Meanwhile SEGA has been using magnetic Hall effect sensors since approx. 20(*) ~ 25 (**) years ago.
But not for 20 years, since they stopped selling Dreamcasts in 2001. The hot shit in joysticks now is optical sensors, anyway, not hall effect. They aren't affected by magnetic fields...
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A firmware update could allow re-centering, recalibrating, and expanding the dead zone, but this is happening because the potentiometers are damaged.
Photo of damaged pots (some of carbon layer scratched off): https://i.imgur.com/8cyzrKs.jp... [imgur.com]
Even if there was a firmware update to allow recalibrating the joysticks, they would lose the ability to distinguish a gentle push from a harder push for the entire axis. For instance, Up and slightly left would become just Up.
Not to mention this would mean admitting f
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Probably the latter - from what I've seen the issue is essentially they had to miniaturize the hardware so much to fit in the space they allotted for it (the guts of the Joy Con are mostly battery) that it's presumably just too small to last. There's a lot going on in each individual Joy Con: it's got a set of contacts for charging/pairing, a Bluetooth radio, the "HD Rumble" vibration thing, and a small SOC for handling all that, not to mention contacts for nine buttons and the joystick itself, all jammed i
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You cant fix it in firmware. It is a physical issue. When the issue first starts manifesting itself, it is often just slightly off center, enough so that games could just have a dead zone where it ignores slightly off center. In fact, suspect that's what many games do. For whatever reason, I never noticed this problem with any of my controllers on any games until I got Animal Crossing. Then suddenly I came to the realization that all 4 of my right joycons were experiencing the issue. However, once I realize
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...but it would be 5 or more seconds for it to slowly drift it's way there. So the range that it would drift is way beyond what any sort of software tolerance could cope with.
Sorry for the split post. WTF is up with slashdot not letting me put this all in one post and giving me the crap lameness filter warning
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You used an ellipsis, which they're assuming is ASCII art.
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No. I added the ellipsis because I had to split the comment. The original content had no ellipsis. I went sentence by sentence, then word by word trying to figure out what it didn't like. That last word was as much as it would let me post without it complaining. If I stopped there, it was fine. One word more and it complained. Yet if I cut out my entire first paragraph and posted only the second paragraph (ie: the partial 2nd paragraph in the first post + the partial 1st paragraph from the second post) it w
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In order to answer this question, I pose the following joke:
How many software engineers does it take to change a light blub?
None. That is a hardware problem.
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This confirms that the fourth turning is almost here and the spoiled deserve the devastation that will be wrought upon them.
And when that time comes it'll be fun watching them try to sue when they find a piece of bone in their daily ration of Purina One Choice Chicken Puree.
Soylent Green is People!
Welcome back AC!
Lawyers will get $20M end users an $5 coupon (Score:2)
Lawyers will get $20M end users an $5 coupon
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Lawyers will get $20M end users an $5 coupon
Sharks got to eat too..
I had a lawyer tell me once that the only people winning in a court room are the lawyers. Everybody else pays.
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See this [jack-the-ripper-tour.com] from the 1700s.
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My mom worked for a herd of lawyers for 13 years, she had pages of lawyer jokes.
Old Spanish joke:
A lawyer takes his son in to his office for the day so that they boy can see what his future work will be like. The first client of the day is a campesino from a local hacienda. The farm worker says, "For 20 years I work on the hacienda, I pasture the cattle, I clean the cattle, I milk the cattle, and the owner says that when my most troublesome cow had a calf that I could have it. Now he won't give it to me.
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You're assuming the users win. The lady's decision to buy a controller rather than just claiming a warranty replacement will hardly leave here with standing for compensation in court.
N64 & maturity of controller technology (Score:2)
This used to happen on the N64 controller too. It was avoided on the PC analog joysticks because you had to calibrate them every damn time you started a game. Eventually this kind of drift seemed to be taken care of on PS1 dual-shock and PS2 controllers. And by the time GC and XBox were around I think we'd flick the joystick around a bit and somehow the game would recalibrate.
There is a software defined dead-zone where the game doesn't register movement if the stick sits in that position for a while. If yo
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The PS2 controllers where switches I thought.. Meaning that it wasn't sensitive to how far the joystick moved, only that it was being pushed in some direction. I could be wrong, I cannot remember when I last had one of those controllers in my hands.
When you start doing proportional responses for a game controller, things get much more complex, over just watching for a switch closure.
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The sticks were analog (POT-based). I used play R/C Stunt Copter for PS1 and it required a dual-shock controller, which didn't ship with the PS1 initially, but did ship with the PS2 as the DualShock 2 (slightly different dimensions and a few more buttons were pressure sensitive, but almost no game cared to read pressure of start/select or L3/R3)
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It's entirely possible that the small sticks in the Switch's joycons are not up to the same standards as the larger sensors that have been used in controllers for 2 decades. But it's not unreasonable for a consumer to assume that joycons don't turn into trash after 7 months, given that video game controllers are very mature technology.
P.S. I remember the weird controllers of the early days, I despise the intellivision and colecovision style controllers, there were a few other consoles that used the phone ke
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I've had both Xbox and Xbox 360 controllers jitter and drift. I've repaired both, too. Also PS and PS2 controllers, but PS3 controllers use the same joystick as PS2 ones IIRC. At least it looked the same, I didn't replace any PS3 joystick units.
Makes sense (Score:2)
Remember old school analog joysticks.. (Score:2)
..the ones that had the sliders to account for drift in the mechanism? This is what the Switch needs.
Literal child (Score:5, Interesting)
As opposed to a child in the figurative sense? How about the fact that scratching out the word literal does not change the sentence.
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The writer was probably a 24-year-old gamer [snarky comment about "mom's basement" omitted]. They like to indiscriminately pepper their speech with words like "literal" and "ironic", when not using other kinds of "sentence enhancers".
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As opposed to a child in the figurative sense? How about the fact that scratching out the word literal does not change the sentence.
There's been so many Trump posts on Slashdot recently it's worth reminding people that some children are literal children.
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That's the QAnon showing through. I'm not pleased about the return of the AC.
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You seem to believe that the role of Slashdot editors is...editing?
I long ago surmised that their only role is to cut and past submissions, and then repost them as new like 5 days later.
So, just from our experience (Score:3)
Among my friends and family, who have a couple of Switches and play them moderately often:
We've had 10 joycons repaired so far and have at least 4 more that need repairs. Time before repair becomes necessary can be a couple of months to several months, but I don't think we've had any in regular use not require repair.
Warranty? (Score:2)
If it started to drift within a month why didn't she go back to the store and claim warranty? hell, even if it's one year later (ok, in the EU warranty is at least 2 years, don't know in the US)..
the woman is just trying to get some extra money, wonder how much she wants.... Hope she looses, as even though it is a shitty problem, Nintendo is fixing it for free (as they should ofcourse, as it's a design problem)..
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While that is true, the reality is the Joycon drift isn't remotely comparable to every other controller in the industry right now. The N64 was awful but doesn't exist anymore, and no other controller on the market suffers in this way.
But yes, warranty exists for a reason. Stupid Karen and baby Karen hopefully will lose their frivolous lawsuit.
So in other words... (Score:2)
Switch Joy-Con controllers make in-game characters "drift" even when nobody is moving them.
So... they have filed a Class-Action RPG lawsuit?
Literal child (Score:2)
Would it be more or less news-worthy if it was a metaphorical child?
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Well 90% of news on slashdot has been about a figurative child, a COTUS if you will, so at this point it's probably prudent to remind people that literal children are something that exist.
Eliminate all moving parts... (Score:2)
Joysticks should be optical to measure position, and should self-center by using a neo magnet. The buttons can use optical sensors to detect whether they are pressed far enough to "activate", and a pair of tiny neo magnets oriented in a repelling polarity for each button could push the buttons back up.
Absolutely no mechanical parts to break would mean that it would be reliable in the long run... lasting essentially forever for all practical purposes.
Although I can imagine that the niche market that mi
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I would have guessed around $250 actually, but that's probably still way more than what most would be willing to pay.
As I said, I'm not sure if there are enough enthusiasts willing to pay such amounts for such a product to be commercially viable.
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Go Magnetic (Score:1)
www.digikey.com [digikey.com]
For my application they work great, I just wish they were a bit bigger as soldering wires to something this small is a pain.
They also sell kits that include a joystick
A literal headline (Score:1)
A literal lawyer and their literal client literally sue a literal corporation.
Classic (Score:1)
But... they're fixing them (Score:1)
Unless they've ended the program they're currently fixing joycons for free right now. I dunno if that'll mitigate for the future but they've replaced 6 of my joycons from two different systems that have all ended up with drift over time. I got shipping label from them, off it went, and within two weeks they returned them back to me. It's annoying but would this negate the class action suit I wonder?
Live to ignore. (Score:1)
On topic: this drift is s strong reason to never purchase a switch. Thankfully they made the platform easily shareable so people can decide whether they like the broken controllers.
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this drift is s strong reason to never purchase a switch.
The Switch itself is fine if you mostly intend to use it docked as a stationary console. I have a few third party controllers and they work with absolutely no drifting.
The Switch Light is another story. It also has the drift problem and since the controllers are integral to the console (and obviously, it can’t be docked), you’re out of luck when they start going bad. You’ve just gotta prop it up on something and pair a wireless controller. Nice job, Nintendo.