The Nintendo Switch is a fantastic console. The console features some amazing titles that you can get lost in for hours and hours; like the recently released Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. However, there has been an issue with the Nintendo Switch pretty much since the console’s launch back in 2017. The issue has been given the name “Joy-Con Drift” by Switch owners and other Nintendo fans. The “Joy-Con Drift” is an issue with the console’s wireless, motion controllers that detects movement for the in-game character models even though the player is not making any motion via ‘Joy-Con’s control/analog stick. This problem can make some games and gameplay mechanics nearly impossible to play/use. For example, to “dash” in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate players must push the ‘Joy-con’s control/analog stick hard in the direction of choice; however, with the issue, “Joy-Con Drift”, this in-game mechanic becomes impossible since the “Drift” will only detect the player as making their character “walk” instead of “dash”. This can cause the match since the “dash” is a highly important gameplay mechanic.
This issue started out as a small problem that Switch owners were facing, at first. Though, as we got further into the Switch‘s life cycle, more and more Switch owners have reported the issue with their own ‘Joy-Con’s (my own included). So many have reported this “Joy-Con Drift” issue that Nintendo is currently getting sued because of the ‘Joy-Con’s poor design that leads to the “drifting” issue. Below is a Youtube video from WhatCulture Gaming that explains more about the lawsuit and why it is happening.
In light of this, reported by Kotaku, Nintendo has given a statement about the “Joy-Con Drift”. Nintendo implores its consumer audience, that is having this issue, to visit their customer support website. To further Nintendo’s response, a representative from the company told Kotaku that, “we take great pride in creating quality products and we are continuously making improvements to them” and “We are aware of recent reports that some Joy-Con controllers are not responding correctly. We want our consumers to have fun with Nintendo Switch, and if anything falls short of this goal we always encourage them to visit http://support.nintendo.com so we can help.” Unfortunately, the gaming news site says that Nintendo did not respond to any questions in regards to future fixes of the issue.
If readers follow the above link to Nintendo’s customer support website, they will see that the company has updated its website to feature a link that will allow the customer to send their ‘Joy-Con’ to Nintendo for repairs. There are also other options that can possibly help with the “Joy-Con Drift” as well. However, Kotaku also reports that people who send their ‘Joy-Con’s in for repair continue to have the “drifting” issue from a couple days after the retrieval of the ‘Joy-Con’, to reporting of the issue immediately after removing the controller from the box. Both events are after said “repairs” by Nintendo.
This issue with the product design and repair does not bode well for the Japanese gaming company. It could even begin to hamper the console’s sales, which have been amazing since the console’s release. Do you think Nintendo has responded well to the issue or not? Below is a poll for readers to vote on if they think the company has responded well enough or if they could do better.