Nintendo fined 35 million euros by the French government due to Switch 1 Joycon malfunctions
Following an investigation over misleading commercial practices, today Nintendo has been imposed a fine of 35 million euros related to the controller malfunctions that affected multiple Joycon controllers for the Switch 1.
The investigation was a part of the French's National Investigation Service (SNE) of the DGCCRF (Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control), which considered that by Nintendo not informing their customers fairly about the plausible malfunctions of their Switch 1 Joycon controllers, Nintendo committed a misleading commercial practice going from 2018-2023. The investigation concluded that Nintendo didn't inform about the issues until 2020 instead of informing about the Joycon failures as soon as they knew about it.
The problems came from the now more than usual and infamous Joycon Drift, which caused unresponsiveness when using the controller, be it by the movement being unintended or sudden, characters moving to the complete opposite direction, or having "phantom" movements overall. This often prompted consumers to avoid contacting Nintendo's after sales department, and instead leaded consumers to purchase new Joycon controllers overall,
it wasn't until 2023, where after a combined European effort, that Nintendo started offering free repairs for affected Joycon controllers.
After the whole French investigation was done, Nintendo was issued a criminal settlement of 35 million, and according to the government site, Nintendo will make press release on their French website regarding the situation.
Source
