Nintendo fined 35 million euros by the French government due to Switch 1 Joycon malfunctions

Xzi · 2026-06-09T04:28:37+0100

SecureBoot said:
That would cost an extra dollar per stick! They'd only be making $58 in profit instead of $60 per pair!

They'd also lose out on selling you several replacement controllers over the console's lifetime.

Ettino · 2026-06-09T04:42:00+0100

Heh, what can 35 mills get you these days? A banana?

masagrator · 2026-06-09T05:03:08+0100

anhminh said:
Isn't almost all controllers of that generation drift as well? Is no one sue them?

Issue is more about ignoring the problem for years than actual problem existing.

ZeroT21 · 2026-06-09T06:09:26+0100

Let their ninjas fight it out for 'em. Its"s what they're paid for

Viri · 2026-06-09T06:54:21+0100

DuoForce said:
Why is it so hard for game companies to use hall effect sticks?

Because then they would have to admit that they fucked up. I'm pretty sure they'd rather get fined 100mil, instead of admitting they fucked up the control design. lol

Also, all 3 companies don't want your controller to last forever.

The Real Jdbye · 2026-06-09T07:46:27+0100

anhminh said:
Isn't almost all controllers of that generation drift as well? Is no one sue them?

Any 1st party controller from any generation is susceptible to stick drift, usually this happens after years of heavy use though so it's considered normal wear and tear. Joycons are unique though in that they are guaranteed to fail, no matter how gentle you are.

EU law guarantees products for 2 years, products that fail after that are considered normal wear and tear as far as the law goes.
In some countries it might be longer, but that's the minimum required by EU law.

Izual Urashima · 2026-06-09T08:03:09+0100

As for the low price of the fine, remember it's based off the total amount of sales in France, which is a drop in the sea of Switch and Joy-Con sales in the world.

subcon959 · 2026-06-09T08:53:23+0100

The French government can finally afford to buy that RAM it had its eyes on.

Skelletonike · 2026-06-09T08:56:59+0100

The Real Jdbye said:
Any 1st party controller from any generation is susceptible to stick drift, usually this happens after years of heavy use though so it's considered normal wear and tear. Joycons are unique though in that they are guaranteed to fail, no matter how gentle you are.

EU law guarantees products for 2 years, products that fail after that are considered normal wear and tear as far as the law goes.
In some countries it might be longer, but that's the minimum required by EU law.

3 years in my country.

Honestly, I haven't had a single joycon with drift issues, neither my original Mariko nor my Pokemon OLED, meanwhile I did have to replace my Steam Deck sticks since they did start to drift (I also have a Vita with drift, but I've been putting it off since the sticks are a lot more expensive than Switch or Steam Deck ones).

lordelan · 2026-06-09T10:20:05+0100

Don't f*ck with the French government.

derivativeoflog7 · 2026-06-09T11:23:18+0100

Viri said:
bought some cheap hall effect sticks from Aliexpress and replaced them my self

It really is the best solution, probably even faster than having to send them back and forth for official "repair"

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:27 AM

The Real Jdbye said:
Any 1st party controller from any generation is susceptible to stick drift

Are they? I've had plenty of official Dualshock 2s over the years, and not a single one ever had issues with "drift" (as in randomly and unpredictably inputting directions without the sticks being touched, or being too slow to return to the neutral position, etc); they do have this weird issue where at first (like after powering on the console) the neutral position is off center, but if you just do a complete rotation of the stick it fixes itself and never ever has any more issues for that session.
All my Wii nunchucks and Wii U gamepad are also still perfectly fine.
I've always heard the stick drift issue started to pop up last generation or so when every company decided to cheap out and ditch hall effect sticks.

Sono · 2026-06-09T11:28:22+0100

The Real Jdbye said:
Any 1st party controller from any generation is susceptible to stick drift, usually this happens after years of heavy use though so it's considered normal wear and tear.

Weird. I used to have a few DS2s, and none of them had any drift. I only have the most fucked-up of all of them left, and it also still doesn't drift.
It's so worn, that the centering spring has carved a cavity in the white centering plastic, so it doesn't center fully due to the spring not reaching the plastic anymore, but if I center the stick manually, then it doesn't drift, and there are no sudden jumps in the reading either. On top of that, the analog buttons also don't have this issue either. Only X is a little bit worn, needing the button to be pressed a little harder before it registers on the analog reading, but the difference is really mild (in digital mode, I can't tell the difference, unless I very quickly tap X instead of properly pressing it).

Meanwhile my DS5 drifts OUT OF THE BOX :rofl2:

The DS4 I bought at the same time, started to develop jitters after 1-2 weeks of use, and drifts after 2-3 months of use.

Sure, the sample size is low, but I have a feeling that only those people had stick drift back then, who have induced sharp physical trauma to the controller, and not during normal use, and especially not by doing nothing.
Meanwhile, all of my modern controllers have stick drift (including Switch Pro Controller), except my Switch Joy-Con sticks (including the ones built into the Lite, that one is affected the least).

Edit: I wonder if pressing down on the Joy-Con sticks causes them to get damaged. I use mine like a PSP stick, pressing from the side (friction or not) instead of letting friction on the top do the work (like most people use joysticks, the intuitive way).
Now that I think about it, I use *all* joysticks like this, because my DS2 is so worn, that its surface is completely smooth and non-gripping, so to avoid slipping during precise steering in GTA3, I've accidentally learned to use sticks like this, and never realized I've been doing this until I've thought about it now

The Real Jdbye · 2026-06-09T11:40:27+0100

derivativeoflog7 said:
It really is the best solution, probably even faster than having to send them back and forth for official "repair"

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:27 AM

Are they? I've had plenty of official Dualshock 2s over the years, and not a single one ever had issue with "drift" (as in randomly and unpredictably inputting directions without the sticks being touched, or being too slow to return to the neutral position, etc); they do have this weird issue where at first (like after powering on the console) the neutral position is off center, but if you just do a complete rotation of the stick it fixes itself and never ever has any more issues for that session.
All my Wii nunchucks and Wii U gamepad are also still perfectly fine.
I've always heard the stick drift issue started to pop up last generation or so when every company decided to cheap out and ditch hall effect sticks.

The wipers in the potentiometers wear out which leads to all kinds of issues including stick drift. Like I said, in most controllers, this normally only happens from years of heavy use, you may never experience it if you're not rough with your controllers. The joycons, due to their small size, had to be made slightly differently, so they're way more susceptible. Cheaply made 3rd party controllers also tend to be more susceptible.

Talk to any competitive Melee player, they probably go through more analog sticks than any other fandom.

The N64 stick is probably the one exception, it doesn't use potentiometers. What it uses instead is arguably worse. But at least one thing it doesn't experience is stick drift. A heavily used N64 controller will feel like shit and have a huge deadzone but still be usable.

Marc_LFD · 2026-06-09T11:58:35+0100

€35m... That's it? Nintendo will just laugh about it.

Good attempt, but not hard enough.

lightwo · 2026-06-09T12:32:27+0100

Bladexdsl said:
all them cutting corners finally starting to bite them in the ass. this is what they get for making the worst controller in gaming history

I wouldn't call it the worst, but definitely competing for that title. However, the issue has to be the most blatant by far...!

The Switch's design decision of detachable/replaceable controllers for handheld play was fantastic. Once the third-party controller floodgates opened, it really made it apparent how badly designed the original controllers were.

No comfort, features most games didn't use, cutting corners where it actually matters (fragility). Really, if it weren't for the compact size and games that benefited from gyro/rumble/split pad layout, I would understand the title of the worst controller ever. Otherwise, I give it the title of second worst.

If I really wanted to upgrade, I'd certainly get a more comfortable third-party Joy-Con pair with feature parity and a larger case to accommodate for the larger size. At least the originals are so compact the Switch cases are usually really thin.

spotanjo3 · 2026-06-09T14:29:59+0100

YAY!!!!!!!!! You deserve it, Nintendo!

Dark_Ansem · 2026-06-09T15:18:57+0100

Hanafuda said:
Not only is it a slap on the wrist, can't help but wonder what good this does for the consumer. Not enough money to disincentivize Nintendo, and the French govt will likely spend the money on something completely unrelated (like what happened in the USA to money the tobacco industry paid up to state govts that sued them. Those States said 'I like money!' and spent it on whatever they wanted.)

Literally cant spend on anything stupider than the ballroom or pool works.

BUSTAH WOLF!!!

Well-Known Member

The patches guy

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Le derg

Well-Known Member

@!#?@!

♂ ♥ Gallant Pervert ♥ ♀

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

cripple piss

Le derg

Well-Known Member

サーガル

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum