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

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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.

:arrow: Source
 
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Would be nice if they implemented fines as a percentage of profit, maybe a couple months worth of joycon sales or 3% their yearly gross income rather than a vague 35 million euros that does little else than simply acknowledge the flaw.
 
Viri said:
I had to send out my Joycons twice for repair, and I only own one pair(at the time), shit sucked. I was about to do it a 3rd time, but I just bought some cheap hall effect sticks from Aliexpress and replaced them my self.

I also bought some fucked up Joycons off eBay for cheap, I think a year or two ago, and just sent them to Nintendo, and they replaced them for free. I was surprised, because they were really fucked up. lol

This fine probably made Nintendo bitter, but I doubt they give a fuck. It should have been higher, tbh.
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How hard it is to replace the sticks and how do you feel about the ones you bought on AliExpress? All my JoyCons are drifting (even the Switch 2 ones), and honestly I don't want to send them to Nintendo to get new ones that will eventually have the same problem.
 
Ritsuki said:
How hard it is to replace the sticks and how do you feel about the ones you bought on AliExpress? All my JoyCons are drifting (even the Switch 2 ones), and honestly I don't want to send them to Nintendo to get new ones that will eventually have the same problem.
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Eh, they feel fine, around the same as a normal one. You have to calibrate it in the Switch OS. They never drifted again, at least. lol

As for taking them apart, ugh, I hope you like small ribbon cables. I replaced hall effect sticks on around 6 Joycons, but I was also doing shell swaps, so that's why it was such a pain for me.



I also got my hall effect sticks for a dollar, because I always abuse Aliexpress new account coupons.
 
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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.
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In my experience, the PS5 controllers are just as bad, and seem significantly harder to repair, plus they don't offer free replacements. (Everything before Switch/PS5 has been fine.)
 
Definitely a stupid question, but; who gets the money?

Should be distributed between them evenly. £35 million between 70 million french people. Juicy 50 Euro Cents each :toot:

Ritsuki said:
How hard it is to replace the sticks and how do you feel about the ones you bought on AliExpress? All my JoyCons are drifting (even the Switch 2 ones), and honestly I don't want to send them to Nintendo to get new ones that will eventually have the same problem.
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They aren't too difficult tbh. I've replaced my right JC stick twice, and the ribbon cable that goes to the SL/SR/Sync buttons twice too which was way more of a pain in the fadge.
 

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