A law firm has begun an investigation for a class action lawsuit on Nintendo over Joy-Con drift

new-joy-con-1563458834681.jpg

Joy-Con connectivity issues have plagued Nintendo Switch owners since the launch of the console, more than two years ago. Recently, Joy-Con drift has become a topic of interest once more, due to fans vocally expressing their disappointment. With no real solution in sight, it appears that a law firm is stepping in to see if they can make things happen. The law firm, called Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP, is a three-decade old institution that focuses on class action lawsuits. According to CSK&D, they have begun an investigation into a possible class-action lawsuit against Nintendo for selling faulty Joy-Cons that have phantom input and interfere with gaming.

You can fill out the form in the link below to offer your personal experiences with your Joy-Cons to help give the firm more information to work with. If enough reports come in, then CSK&D will move forward with their lawsuit. Whether this will result in a solution or even make it to court is unclear, but the threat of legal action could perhaps spur Nintendo into coming up with a fix or revision for future Joy-con releases.

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regnad

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Well, I'm still having no problems with my launch day joycons, but the majority of my play time is in docked mode, and I might very well be in the minority. Regardless, I don't expect much to come from this, as the payouts for Nvidia's GTX 970 VRAM fiasco were only about $30 per person. With a product as (relatively) inexpensive as the joycons, people can look forward to maybe a $10 reimbursement, and that's only if the case wins, and only after a couple years.

That's fine with me. What I want is for Nintendo to be forced to address the issue. I don't care if I never get a dime. I just want the next pair I buy to not drift.

I'm still using the same SNES, Gamecube, and PS1 controllers that came with my systems I bought ages ago with no problems.
 

samcambolt270

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I also feel the joystick drift maybe due to internal size of joystick being small so it becomes more fragile.
From what I'v seen in teardowns, it's not the size. It's because the sticks are cheaply made and inherently flawed. Its very very easy for the sensor to be damaged to the point that it simply detects movement all the time. Even cheap third party joycons that use the same sized sticks don't end up with drift from what I understand, and they're intentionally made cheap.
 

Meteor7

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Vultures jumping on some nonsense.

Nintendo replaces faulty joycons, I have yet to hear about drifting sticks out of the box, there is nothing to lawsuit against here.
Yeah, for a cool $30 USD, or at least that was the price quoted to me when I called them, which wildly outstrips the cost of ordering a replacement stick yourself.

I had this exact issue render a stick unusable right around the time I was playing Mega Man 11, and more recently, the same issue cropped up on two more sticks. I'd like it if this suit at least brought attention to an issue Nintendo seems completely content ignoring.
 

Rahkeesh

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Nintendo didn't go all-in on the Switch at first, hedging their bets against another Wii U. Picking up ancient 20 nm tegra x1 chips and the only cheapass analog sticks at that size that were already being made in China. To fix the issue they have to get into the manufacturing of that part instead of relying on the existing flawed one, which is expensiveish and why I'm sure they are hoping they can keep sweeping the issue under the rug.
 

Xabring

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Or get into replacing the joysticks yourself if the problem arises - which might be the most cost effective way to combat it.

That's...something not everyone feels skilled or/and comfortable enough to do. But it is indeed cost effective. 10 bucks vs 40 of the whole joy-con...unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem long term. Probably why the lawsuit is being made, I suspect.
 

Silent_Gunner

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I hear about Joy-Con drift all the damn time, but I can't say I've ever experienced it. Does it have to do with how often one uses the Joy-Cons or something?
 

Budsixz

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Someone on youtube showed that they drift because of a material inside wears down, making a sort of powder that goes everywhere ruining stuff
 

EduAAA

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I don't get it, if it is a factory defect they have to replace them for free because of the warranty...
 

Silent_Gunner

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That's...something not everyone feels skilled or/and comfortable enough to do. But it is indeed cost effective. 10 bucks vs 40 of the whole joy-con...unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem long term. Probably why the lawsuit is being made, I suspect.

As someone who's in the middle of trying to mod some Joy-Cons with Basstop D-Pad shells right at this moment, it is a pain, especially when you have to either down a bunch of Mountain Dew to stay awake after finishing just disassembling the thing without breaking it (which I fear I did more than once with some of the ribbon cables, though I tend to be somewhat paranoid about handling small electronic devices, especially proprietary ones that can have hard-to-impossible to fix issues if you fuck up. Even better when Nintendo announces the totally-not-gba-sp-equivalent Switch refresh that fixes one of the Switch's biggest issues in portable mode and does it in a way that makes the Switch Lite DOA for those of us nerds who are informed about what Nintendo has coming down the pipeline) just so you'll show up for work on time for your 2nd shift retail job, or disassemble it, try to find all of the small size screws you dropped on a floor that isn't plain white, which makes trying to find these things a major PITA until you realize you fucked up hard and probably just wasted $60+ on Joy-Cons that you can't even re-assemble completely now because using regular Phillips-head screwdrivers is apparently so and inefficient that it'll make people just wish there was a Hori Joy-Con that had the functionality of the regular left Joy-Con that's actually important for fighting games and not the few games that use HD Rumble effectively or motion controls in a meaningful way.
 

nikeymikey

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I never knew about this before now, but thinking about it my kids switch has one right joycon that always goes right when no one is touching it. Is this drift??

Either way I’m gonna grab some replacement sticks from Amazon and replace the faulty one. By the time this case concludes and if it wins, it could be years.
 

xdarkx

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I had the drifting issue awhile back, but managed to fix it myself. Haven't run into any drifting issue since. Don't know what to feel about this.
 

Eddypikachu

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I have three pairs of joy cons and two of them have horrible joystick drift, I really only use the third pair of joy cons now but this one too is developing a drift. I have never experienced a Nintendo controller that degrades so easily and quickly than the Joycons do.
 
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kumikochan

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Long story short, it is an outrage that Nintendo raised the prices for their controllers while cutting costs and asking an enormous amount of money for a controller that is cheaply made and as cheaply as it can possible be

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

My left one recently started drifting, I've died so many times in doom during the platforming sections from it... They're a bit chunky but I can't wait for these:


well if they'll be under 35 euro then i would consider those since it can't be used wireless, has no battery inside it and is missing a ton of features. Pricing it should be around 25 euro's/ dollars but knowing Hori they'll ask around 50 wich is just 2 much for a controller lacking a battery, features and wireless function. EDIT: After seeing the video they're asking 50 euro, what a fucking scam
 
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Foxi4

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There is very little Nintendo could do about the issue, even if they tried to resolve it. Potentiometers are just not reliable, they're highly susceptible to wear and tear because the carbon races are very soft in order to facilitate smooth operation. They could use races made of harder resin, I suppose, but they all wear down eventually. This weakness of analog stick assemblies isn't exactly news, it hits all controller manufacturers, some more than others. It's one of the reasons why Sony never used pots for their analog triggers (they use force sensitive resistors) and Microsoft switched away from them on the One (they use Hall effect sensors) - the moment they had a feasible alternative, they ditched the failure point. Sadly, the same cannot be done for the sticks.
 
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There is very little Nintendo could do about the issue, even if they tried to resolve it. Potentiometers are just not reliable, they're highly susceptible to wear and tear because the carbon races are very soft in order to facilitate smooth operation. They could use races made of harder resin, I suppose, but they all wear down eventually. This weakness of analog stick assemblies isn't exactly news, it hits all controller manufacturers, some more than others. It's one of the reasons why Sony never used pots for their analog triggers (they use force sensitive resistors) and Microsoft switched away from them on the One (they use a Hall effect sensor) - the moment they had a feasible alternative, they ditched the failure point. Sadly, the same cannot be done for the sticks.

Thanks for these technical info.

The VITA 2000 is a textbook example of faulty sticks, Nintendo just did the same.
But I see a simple way to manage it: "Software calibration"...
Just let us edit the dead zone
and BAM, your "not so eternal sitcks" can be used way longer (with a simple default setting to avoid mistakes).

No stick calibration makes me think of sheer planned obsolesence.
 
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