Nintendo is facing yet another legal fight over the Switch's Joy-Cons. After dealing with filings in both Europe and the United States, it's now Canada's turn. Lambert Avocat is a Quebec law firm that has just filed a class-action lawsuit against Nintendo over Joy-Con drift, claiming that the defect goes against the Consumer Protection Act. Joy-Con drift continues to be a rampant issue for the company, which is in the midst of multiple lawsuits regarding the controllers, in Washington and Illinois, where cases have headed to arbitration, as well as France and the UK. Currently, this latest case is awaiting approval from the court, and if it moves on, the class action lawsuit hopes to obtain compensation for affected users.

The « Joy-Con Drift » constitutes an important, serious and hidden defect, because:

• the consumers wouldn’t have brought the defective gaming systems or controllers or wouldn’t have paid such high price, had they known their reduced product lifespan because of the defect;
• the defect prevents the products in performing a function for which they were bought for and causes inconvenience to consumers;
• the defect was not revealed by Nintendo;
• the consumers were not able to detect the default through an ordinary examination of the products.

Source

 

[eyeliner]

For someone who has their hobbies in this field. The Joycon is quite finicky to work with, as there's quite a few ribbon cables and parts to disassemble. Furthermore it requires a semi-proprietary tri-wing screwdriver to open. I'd give them a pass if this was as easy as changing the buttons/joystick in something like an Xbox Elite controller, but the Joycon is way more complicated than that. I've had 3 other people straight up buy a new pair of Joycons due to this issue.

Yeah, but they have teams specifically for repairing faulty hardware, and I'm sure that for them, the hardware prices range from cents to a dollar.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

out of curiosity, did sony or microsoft ever get in trouble for the rrod/ylod issues?

Not legal trouble, because MS/Sony actually acknowledged and bothered to fix the issues (with MS going as far as recalling the OG phatties way back when, and Sony had a few years until YLOD became as common as RROD by which point they already fixed the problem with Slims) instead of just ignoring it and telling people it's "not a real issue!" like Nintendo has been doing.


I expect Nintendo is just biding their time so they can just shit out the "New Switch Pro XL Mega Ultra Tournament Edition" with a fix for drift so they can force people to buy that shit instead of fixing it for their current customers.

 

[the_randomizer]

If I used the cheaply made Joycons, I'd be upset too. Using a Pro Controller, never looked back.

 

[leon315]

I think it's time to boot my Zelda BOTW up to check if my joycons have drift.

That's the pots becoming worn, it's litterally unavoidable and only happens after years of using a controller everyday whereas joycon drift happens quickly with minimal use.

 

[Kanakops]

Finally something for quebec

 

[1B51004]

I dunno how you guys are using your joycons but I've only had drift once. Filled out a repair form, sent it in for at least 50 cents, got them back and they worked. I've mainly been using one of the hori wired pro controller though, but from what I can tell, the controllers seem to still not have drift.

 

[Stealphie]

Hmmmm... I wonder how they could've prevented this. Maybe by making a solidly built controller...?

 

[The Frenchman]

Theses sadly hold no ground because the pieces still show sings of wear, so in court Nintendo could simply show brand new joycons with no drift and then show sticks with drift and make their case that users simply play too rough.

It's not like they're programmed to start drifting after XX amount of hours or when a new color is out...

Yes they're fragile and they shouldn't be.

 

[Immortallix]

I have had 3 left joycons in the last 2 years develop drift. I finally decided to buy a 3rd party version instead. Went with the Gioteck JC-20 which is half the price of official Joycons and I find them to be way more comfortable than the official ones.

Does it have a real dpad?

 

[slaphappygamer]

I swapped shells on my joycon. Do you think I can send them in like that? I still have the originals. First, my left joy con was drifting, now my right joycon is drifting too. I replaced the stick on my left joycon and it worked well for about 4 months. It really sucks, because I have this nice hand grip for handheld mode, but I can’t play handheld.

 

[Zaldo1]

They deserve it, both my launch joycons are unusable.

 

[Jayro]

Doing the repairs for free is nice and all, but when are they going to address the source of the problem and stop using the cheap shitty parts?

 

[DS1]

Has this issue been resolved? If I buy a switch today, will it eventually have this drifting issue?

I’m seriously thinking about getting one since they announced SVC, but don’t want to deal with a garbage controller.

 

[AmandaRose]

Doing the repairs for free is nice and all, but when are they going to address the source of the problem and stop using the cheap shitty parts?

Everything about the Switch seems cheep compared to other Nintendo consoles. I take really good care of my consoles and one of my 2 switches is failing horribly. On it no matter if the joycons have a full charge or not I get a message on screen saying they have a low battery. It also keeps popping up an error saying no cartridge is inserted when there is. It says the sd card has been removed when it hasn't and sometimes fails to acknowledge that a right joycon is in the rail when I use it in portable mode. My other switch seems to be fine at the moment though

Does it have a real dpad?

See for yourself lol been looking at online reviews for it and it scores highly on pretty much all of them with most reviews saying it's the best 3rd party joycon available.

https://www.gioteck.com/jc20/

Has this issue been resolved? If I buy a switch today, will it eventually have this drifting issue?

I’m seriously thinking about getting one since they announced SVC, but don’t want to deal with a garbage controller.

No the drift issue still hasn't been fixed but just buy yourself a Geotec JC-20

 

[Lazyboss]

Someone should teach Nintendo that they are not the only one who can fire lawsuit on others.

 

[Zaldo1]

...

Look cool, how's the motion control, delay, and vibration on it?

 

[AmandaRose]

Look cool, how's the motion control, delay, and vibration on it?

They are all very good.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

they are fixing joycons with no troubles though. i agree they should get in trouble for this but they still fixed two of mine and one of the issues was a broken trigger, my son clearly snapped it off the motherboard. they sent me a brand new one to replace.

also the repair is about $4 and maybe 45 minutes of time.

Depends on where you live. Over here, they require you to send in the whole Switch if the included JoyCons break and you'll be without it for at least a week. Even if you had a pro controller or extra JoyCons you could play with, they require you to send in the Switch. Also they'll try to claim warranty void if they see any indication of user error or damage like a damaged latch (generally from dropping the Switch) and will refuse to fix the completely unrelated drifting issue. Also, it's not a proper fix, they replace the stick with the same faulty model that will fail again later down the line, it's a ticking time bomb. What about in a few years when the Switch 2 (or whatever) is out and they no longer stock replacement parts for the Switch? In 10 years there are not gonna be any properly working JoyCons left apart from a few overpriced NIB ones.

 

[seseiSeki]

i never used a joy-con so i can't say much about em..... does the switch lite get drift?

If I remember correctly, the lite can also have the drift issue.

But something I heard more often and also experienced myself is... Uhh... I don't know how it's called. The affected stick will not fully input a direction. I mean: Tilting the stick to the left, for example, will seem to work at first, but at some point it'll just register as tilting to the right. Oddly enough, tilting the stick to the top-left or bottom-left will still work.
Bought a can of compressed air, applied it to the stick and everything worked again.

 

[Anxiety_timmy]

i honestly am in the camp that thinks that nintendo should get this full force. Even if its a piss easy repair many people cant or dont want to open up their joy con to fix it