For roughly half of the Switch’s lifecycle, Nintendo has found itself in legal hot water due to the dreaded “Joy-Con drift” hardware issue. But, its legal teams, known for their effectiveness, have once again come through for the company as two separate lawsuits about the issue have been dismissed.
Knocking it out of the park
The complaints made against Nintendo involve how the analog sticks on the Joy-Con triggers tend to develop issues in relatively short periods of time after their first use. Some Switch owners have even reported having entirely new controllers developing the issue immediately.
Thus, the various lawsuits that have been brought against Nintendo over the course of the Switch’s life have seemingly been to force its hand to acknowledge damages caused by the inconvenience of the defects of its products.
While most standard analog sticks have the potential of developing such an issue, the speed at which it has affected millions of Joy-Cons around the world paints Nintendo as seemingly cheapening out, or at least skipping an essential part of quality control.
Nintendo of America has long been offering free repairs to owners of affected units, which may have something to do with why the lawsuits have ultimately fallen through. Either way, the sheer power of Nintendo’s legal team likely has had the biggest effect on this turnout of all.
In light of the Joy-Con bringing this issue to the forefront of the world of game controllers, many manufacturers have gone ahead to rely on a technology that’s been around for a while, but has since gotten far more popular in recent times.
This technology is the use of hall-effect joysticks, which essentially swaps the more rudimentary parts of a standard analog stick for powerful, precise magnets. This offers a snappy, fluid stick experience with practically no potential for ever developing a drift issue as there aren’t any fragile parts wearing down, the cause of the issue in standard sticks.
Nintendo recently confirmed it will be unveiling the Switch’s successor before the end of March 2025. Hopefully the controllers for this next system come with some improvements to the sticks to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
