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zswordsman

Member
Nov 5, 2017
1,771
Yeah my joycons started drifting a while back while playing Mario kart. I don't have any shooters on this console and have been playing RPGs so there's no sudden hard movements that I've done on these things. Quality is definitely a bit shitty.
 

Shadow

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,125
I can't believe my left Joycon started to drift today(about 7 months after purchase). This is frustrating, especially since I take care of my stuff as best as I can. Is there any way to fix it permanently?
You can send it to Nintendo since it's still within the 1 year warranty period.
Unless Nintendo actually fixes the problem for good, there is no permanent fix. After your warranty is over the only thing you can do is pay Nintendo to fix it, buy new joycons, contact cleaner every 2 weeks, or replace the control stick in it. It'll happen again so be ready for that.
 

Eoin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,103
With that surprised it took this long, but what if it was just cheap parts and not a defect?
There's a point where the concepts of "cheap parts" and "defective parts" converge. I think it's pretty clear that the Joycons are beyond that point.

Design engineering is tough - it's not like Nintendo intentionally picked out a poor analog stick supplier, and the design defect is only noticeable after prolonged use (aka difficult to do QA).
Perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt that QA would have found it difficult to catch this (although I feel that extended use testing should have been simple enough to arrange - design a machine to rotate 1000 sticks nonstop for 2 weeks, see how many still work).

However, real world usage caught this early - Nintendo should have known within - at most - a few months after launch that this was a widespread issue. They'd have been able to compare reports to historical failure rates for Wii U, Wii, GameCube etc. and should have seen that return/failure numbers were proportionately higher. They've had two years to react and they haven't done anything.

It's obviously not their fault from a manufacturing perspective. They're just buying the sticks from another company. However, they are surely the major customer for that product, maybe the only customer, they're a customer whose order history is probably now close to (or above) a hundred million units, and they're buying a product with a defect that is exposing them to legal risk and potential reputational damage. They should have ensured that the sticks got fixed by now.
 

PrimeBeef

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,840
There's a point where the concepts of "cheap parts" and "defective parts" converge. I think it's pretty clear that the Joycons are beyond that point.
But what about those that say contact cleaner fixed the issue? And those with launch Switches without an issue?

Just asking because is it defective, cheap parts, a design flaw?
 

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
43,597
It's really frustrating, and in my country I can't send them to Nintendo so joycons are just a waste of money.
 

StarErik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
457
Finally. I can't understand how Nintendo gets away with crap like this. I mean, you purchase a product for $350 and expect everything to work, because why wouldn't it? And it's not just one or two, but the majority of people got faulty joy-cons. How didn't they fix this before? I like to play their games but the company has been shit for many years now.
 

Brenal

Member
Nov 5, 2017
91
I wonder if nintendo will release an statement soon or stay silent until its evident there is no other way out, because if the design flaw is as described, all joycons sooner or later will start drifting, the more time goes on more joycons will present the flaw and more bad press will mount.
 

BoosterDuck

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,681
I have a feeling Nintendo will probably take action soon because once Pokemon comes out then there will be a sustained uproar that will really damage their reputation
 
OP
OP
delete12345

delete12345

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
19,697
Boston, MA
I have a feeling Nintendo will probably take action soon because once Pokemon comes out then there will be a sustained uproar that will really damage their reputation
They will definitely take action in late August and in September, when the new OG Switch hardware comes out, and when the Switch Lite is released. I'm sure all of the media's focus will be on the hardware when either one of them comes out.
 

Bii

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,776
4 of 6 of my Joy Cons suffer from this. I'm literally down to one good pair and I'm using contact cleaner on the others. :/
I probably should have saved my receipts on the extra Joy Cons I bought.
 

Ximonz

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,468
Taiwan
Finally. I can't understand how Nintendo gets away with crap like this. I mean, you purchase a product for $350 and expect everything to work, because why wouldn't it? And it's not just one or two, but the majority of people got faulty joy-cons. How didn't they fix this before? I like to play their games but the company has been shit for many years now.

I have 3 pairs of joy-con and none of them had issue since launch day.
and Nintendo isn't getting away with faulty design, it is just that it would take a period of time for the drifting to occur.

in addition
MS didn't get way with RROD but Sony surely get away with disc ejection issue and HD failure.
the thing is that these consoles do suffer from various issue and that's common.
 

Akash

Member
Oct 27, 2017
311
The rubber on my ps4 thumbsticks have given me far more trouble than the joy con ever have...
 

AtomicShroom

Tools & Automation
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
3,079
I wonder if nintendo will release an statement soon or stay silent until its evident there is no other way out, because if the design flaw is as described, all joycons sooner or later will start drifting, the more time goes on more joycons will present the flaw and more bad press will mount.

So far this issue is following the exact, exact same pattern as the Xbox 360 RROD, detractors and all. They will have no choice but to take action sooner or later, because eventually they will deem the bad press to be detrimental to their bottom end. If they know what's good for them, it will be sooner rather than later. Someone needs to wake them up, and fast.
 

SpankyDoodle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,082
Not that i'm not totally in favour of this lawsuit, but it does also highlight why right to repair is so important. Cost me $20 to get new joysticks and locks for mine instead of being forced to buy new ones.

The need to do that is why this lawsuit is needed.
By locks do you mean the little buttons that release the JoyCons? Did you have to buy them as a set or can you just buy the joystick by itself - and where? I'd love to finally be able to use my Neon Yellow JoyCons properly, as much as I like having Grey/Neon Yellow (though my fucking Grey set is having issues as well)
 

Dark1x

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
3,530
This is how I feel the Switch Lite might win out in the long run if it doesn't have this issue.

Good luck though. I had an issue with my left joycon back in late 2017, but it wasn't drift - the Switch just wasn't recognizing the attached joycon D:
I'm more concerned about whether this issue will appear on the Lite - it so, you're basically screwed.
 

Mbolibombo

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,043
Will be interesting to see what happens out of this. Gotta wonder how widespread the issue is, I have 4 day 1 joycons and neither have these issues. I also have another friend who has all the joycon combinations with 0 issues, on the flipside I have another friend with 4 joycons and 2 has the issue.
 

Tiggleton

Banned
Apr 25, 2019
457
I don't have any joycon drift yet but my right joycon keeps desyncing in handheld mode all the time which is frankly unacceptable. So glad I got the pro controller.
 

Eoin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,103
But what about those that say contact cleaner fixed the issue?
They're going to eventually find out that it didn't. The problem is that the Joycons sticks, internally, physically destroy the contact points that measure stick position. This is a gradual process and the first effects of it can be caused by small particles getting in the way of the metal prongs that you can see in the photos people are posting. Contact cleaner fixes this temporary effect of the issue, but the issue remains and will eventually become permanent.

And those with launch Switches without an issue?
Any gradual process is going to effect <100% of people for a long time. I've got launch Joycons that work fine (or at least they did last time I tested them). There were people with launch Xbox 360s that worked fine for years. This is an issue where the effect rate isn't going to jump to 100%, it's going to tend towards it, for years, and during those years we are going to continuously see people saying things like "I though everyone was exaggerating the Joycon drift thing because mine worked fine for years but now they're broken I guess maybe it was all true".

Just asking because is it defective, cheap parts, a design flaw?
My point is that at these failure rates, cheap parts are a design flaw. The Joycons are defective by design. If the design would have worked if the parts were more expensive, then the design shouldn't have included the cheap parts, and they're still defective by design.
 

storaføtter

Member
Oct 26, 2017
952
Been lucky so far as I got my switch late or is this going to happen regardless? I will admit I do not play the switch all the time.

It is always a good thing with class lawsuit as it can make business more accountable.

My PS4 controller has drifting issues actually.
 
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Zeroro

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,408
The rubber on my ps4 thumbsticks have given me far more trouble than the joy con ever have...
The 4+ year old controller that came with my console still works perfectly fine, and the thing's even been thrown around on more than one occasion.

Anyways, it's pretty clear at this point that Nintendo's not going to acknowledge the problem until their hands are forced, so this is good.
 

Ganondolf

Member
Jan 5, 2018
1,052
I wonder what the percentage rate of people that have this issue. there must be close to 100m joycons (if you include left and right). The chance of success could relate to the overall percentage.
 
Oct 25, 2017
15,070
Nintendo wont admit to the problem as that would make they liable to fix them all (around 100m of them) and I think if it can't be proven in court that a larger than normal defect rate ( I can't remember the percentage rate deemed acceptable) I don't think anything will happen.
I'd be shocked if nothing happens, they don't need this bad publicity as they are on a roll and don't want anything stifling their momentum.

They won't fix them all but they'd be playing with fire if they don't for future ones.
 

Leo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,556
I don't have a switch yet, but have experienced this with every Nintendo console since the 64. Is it worse on the switch somehow or same as always?
 

Eoin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,103
Nintendo wont admit to the problem as that would make they liable to fix them all (around 100m of them) and I think if it can't be proven in court that a larger than normal defect rate ( I can't remember the percentage rate deemed acceptable) I don't think anything will happen.
I'd suggest looking at this the other way around. If there's a scenario where Nintendo are liable to fix 100m Joycons, then they've designed a faulty product and sold 100m of them and that's a goodwill time bomb. Trying to avoid that reality until forced into admitting it by legal actions isn't going to go well for them.

The court actions don't have to prove a larger than normal defect rate either. There's no legally-mandated defect percentage. There's industry-accepted standards where companies selling products with a failure rate within those standards will feel that the warranty process sufficiently covers their obligation to sell working products. That's not a legal protection though.

I think we will know when we tear down a lite. If there is a time to fix it the lite would be it.
I think the time to fix this was probably two years ago with a revision to the Joycons. From whatever time Nintendo knew that this was a problem they should have been making alterations, and if they decided to use new sticks on the Lite, they should already be using new sticks on new Joycons. It'd be weird for them to be aware of the issue but only fix it for the Lite. That being said, their entire (lack of) response so far has been weird, so I'm not ruling out them doing exactly what you say, even if it doesn't seem like a good course of action.
 

PrimeBeef

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,840
They're going to eventually find out that it didn't. The problem is that the Joycons sticks, internally, physically destroy the contact points that measure stick position. This is a gradual process and the first effects of it can be caused by small particles getting in the way of the metal prongs that you can see in the photos people are posting. Contact cleaner fixes this temporary effect of the issue, but the issue remains and will eventually become permanent.


Any gradual process is going to effect <100% of people for a long time. I've got launch Joycons that work fine (or at least they did last time I tested them). There were people with launch Xbox 360s that worked fine for years. This is an issue where the effect rate isn't going to jump to 100%, it's going to tend towards it, for years, and during those years we are going to continuously see people saying things like "I though everyone was exaggerating the Joycon drift thing because mine worked fine for years but now they're broken I guess maybe it was all true".


My point is that at these failure rates, cheap parts are a design flaw. The Joycons are defective by design. If the design would have worked if the parts were more expensive, then the design shouldn't have included the cheap parts, and they're still defective by design.
Ty. I have not read that part about breaking down the contact.
 

Punished Dan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,246
My joy cons have not started to drift...yet. They get a fair bit of use too so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, but it clearly is a huge issue.

Microsoft fixed the RROD issue eventually.
Sony sorted out the crappy sticks on the first DS4 controllers.
I hope Nintendo do whats right and resolve this and offer a repair for people who's joy cons are effected.
 

Rodney McKay

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,205
Shit, my left joycon's analog stick just started drifting yesterday (my launch Grey one).
Was just navigating through the eShop and whenever I stopped scrolling down it would just start scrolling up on its own. :/
Wiggling it around a bit will fix it, but it always gets stuck going up eventually.

Thankfully I have another newer one I can use (until that one gets messed up), but it does suck. I was hoping I'd managed to get a lucky pair where it wasn't an issue.

Every official Xbox 360 controller I ever owned eventually got stick drift too, so it really sucks that this is happening again. At least those only cost $40-50 for a full controller instead of half.
For now I think I'll get one of those Hori d-pad ones since they're only $15 and I only ever play in handheld mode. Done love the louder should button clicks, but as long as the analog stick works they'll do for now.
 
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Moist_Owlet

Banned
Dec 26, 2017
4,148
I have 3 pairs of joy-con and none of them had issue since launch day.
and Nintendo isn't getting away with faulty design, it is just that it would take a period of time for the drifting to occur.

in addition
MS didn't get way with RROD but Sony surely get away with disc ejection issue and HD failure.
the thing is that these consoles do suffer from various issue and that's common.
The difference is Sony and Microsoft acknowledged their faulty products. Nintendo has had time to respond and has done nothing. Also, a billion dollar company doesnt need a defense force.
 

Andri

Member
Mar 20, 2018
6,017
Switzerland
Good to see People here are delusional as always.

These Lawsuits always just feel like attempts at shakedowns instead of actually trying to help anybody.
By the time this gets resolved and most likely settled(as they often do) switch 2 will be out, with no actual effect being felt by people till then, the payout will most likely be a few dollars per member of the class at least(generalising a bit, since i dont remember the exact number, but less than 15% of members of a class in such lawsuits tend to even get any money) while the prosecuters get the lions share instead of the people allegedly being damaged.

Reading the actual complaint is also strange for several reasons.
They say the defendant(aka Nintendo) routinely refuse to fix the issue without charge ,but provide no actual examples of this happening, and even state the plaintif did send them in, and Nintendo did repair them free of charge.

And somehow, the complaint alleges the defendant knew about the defect even in QA testing, but did nothing about it(no proof again), but they also never disclosed said defect to consumers(which contradicts the first point, since if the defendant didnt disclose they know about it, how could you know they knew about i in QA testing).

The issues raised at court, including breach of implied warranty and another warranty act specific to the plaintifs state, dont really apply in my opinion, since the plaintif did did get his joycon fixed within the warranty period, so no warranty was breached.
In fact, the plaintif didnt even try to send in his other pair of joycons 13 months after purchase, so there was never even an opportinity for the defendant to refuse any implied warranty(which does not exist anyway, since the warranty for the defendants products are clearly stated to be 12 or 3 months), nor for any breach of warranty(aka, 100% of the times he sent his joycons in he did get them repaired, free of charge).
 

VariantX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,890
Columbia, SC
All this talk about joycon stick drifting made me curious and I went to the calibration menu to test to see if there was any drift in my own joycons. Come to see that the Right joycon is constantly tilting to the right slightly. Left Joycon is perfectly stable. That's kind of infuriating because I almost never play my switch undocked and use the pro controller primarily to play on my TV. And reading this thread, the fixes are apparently just buying time as the design of the thing will eventually destroy itself over use??
 

Ximonz

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,468
Taiwan
The difference is Sony and Microsoft acknowledged their faulty products. Nintendo has had time to respond and has done nothing. Also, a billion dollar company doesnt need a defense force.

yes yes, any realistic discussion is coporation defense force.
MS and Sony didn't resolve the issue until newer model.
before that you'd RMA those console the same way as these joycon issue.
 

Agent_J

Member
Oct 30, 2017
658
I don't have any drifting but I have a weird issue. When playing handheld, the game will pause and ask me to press L + R to reconnect controllers. It's so damn annoying.
 

fiendcode

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,926
The difference is Sony and Microsoft acknowledged their faulty products. Nintendo has had time to respond and has done nothing. Also, a billion dollar company doesnt need a defense force.
What? I mean Microsoft did for 360 RROD (and paid handsomely for it) but we never saw something similar from Sony for PS3 YLOD, PS2 DRE, PSP disc ejecting, overheating (unless you turned them sideways/upside down) PS1s and so on. Those all either got ignored, repeatedly denied or saw class action suits to finally bring a settlement and acknowledgement of some sort.

Nintendo has a pretty split track record here. They did nothing about DS Lite hinges or 3DS screen scratching, but they did do out of warranty fixes for Gamecube GPUs overheating and the original square button Famicoms that failed. They tend to have a better track record with build quality historically but this joycon drift issue might be a big one.
 

whiteninja

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
1,794
Not sure about drift but I have to be really close to the switch for the joycons to function, otherwise they will continue moving in the direction I pressed for a few seconds. I cant even really play docked anymore.
 

Hokey

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,164
I seriously hope Nintendo gets screwed for this, they seem to be in a habit of making garbage tier hardware and then hiding behind red tape when it comes time for warranty.

I've had 3 warranty/quality issues with my Switch and Nintendo were only prepared to fix one of these at their cost (funnily enough it was this exact issue).
 

Cheezeman3000

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 5, 2018
1,092
Good to see People here are delusional as always.

These Lawsuits always just feel like attempts at shakedowns instead of actually trying to help anybody.
By the time this gets resolved and most likely settled(as they often do) switch 2 will be out, with no actual effect being felt by people till then, the payout will most likely be a few dollars per member of the class at least(generalising a bit, since i dont remember the exact number, but less than 15% of members of a class in such lawsuits tend to even get any money) while the prosecuters get the lions share instead of the people allegedly being damaged.

Reading the actual complaint is also strange for several reasons.
They say the defendant(aka Nintendo) routinely refuse to fix the issue without charge ,but provide no actual examples of this happening, and even state the plaintif did send them in, and Nintendo did repair them free of charge.

And somehow, the complaint alleges the defendant knew about the defect even in QA testing, but did nothing about it(no proof again), but they also never disclosed said defect to consumers(which contradicts the first point, since if the defendant didnt disclose they know about it, how could you know they knew about i in QA testing).

The issues raised at court, including breach of implied warranty and another warranty act specific to the plaintifs state, dont really apply in my opinion, since the plaintif did did get his joycon fixed within the warranty period, so no warranty was breached.
In fact, the plaintif didnt even try to send in his other pair of joycons 13 months after purchase, so there was never even an opportinity for the defendant to refuse any implied warranty(which does not exist anyway, since the warranty for the defendants products are clearly stated to be 12 or 3 months), nor for any breach of warranty(aka, 100% of the times he sent his joycons in he did get them repaired, free of charge).
Um, this is pretty simple. If the joy-cons are outside of warranty, they will not be repaired free of charge. Plaintiff didn't want to send them in 13 months after purchase precisely because they didn't want to pay the full repair fee.
 

Mgs2master2

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,862


nintendo responds

In short, they won't do anything out of the norm, just contact support for help.
 

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,550


nintendo responds

In short, they won't do anything out of the norm, just contact support for help.

"We take great pride in creating quality products and we are continuously making improvements to them. We are aware of recent reports that some Joy-Con controllers are not responding correctly."

This is hilarious with how reliable Nintendo hardware used to be compared to today.