It's been nearly four years since the Nintendo Switch launched and it continues to be a massive sales success for Nintendo. It dominated hardware sales throughout 2020, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and up against the releases of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. But this success hasn't protected it from the continued criticisms concerning the Joy-Con drift issue.
As a reminder, Joy-Con drift is when the controllers register input on the control stick even if it's not being touched by the player. While already infuriating for players, the problem appears to be widespread and not limited to a minority of Nintendo Switch owners. Nintendo has been hit with consistent complaints from not just Switch owners but major organizations, with the European Consumers Organization (known as BEUC) being the latest to get involved.
In a statement on its official website, the BEUC writes that nearly 25,000 complaints have been received from European consumers across multiple countries; namely, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Greece. And in 88% of cases, the controllers began to exhibit drifting issues within the first two years of use.
As such, the BEUC has submitted a complaint to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities for premature obsolescence and misleading omissions of key consumer information and is also calling for an investigation into the issue. It also demands that Nintendo urgently address the issue and, until it's resolved, offer to fix Joy-Con controllers for free (which it already does in places like America and the UK) and inform consumers of the controllers' limited lifespan.
These complaints match up with similar concerns that have been shared over the last few years. In 2018, Nintendo did share plans to redesign the Joy-Cons to resolve the issue, but the fact remains that the issue has persisted. This has resulted in accusations that Nintendo is deliberately allowing the problem to continue in order to drive up Joy-Con sales.
What hasn't helped is that, during one of the many lawsuits the company has had to face concerning Joy-Con drift, Nintendo reportedly argued that it wasn't even an issue at all and wasn't causing any inconvenience. This claim is rather hard to swallow considering the number of complaints there have been about the issue.
Time will tell whether these latest efforts will force Nintendo's hand and eliminate the problem altogether. Until then, this issue feels like the only dark stain on the console's popularity.
Source: BEUC