Nintendo recently won a class-action lawsuit filed by parents who accused the company of knowingly selling faulty products. The parents in question had initially attempted to sue Nintendo themselves, but it became clear they had no chance of winning due to the Switch's end user license agreement which prevents lawsuits. Those parents nevertheless went ahead with the lawsuit, arguing that their children weren't bound by the agreements and therefore could sue the company.

The case was first brought in 2019. Just three days afterward, an internal memo at Nintendo instructed employees in North America to start offering Nintendo Switch Joy-Con repairs for free. While the company took steps to fix the problem, those who filed the lawsuit said that the company hasn't done enough to fix a known issue. As a result, they kept on with the suit. One of the mothers, Luz Sanchez explained that the console was purchased in December but developed problems with the Joy-Con in less than a month. While there's now a free method for getting it fixed, they argue that the very fact Nintendo knew there were problems and sold is enough to justify being sued.

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The lawsuit over Nintendo's Joy-Con problem has been dismissed. The parent's argument that their children were not bound by the End User Agreement License wasn't sound, as it was determined that it was the parents who owned the consoles and made the agreement and the children had no grounds to sue over it. Since the parents are bound by the agreement, they have no recourse but to give up the suit.

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Joy-Con drift interferes with playing games and watching movies, and in the past, Nintendo has faced many other lawsuits over the same issue. The problem was so severe before the free Joy-Con repair program that Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa had to make an apology for the inconvenience. Other Nintendo execs like Doug Bowser have addressed the issue, saying it's a problem the company has been aware of. He added that the new OLED Switch consoles have overall improvements to the analog stick and that the improved thumb stick would be included in standard Switch consoles now as well.

The Joy-Con drift lawsuit was thrown out because the parents lost the loophole of using their children to circumvent the EULA. They were seeking $5 million because Nintendo's marketing didn't effectively warn about drift. Now they'll have to endure legal fees, while they could have just gone to get the Joy-Con fixed for free.

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Source: govinfo.gov (via Nintendo Everything)