Nintendo Switch News: Consumer Files New Joy-Con Drift Lawsuit Claiming Planned Obsolescence

The legal troubles surrounding the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers continue almost three years after the console was first released.

Since the Nintendo Switch first came to the market in 2017, players have been complaining about a defect in the Joy-Cons that causes an uncontrollable drift while playing. This was true even if the joystick was in a neutral position.

Because Nintendo apparently was unable to correct the issue effectively, disgruntled players decided to take legal action against the gaming giant, ScreenRant reports.

Last July, Seattle resident Ryan Diaz filed a lawsuit after a drifting problem in his Joy-Con controller that continued even after Nintendo sent him a replacement. The US judge in charge of the case moved to continue the lawsuit in arbitration in early March, despite Nintendo’s efforts to have it dismissed.

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa ended up acknowledging and apologizing for the ever-persistent defect during a financial Q&A session in June but the legal woes continued.

French news site Le Monde reports that the consumer group known as UFC-Que Choisir filed a planned obsolescence claim against Nintendo to the Nanterre, Paris public prosecutor today. This claim states that over 5,000 testimonies from consumers over just two days have been collected regarding the Switch Joy-Con defect.

Experts say that the drifting could be caused by “premature wear of the printed circuits” and “a lack of sealing which causes a worrying amount of debris and dust within the joystick.”

A spokesman for UFC-Que Choisir stated in a press release announcing the obsolescence claim that 65% of the testimonials gathered for the case show a malfunction within the first two years, and 25 percent experienced Joy-Con drift within six months.

It has been a rough year for Nintendo as back in April, a massive data breach left 160,000 Nintendo Network Ids compromised. Luckily for them, no personal information was accessed.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic also resulted in the delay of several gaming titles being released even though Nintendo initially told their audience that they would not be affected by the coronavirus.

Yet the most persistent dilemma facing Nintendo over the past few years appears to be the defect in their Switch Joy-Cons. The fact that a recurring issue in a company’s flagship product is already problematic but for it to continue to do so during the console’s lifespan is embarrassing for Nintendo.

With this most recent court filing, there seems to be no end in sight for this particular issue that the company has come face-to-face with.