A consumer watchdog in the United Kingdom has come up with devastating findings: two out of five Joy-Con controllers drift, i.e. they go in one direction by themselves even if you don’t want them to…

Which? is calling on Nintendo to investigate the problem and, if possible, repair the faulty Joy-Con controllers for free. The organisation’s data comes from a YouGov survey. Which? conducted a survey in March, asking 919 adults in the UK. It resulted in a drift rate of 40%, and of those, 57% said (so essentially 22.8% of the 919 people) that they had experienced this fault within a year of buying a Nintendo Switch.

Half of the people who owned the console also said that they had opted to replace the Joy-Con controllers rather than require a repair from the big N. 79% of respondents contacted Nintendo for a repair, but 19% were unsuccessful! According to Which?, finding support for the faulty Joy-Cons is unclear. Nintendo offers a 24-month warranty on the Switch, and you can request a repair on the company’s website.

Which? has called on the Japanese console maker to launch an independent investigation into the cause of the Joy-Con drift and publish its results. The consumer organisation says Big N should commit to a free, “no quibble” replacement and repair of controllers that have been affected by the drift since 2017. It should also promote this programme so customers can easily access this option.

Nintendo told Which?: “The percentage of Joy-Con controllers that have been reported as experiencing issues with the analogue stick in the past is small, and we have been making continuous improvements to the Joy-Con analogue stick since its launch in 2017. We expect all our hardware to perform as designed. If anything falls short of this goal, we always encourage consumers to contact Nintendo customer support, who will be happy to openly and leniently resolve any consumer issues related to the Joy-Con controllers’ analogue sticks, including in cases where the warranty may no longer apply.”

The ratio doesn’t look good, though.

Source: Gamesindustry