Which? says 40% of Switch Joy-Cons affected by drift

According to the latest report published by Which?, 40% of Joy-Con controllers for the original Nintendo Switch are affected by drift issues.

This data was gathered in a survey conducted in March 2022 by YouGov and 919 adults in the UK participated in it. From 40% who claim to have experienced joy-con drift, more than half (57%) revealed that they experienced Joy-Con drift within the first year of purchasing the classic Nintendo Switch console.

According to the data, half of the Switch owners chose to replace the Joy-Cons themselves rather than going through Nintendo. Of those participants who opted to ask Nintendo for help, 79% confirmed that they received a replacement controller, while 19% of them didn’t.

While Nintendo offers a 24-month warranty on all Switch consoles as well as the option for customers to book repairs for their products, getting support for Joy-Con drift is somewhat unclear.

Which? is calling on the Switch manufacturers to investigate the potential causes of Joy-Con drift and requesting that they make the investigation public. The company is also asking that Nintendo commits to replacing all faulty Joy-Cons free of charge.

Nintendo has informed that the percentage of Joy-Con controllers that have been reported as experiencing issues with the analog stick in the past is small and that the company has been making continuous improvements to the Joy-Con analog stick since its launch in 2017.

The company continued the statement by saying that it expects all of its hardware to perform as designed and if anything falls short of that goal, the company always encourages consumers to contact Nintendo customer support who will be happy to openly and leniently resolve any consumer issues related to the Joy-Con controllers’ analog sticks, including in cases where the warranty may no longer apply.

Since the launch of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo has received many complaints regarding the Joy-Con drift including the class action lawsuits over the widespread defect. The European Commission launched an investigation into this issue after 25,000 consumer complaints.