Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Drift Under Investigation By European Consumer Groups

Nintendo may be heading for hot water now that 9 European consumer groups are combining their efforts to investigate the “Joy-Con drift” phenomenon that has been the center of frustration for Nintendo Switch owners globally.

Nintendo has faced heavy flack over the last couple years due to their Nintendo Switch’s prepacked controller, the Joy-Con, suffering from an annoying issue where the analog controls on the Joy-Con drift without any user input. The drifting causes your characters or cursor in a variety of games to move without your control. Nintendo has cited that the drifting comes from dust accumulation inside the Joy-Con from infrequent use. This issue has been combated actively by the Switch owner community but so far, there hasn’t been any tangible solution.

Now, the Dutch Consumers’ Association has joined up with consumer organizations in France, Belgium, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, and Norway to take a closer look at the Joy-Con drift situation. The Association is looking for consumer input to see how widespread the issue is and to determine if further legal action should be taken.

“We are making the call because we are getting signals that the Switch will not last as long as consumers might expect. In addition, options for repairing the console are limited, forcing consumers to make expensive replacements. We use the responses to determine what further action to take.”

Sandra Molenaar, Consumers ‘Association director

Nintendo is already facing a class-action lawsuit in the United States and only offered an official apology back in June for the first time.