Nintendo Has Formally Apologized for its Switch Controllers
The so-called “Joy-Con drift” has plagued the device since its release.
Players of Nintendo Switch are likely to be familiar with “Joy-Con drift”, even if they haven’t heard the term: the occurrence of the joysticks drifting without being touched, meaning that characters on-screen move even when the player doesn’t intend them to.
It’s a problem that has hounded the console since it first came out in 2017, causing immense frustration to players who have seen their characters inadvertently walking off cliffs, or the in-game camera unintentionally wandering off.
For the first time, Nintendo has now formally apologized for the issue. Shuntaro Furukawa, the company’s president, raised the subject during the company’s latest financial Q&A, saying “Regarding the Joy-Con, we apologize for any trouble caused to our customers…we are continuing to aim to improve our products.”
However, Furukawa went on to share that the company cannot further comment on the situation for legal reasons. “As the Joy-Con is the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the United States and this is still a pending issue,” he said, “we would like to refrain from responding about any specific actions.”
Last year, Vice reported that Nintendo has begun to offer free repairs for any faulty Joy-Con controllers, and to refund any players who had paid for repairs previously.
This is the second recent issue to have hit Nintendo in the last month, after the company confirmed that 300,000 accounts were compromised earlier in the year.
