Warning to Switch owners: Joycon controllers have faulty components, hold Nintendo responsible!

[Anacybele]

So, I noticed not long ago that the stick on my left Joycon controller was screwing up and scrolling on my TV screen without me doing anything to it. I've been wondering why and I I just now saw this.

https://nintendosoup.com/someone-has-discovered-the-cause-behind-the-joy-con-drifting-issue/

Apparently this is a widespread issue and the cause is not fixable unless you buy new controllers or Nintendo makes new ones. This is due to components inside having become damaged. Since the Switch is only two years old, this is bullshit. A controller should be lasting longer than this without such issues. I know because I have controllers from older systems that are still in great condition. Better condition than this. And I most probably used them more than I have my Joycons so far.

Nintendo needs to be held responsible and pressured to make better Joycons that won't malfunction so fast. Especially for their extremely high cost. I thought Joycons were overpriced as is. $70 is fucking ridiculous. It's more than a game! Now it's how much you're paying for a controller that'll be malfunctioning in just a couple years.

I urge all Switch owners to contact customer service or whatever and demand some change here.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Anacybele

[Shadow Mir]

That reminds me, has anything been found out about the buttons' tendency to randomly not register inputs? Because I consider that grounds for a complaint as well. Especially since I had this problem with one set of Joycons and had mom return them and get some new ones... only to see that the "new" ones had the same issue... within one day of getting them. Ugh.

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That reminds me, has anything been found out about the buttons' tendency to randomly not register inputs? Because I consider that grounds for a complaint as well. Especially since I had this problem with one set of Joycons and had mom return them and get some new ones... only to see that the "new" ones had the same issue... within one day of getting them. Ugh.

Huh, I haven't heard about this problem before. But that does sound like grounds for a complaint as well, yeah. That's just more bull there.

[Light Strategist]

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the components per se. It's more like the Joycons are just far too fragile to be played with. To be honest, I think they need a variable set of Joycons that are much more robust and better suited for people with larger hands and stronger grips.

That said, the stick drifting issue is one that's been for far too long and nothing seems to get done about it and that's not right.

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That reminds me, has anything been found out about the buttons' tendency to randomly not register inputs?

Can't say it's a common issue I've noticed. I have noticed that very rarely the L and R buttons don't respond to an input made closer to the left or right side of the respective buttons but that feels like a design oversight.

[Anacybele]

8 minutes ago, Light Strategist said:

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the components per se. It's more like the Joycons are just far too fragile to be played with. To be honest, I think they need a variable set of Joycons that are much more robust and better suited for people with larger hands and stronger grips.

That said, the stick drifting issue is one that's been for far too long and nothing seems to get done about it and that's not right.

Larger hands/stronger grips? I don't know if that really makes a difference, my hands are little and I still had this stick issue happen. I do my best to take good care of my stuff too. Maybe once or twice I might have dropped/slammed down my controller out of frustration, but there was no visible outer damage, and those slamming incidents were a long time ago. This stick issue started fairly recently. And I have only used my Switch in rooms with carpet so far too, not hard floor.

Also, when I slam down a controller, the base hits the floor first, not the upper section, and the upper area is where the left Joycon stick is.

And that all being said, I've also been known to slam my GC and Wii controllers. And they still work great. Hell, the Wii itself has been knocked over many times, particularly by my brother when he was a kid. And I never had to get that thing repaired/fixed at all except for when the dual layer disc Brawl issue happened and that was because of many Wiis having trouble reading the disc, not any damage.

I shouldn't slam my controllers regardless though, I know... Working on avoiding doing it has been a process for me.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Anacybele

[Lau]

My Switch is a little over a year old, and the Joycons are still as good as the day I opened them. Regardless, I've seen a lot of people online complaining about the drifting issue, and I agree it is something Nintendo should address. I know some people have found something that helps it, I think it's electric contact polish, or something along the lines?

Either way, like you said, you should contact Nintendo if you don't feel comfortable tinkering with the Joycons yourself.

[Light Strategist]

5 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Larger hands/stronger grips? I don't know if that really makes a difference, my hands are little and I still had this stick issue happen.

I think that it might have a chance of affecting how quickly it happens. I have relatively large hands and I've only had my Switch for about 10 months. I had the issue within about 4 months. On the other hand my friend has much smaller hands and got his Switch around Day 1. He only had the issue recently himself. I think the intensity of the games you play would also have an impact on how quickly they might wear down because in the time I've had my Switch, I've only had 2 games which require quick movement shifts of the sticks, one of which I've played near-religiously since I got it. When the Joycons got too bad, I Switched to using a USB controller my friend got cheaply and I honestly still use it now because it's like many older controllers in that it's much more durable and reliably constructed.

[Anacybele]

11 minutes ago, Light Strategist said:

I think that it might have a chance of affecting how quickly it happens. I have relatively large hands and I've only had my Switch for about 10 months. I had the issue within about 4 months. On the other hand my friend has much smaller hands and got his Switch around Day 1. He only had the issue recently himself. I think the intensity of the games you play would also have an impact on how quickly they might wear down because in the time I've had my Switch, I've only had 2 games which require quick movement shifts of the sticks, one of which I've played near-religiously since I got it. When the Joycons got too bad, I Switched to using a USB controller my friend got cheaply and I honestly still use it now because it's like many older controllers in that it's much more durable and reliably constructed.

Hm, I see. Makes sense. I'm not sure I played many games that require quick movement of the sticks myself, yeah. I have the Zelda BotW Switch pro controller, I should probably use that when I can from now on if my Joycons get worse.

[Light Strategist]

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Hm, I see. Makes sense. I'm not sure I played many games that require quick movement of the sticks myself, yeah. I have the Zelda BotW Switch pro controller, I should probably use that when I can from now on if my Joycons get worse.

I know you can get cheap replacement sticks for the Joycons and that they're supposed to be pretty easy to replace but I can't remember where off the top of my head. From what I've heard about Pro Controllers though, they're pretty well the best controller option to have.

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, Light Strategist said:

I know you can get cheap replacement sticks for the Joycons and that they're supposed to be pretty easy to replace but I can't remember where off the top of my head. From what I've heard about Pro Controllers though, they're pretty well the best controller option to have.

Ah, I see. And yeah, I figured.

[Raven]

56 minutes ago, Lau said:

My Switch is a little over a year old, and the Joycons are still as good as the day I opened them. Regardless, I've seen a lot of people online complaining about the drifting issue, and I agree it is something Nintendo should address. I know some people have found something that helps it, I think it's electric contact polish, or something along the lines?

Either way, like you said, you should contact Nintendo if you don't feel comfortable tinkering with the Joycons yourself.

I'm in the opposite boat. I've had my Switch since January 2018 and I'm recently experiencing drifting on my right joycon. It rights itself if I give it a quick nudge, but it's quite annoying when it happens. I'm afraid that it will only get worse over time.

Also I'm not sure if this happens to anyone else, but if I continue playing BotW after the Switch has been put in sleep mode (either manually or automatically), aiming with Stasis or Magnesis has it constantly drifting upwards. A hard reset fixes the problem, but it's pretty inconvenient since I need to reset every single time it happens to enter sleep mode. This honestly sounds like a software problem as opposed to hardware, but I thought I'd throw it out there, anyway.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Raven

[Zapp Branniglenn]

My friend and I both have encountered issues with our joycons drifting. My friend's switch was over a year old - too old for Nintendo's standard 12-Month warranty. And mine was just a month or two shy of two years old when my issues started. I used to think my friend's issues were resulting from his lack of carrying case and tossing the thing in his bag with other gear all the time, but my Switch has been gingerly taken care of. It's almost never left my home and still the control sticks are screwed up.

I can't play switch games with anything other than a gamecube controller at the moment unless the game includes D-pad control (thank you, Yoshi's Crafted World). I'm currently considering what my replacement should be. I need joycons to operate the Switch in handheld form, so replacing them should be natural, but that's an 80 dollar price tag unless I want to take a chance on somebody's used joy cons being in good condition which I don't. The Pro Controller, which used to be a luxury option on previous Nintendo systems, is cheaper than the base controllers, and that's insane. Nobody seems to like that controller design but I bet it has an operation life longer than two years.

Rumors are abound that Nintendo is considering a cheaper Switch model, and I hope that comes with an influx of cheaper Joy Cons. These things are packed with so much technology that is so unnecessary for most games that I bet cutting HD Rumble alone could cut the cost of the controllers at least in half. Only then will I sink my wallet into buying more joy cons that hopefully have better control sticks as well. Having to pay 80 dollars every two years to operate my switch is an outrageous cost and I do wish people were more mad about this. Previous nintendo controllers were not this frail. I used my gamecube controllers until their control sticks were stripped of their rubber layer completely but they still had full function underneath.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Glennstavos

[carefreejules]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried going into your Switch's system settings, going to the Controllers and Sensors, and disconnecting your controller? Note that this method isn't the same as adding joycons and what not through the Controller setting on the home menu. When I used to work as an Nintendo Brand Ambassador over the summer last year, we'd often had to disconnect controllers on all consoles because there were so many controllers that were connected to each console that even though many of those joy cons/controllers weren't on, drifting often happened. But once we disconnected all the controllers and re-paired the joy cons, the drifting stopped.

I forwarded this advice to a few of my friends who had drifting issues and they haven't encountered the issue since. So, it's worth a shot! 

I'm sorry if it doesn't work, though.

[Dai]

I recall this actually being a factory issue, and not Nintendo themselves. To wit: launch joycons, still fantastic.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Haven't had this issue happen yet. Although if they ever ported XCX and didn't change the control scheme, then I'd be fearing for my joycons. I blame sprinting being assigned to pressing down on the right control stick the reason it became drifty on my Wii U.

[Jave]

I haven't had any issues with my Joycons, but then again I don't slam my controllers.

[Armchair General]

Mines won't stop drifting on both sticks. I've seen elsewhere on the internet that it's dust building up under the control sticks and that you have to take them apart to fix them, but I don't have the means to do that.

[Armagon]

3 hours ago, Raven said:

I'm in the opposite boat. I've had my Switch since January 2018 and I'm recently experiencing drifting on my right joycon. It rights itself if I give it a quick nudge, but it's quite annoying when it happens. I'm afraid that it will only get worse over time.

Unfortunately, it will. I had my Switch since launch and i started experiencing drift on my left Joy-Con in early 2018. It was slight, so i didn't mind. Fall of 2018, my right Joy-Con started having the same issue but again, it was slight. Then, a few months ago (around January), the drift on both got really bad. Even just slightly tilting the stick upwards would cause it shoot up. Playing Smash was hell. I don't have the problem anymore because i bought a new pair entirely.

Your drift may not be too bad now but i recommend repairing them or buying a new pair (if it's just the right Joy-Con, just buy a new right Joy-Con/replacing the stick) ASAP or else your Switch will end up borderline unplayable thanks to defective controllers.

[Hanes]

Can't really see the wear marks that well on the image provided but that's still BS. I have seen this problem some times but right now instead O have a problem where pressing the R joystick is impossible as it's already pulled in and pulling it out would only break it.

As for the Joycons not receiving an input, my uncle recently told me about this and as for me I always thought it was maybe me who didn't do it correctly.