Nintendo promises unlimited repairs for “drifting” Joy-Cons throughout Europe

Nintendo has agreed to offer free lifetime repairs of Nintendo Switch controllers experiencing the dreaded "Joy-Con drift" to consumers across the European Union.

The move comes in response to years of organized complaints and a pressure campaign from the European Consumer Organization (BEUC). In a 2021 report, that organization logged "nearly 25,000 complaints" from European Switch owners regarding Joy-Con drift, which causes a Switch joystick to register phantom inputs even when it is untouched in the "neutral" position. The BEUC's formal complaint cited the Joy-Con hardware for "premature obsolescence" and said that it's "high time for companies to stop putting products onto the market that break too early."

"Nintendo takes great pride in creating high-quality and durable products and is continuously making improvements to them," the company wrote in a note recently posted on its UK support page (as first noticed by Nintendo Life). "Therefore and until further notice, Nintendo offers to consumers who purchased the respective product in the [European Economic Area], UK, and Switzerland that repairs for responsiveness syndrome relating to control sticks will be conducted at no charge by official Nintendo repair centres."

"This is good news," BEUC Deputy Director General Ursula Pachl said in a statement Tuesday. "It’s a tangible win for consumers, many of whom have had to pay for expensive repairs or replacements on a product that they would have reasonably expected to last for a number of years."

Nintendo started quietly offering similar free out-of-warranty Joy-Con repairs to North American customers back in 2019 after a string of press accounts noting widespread reports of the problem. The same offer was extended to Latin America and France shortly thereafter.

Nintendo's North American warranty only guarantees that Joy-Cons will be "free of defects" for 12 months after purchase. But an EU law extends that guarantee to 24 months in the region, a warranty term that the BEUC said already covered 88 percent of all complaints regarding Joy-Con drift.

A fixable problem?

Despite the European victory, the BEUC said that Nintendo extending its free repair program is "only a short-term fix" for a wider issue. The group says it is concerned that "Nintendo can still sell the console with the potential bug."

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa apologized directly for "any trouble caused to our consumers" by Joy-Con drift issues in a translated 2020 Q&A. In a 2021 Q&A, though, Nintendo Technology Development Division General Manager Ko Shiota said that wear on the Joy-Con analog sticks was "unavoidable" because of the friction between the housing's moving parts.

"The degree of wear depends on factors like the combination of the materials and forms, so we continue to make improvements by researching which combinations are less likely to wear," Technology Department Deputy General Manager Toru Yamashita said in that same Q&A.

But analog sticks that make use of magnetic "Hall effect" sensors are much less susceptible to that kind of physical wear and tear. Sega used such sensors for its Saturn controllers as far back as 1994. Third-party accessory makers have also released Hall Effect Switch joystick replacements and "drift-free" Switch controller options in recent years.

There are currently no outward signs Nintendo plans to update its Joy-Cons to make use of similar technology.

In the US, a judge recently threw out a class-action lawsuit over the Joy-Con drift issues, citing a Switch EULA that bars such suits. A separate federal lawsuit covering the Switch Lite (which has harder-to-replace joysticks) and a similar Washington state lawsuit continue to work their way through the courts.