A new report by British consumer rights group Which? suggests that two out of five Joy-Cons on the first Switch version are plagued by drift issues.
Around 40 percent of the Joy-Con on the original Nintendo Switch version suffer from the infamous drift issue, where a controller receives directional input despite not touching the analog stick, which can cause significant problems depending on the game. This is the conclusion reached by the British consumer protection organization Which? Two out of five devices are affected.
Like our colleagues from Eurogamer report, a YouGov online survey was used as the basis for the evaluation, in which 919 adult Switch owners from the United Kingdom took part in March this year. About six out of ten participants (57 percent) said they noticed drift effects within the first year. A quarter of them contacted Nintendo for a repair, which the company has been offering free of charge in such cases for a long time. But one in five such submissions was still billed.
Elsewhere, consumer advocates dealt with a series of durability tests on Joy-Con, simulating six, twelve and 18 months of use. Ultimately, none of these controllers showed signs of drift. Which? comments that these could simply be flawless specimens from the 60 percent pool. In addition, the tests do not correspond exactly to everyday use, which can also result in the usual contamination.
Now the organization calls on Nintendo to initiate an independent investigation into the causes of the Joy-Con drift and to make the results public.
With Obi-Wan Kenobi and the announcement of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the franchise is currently experiencing a boom again. Other promising games are also in development.
