If you’ve ever experienced the infamous joycon drift on your Nintendo Switch, then surely you’ve wanted to take some kind of action against Nintendo.
But according to a recent court ruling, Nintendo cannot be liable for joycon drift.
Yes, somebody did actually try to sue Nintendo for joycon drift.
But in a late November decision in the case of Sanchez et. al. v. Nintendo of America, a judge ruled in favor of Nintendo.
Nintendo’s defense is actually pretty interesting.
We would expect no less from a giant like Nintendo to have their bases covered in each and every way.
But the reason that they had the case easily dismissed, and would likely never have a case go very far is due to their End User License Agreement.
Nintendo Switch End User License Agreement
You gotta read the fine print, people.
Yes, you are technically supposed to read your user agreements, and yes.. you are legally bound to them in some ways.
Obviously 99.999% of us just skip past our user agreements and say “yeah yeah yeah, let me get to the gaming!”.
But right there in the Nintendo Switch End User License Agreement are things like ‘we limit our liability and disclaim warranties to the greatest extent permitted by law‘ and ‘[t]he System is provided on an “as is” basis without warranty of any kind‘.
So according to Nintendo, they cannot be subject to lawsuits regarding joycons.
And the court agreed.
Joycon Drift
If you’ve never had joycon drift, you are one of the lucky ones.
“Joycon drift” is a phenomenon where your analogue joysticks will register ghost-like input, causing your character to move when you are not touching the joysticks.
This is due to wear on the inside of the joystick components (mostly having to do with a lack of pressure inside the joystick as they begin to loosen up).
I had it. I fixed it. It is fixable.
Many devices are shifting to Hall joysticks that use magnets instead of physical parts that rub against eachother. This theoretically should eliminate the possibility of wear and future drifting.
Joycon drifting is an unfortunate side effect of wear and tear on a joycon, which sometimes shows itself when you wouldn’t think it would have enough wear to warrant it.
But whether you’ve had joycon drift or not, and whether you’re mad about it or not.. you’ll have to do what everybody else does: buy new joycons.
You could also use a pro controller solution like the RetroFlag Gamecube Nintendo Switch Controller or the 8BitDo Ultimate Controller.
But don’t expect to be winning any lawsuit cases against Nintendo on the matter.
Anthony has been a video game lover ever since he can remember. He became a fulltime nomad in 2018, living throughout most of Asia. He focused his passion in retro gaming and began creating a game for the Game Boy Color while living in Nara, Japan during the 2020 pandemic. He is now in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he spends most of his time gaming, going on long walks and meeting as many stray dogs as possible.
