The good news is in: UK Switch owners can now get their Joy-Con controllers repaired for free by Nintendo.
Joy-Con drift has been a major issue plaguing the Nintendo Switch since its launch all the way back in 2017. The gist of the issue is that Joy-Con controllers are prone to ‘drifting’ in that movement will be detected by your Switch even when you aren’t touching your Joy-Con.
The speculation is that this drifting issue comes down to a design flaw within the Joy-Con controllers themselves, and thus it’s always been an issue for Switch owners. Nintendo, though, hasn’t been as good at offering to fix this issue as Microsoft once was about Xbox 360’s red ring of death back in the day. According to Nintendo, Joy-Con drift simply hasn’t impacted enough gamers to warrant a more robust response.
However, that’s changing now for those in the UK. Nintendo UK has updated its support page to say that “until further notice, Nintendo offers to consumers who purchased the respective product in the EEA, UK and Switzerland that repairs for responsiveness syndrome relating to control sticks will be conducted at no charge by official Nintendo repair centres.” Basically, if you experience Joy-Con drift in the UK, Nintendo will repair your controller for free.
There are other fixes you can try yourself to address Joy-Con drift, but ultimately, if you don’t make any headway on your own, now you’ve got another option outside of buying another controller, which is a definite win for the consumer. It’s unfortunate that it’s taken five years for Nintendo to offer to fix its own faulty hardware, but this is definitely a better late than never situation.
If you live in North America, Latin America, or France, don’t worry because Nintendo has already been repairing Joy-Cons in these territories for free.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
