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[Spyxos]

Nintendo will now offer free repairs of faulty Joy-Con to Switch owners in the UK, European Economic Area, and Switzerland.

This is according to an update to the company's support page on its UK site (which appears to be reflected on other official sites across affected territories), which labels the now-infamous 'Joy-Con drift' as "responsiveness syndrome or so-called 'drifting'".

This change brings the company's policy in line with various other regions, including North America, Latin America, and France. The new policy also covers the same issues with Switch Lite.

Here is exactly what is stated on the Nintendo UK support page:

Until further notice, Nintendo will not charge you in the European Economic Area (EEA), UK and Switzerland for the repair of the responsiveness syndrome irrespective of whether this is caused by a defect or by wear and tear.

Nintendo takes great pride in creating high-quality and durable products and is continuously making improvements to them. Therefore and 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. This applies even if the syndrome is caused by wear and tear and even if the 24-month manufacturer’s warranty provided by Nintendo has expired. The manufacturer's warranty does not affect any statutory rights which you may have under consumer protection legislation as the purchaser of goods. The benefits described here are in addition to those rights.

Nintendo notes that it reserves the right to refuse free repairs if it judges the fault to come from unofficial modification or a cause unrelated to the stick defect. However, assuming you are suffering from your common-or-garden Joy-Con drift, Switch owners in the territories above can now get them repaired free of charge.

The company has encountered criticism since early in the Switch's lifecycle concerning this widespread controller issue. Joy-Con drift is caused by wear to the mechanism in the analogue sticks which can cause false inputs to register, making gameplay frustrating at best and impossible at worst.

Nintendo has faced various legal challenges in different territories over the defect and instigated a policy in some regions whereby drifting Joy-Con would be repaired for free regardless of their warranty status. Increased pressure from consumer groups and the European Union to address the widespread issue has mounted, but until now Switch owners in the UK and Europe (outside France) have been unable to send their controllers for free repairs once the warranty period has expired.

Nintendo has previously said that wear of the analogue stick is "unavoidable", with hardware developers from the company comparing the mechanism to how car tires wear over time. A report from a former repairs supervisor in the US called the volume of Joy-Con controllers arriving for repair "very stressful".

We reached out to Nintendo UK for comment on this policy change and were provided with an official statement that largely reproduces the text from the support page, with added support links. Full text reproduced below:

Nintendo takes great pride in creating high quality and durable products and we are continuously making improvements to them.
Therefore and until further notice, Nintendo offers to consumers who purchased Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers in the European Economic Area (EEA), UK and Switzerland that the repair of a responsiveness syndrome of the analogue stick will be conducted at no charge by Nintendo official repair centres. This applies even if the syndrome is caused by wear and tear and even if the 24-month manufacturer’s warranty provided by Nintendo has expired. For more information please visit dedicated article on Nintendo website: Joy-Con Control Sticks Are Not Responding or Respond Incorrectly (responsiveness syndrome or so-called “drifting”).

The manufacturer’s warranty does not affect any statutory rights which consumers may have under consumer protection legislation as the purchaser of goods. The benefits described are in addition to those rights.
If consumers have any issues, we always encourage them to visit https://support.nintendo.com/ so we can help in resolving, openly and leniently, any issues they may be having.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...ty-joy-con-for-free-in-the-uk-eea-switzerland

 

[V1LÆM]

Excellent. Never experienced drift on my Switch joycons but this is good news.

 

[Spyxos]

Excellent. Never experienced drift on my Switch joycons but this is good news.

I have Joy-Con drift and i am out of warranty. However, there are also dog teeth imprints on it. I'm not sure if Nintendo will replace them. I will try my luck.

 

[lh032]

or maybe they should err....use a proper analog stick module for their joy cons.

 

[V1LÆM]

I have Joy-Con drift and i am out of warranty. However, there are also dog teeth imprints on it. I'm not sure if Nintendo will replace them. I will try my luck.

Chance your luck! I'd like to think they would replace it. I think most likely they'd refuse to repair it if someone had modded or tried to fix the controller themselves.

Most likely Nintendo would replace the entire joycon. That's what they did with mine when I sent one in for having connection issues. If they were being really fussy about it they could replace the internals with a new board/stick/battery and let you keep your bitten case That's probably too much hassle for them though so again likely you'd just get a new controller. I would be really surpried if they refused to fix it because it has teeth marks on lol.

or maybe they should err....use a proper analog stick module for their joy cons.

Or they decided it'd be cheaper to go with cheaper sticks and repair any that are sent to them instead of putting higher quality parts in every single Switch.

and it's not like drift only happens to Switch controllers. Sony and Microsoft do the exact same thing. Their controllers drift too. My playstation controller started drifting after only a few months.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Good.
A rare case of Nintendo not doing a Nintendo.

 

[Spyxos]

Good.
A rare case of Nintendo not doing a Nintendo.

But they really took their time.

 

[Saber]

Well thats good I guess. People won't need to spend on broken controllers at least.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

But they really took their time.

Very true.
I'm by no means a Nintendo Stan, who'll no doubt be hollering about this like it's the second coming of Christ.
However, I'll take whatever crumbs they disdainfully brush my way.

 

[Fake]

So, they lost the lawsuit?

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Rare Nintendo W.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

My left Joy-Con started drifting within a few months of me getting the Switch (I have a launch model from March 2017). And I rarely use the system in handheld play, so it was extra frustrating for sure. After a few years of avoiding handheld play entirely, I did eventually send it in for repair, I think some time in 2019. It's worked fine ever since. The drift was so bad that Mario Odyssey was just completely unplayable in handheld for me. Which was super annoying, owning a basically new $300 system and $60 game and then the primary stick basically doesn’t work.

Just reinforced to me that the Pro Controller is a much more solid, durable controller than the flimsy Joy Cons.

 

[K2D]

Excellent. Now mandate that onto Sony and MS as well. This might as well have been planned obsolescence - they've cut corners.

 

[DKPOWPOW]

Excellent. Now mandate that onto Sony and MS as well. This might as well have been planned obsolescence - they've cut corners.

Yeah, I think this is the first generation where you are better off buying 3rd party controllers for any console. They all suck in terms of durability, and yet their controllers are the most expensive. Nintendo are definitely the worst though (gone thru 4 joy cons and 1 pro remote in 3 years), followed by Microsoft (1.5 remotes in 2 years), then Sony (2 remotes in 3 years).

however the most the 3rd parTy remotes I bought for Switch and PS4 are still standing and working well. So much so that I literally keep forgetting to send all my joycons (which are sitting in a box waiting to be shipped)

 

[Synless]

Let me ask this question, kind of in topic, kind of not. Does anyone else have connection issues with their joy cons? Like every single set on any of their switches? I find often that button responses just stop intermittently. I actually submitted my switch once and the joy cons for repair… still the same Issue but I discovered it’s all of them.

 

[RayBoy]

Great news.

 

[cireza]

Awesome. I have 47 joycons to send them, hope they can fix all of them !

 

[TLZ]

Let me ask this question, kind of in topic, kind of not. Does anyone else have connection issues with their joy cons? Like every single set on any of their switches? I find often that button responses just stop intermittently. I actually submitted my switch once and the joy cons for repair… still the same Issue but I discovered it’s all of them.

Yes I have that on all my joycons.

 

[nikos]

Sent both of my launch day Joy-Con to Nintendo for repair in 2020. They were three years old at that point. They repaired or replaced both for free, and the ones I received are still the most solid feeling Joy-Con out of the several I have.

 

[LakeOf9]

These fuckers had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing just this much, this should be the bare minimum

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

These fuckers had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing just this much, this should be the bare minimum

They do seem to be *much better* now, in fairness. It did take a while for them to improve the internals to get to this point, totally agreed. And hopefully with the next hardware and whatever iteration they do for Joy-Con, they will have done even more work to make them better than they are even now.

 

[Banjo64]

Sent both of my launch day Joy-Con to Nintendo for repair in 2020. They were three years old at that point. They repaired or replaced both for free, and the ones I received are still the most solid feeling Joy-Con out of the several I have.

Think it’s been randomly decided in the past. Nice to have a clear policy that applies to everyone.

 

[hemo memo]

To the UK here we come.

 

[Business]

Nintendo takes great pride in creating high-quality and durable products

Remarkable they have the balls to come out and say this when joycons have been the single worst piece of controller hardware I owned since the 80's, by a long margin.

So far I had to replace both sticks because of drifting, the ZL ZR ribbon cable because the shoulder buttons just stopped working, and the left and right slider buckle parts because the controllers would just slide out without pressing the release button. Total piece of crap.