The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission against Nintendo. The France-based watchdog group claims it has received over 25,000 complaints regarding joystick drift in Nintendo’s Joy-Con Controllers for the Switch. The BEUC claims that in 88 percent of reported cases, the defect manifested within two years of purchase, amounting to “premature obsolescence.”
“On behalf of consumer groups in affected countries, BEUC has submitted a complaint to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities for premature obsolescence and misleading omissions of key consumer information (on the basis of the EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive),” the BEUC said in a press release.
Joy-Con drift has been a persistent problem since the Switch launched in March 2017. The first reports of faulty joysticks began showing up as early as November 2017. The defect is not isolated to the detachable Joy-Cons either. Drift in the Switch Lite joysticks and the Pro Controller also began emerging shortly after their release.
The European Commission will now need to decide whether to open up a formal investigation into the Joy-Con drift issues. Nintendo is also facing two potential class action lawsuits. One was filed by law firm Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith in 2019, and a second was filled in California over the same issue in October 2020.
