A French consumer magazine has voted the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons as the most fragile product of 2019.
In case you missed our prior reports, the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons have issues with drifting–which is when the joystick remains untouched, yet input is still registered.
This resulted in a class action lawsuit by Chimicles, Schwartz Kriner, & Donaldson-Smith in July 2019. Reports suggest Nintendo even began repairing Joy-Cons for free mere days after the lawsuit became public knowledge.
The Nintendo Switch Lite was later added to the lawsuit, and the hardware failure causing the drift was exposed. Curiously, a Tencent representative (the distributor of the Nintendo Switch in China) told a customer that the drift was caused by playing an imported game.
Now, French consumer magazine 60 millions de consommateurs has awarded Nintendo their “Golden Cactus” award, which is given to products and services that cause the most frustration.
“It’s time for reviews. That of 60 Millions is always a little irritating. For the winners, but especially for their clients who have had to suffer their turpitudes in the past 12 months.
Our cacti are awarded on the basis of complaints received by the editorial staff and by examining the most contentious subjects dealt with in our newspaper. We stung what was … the most spicy! And, finally, by validating our selection by the members of the editorial staff unanimously.”
Translation: Google Translate
The main Golden Cactus “award” was given to SNCF (the national state-owned railway of France) due to poor punctuality, rising prices, cut jobs, and loyalty cards no longer being accepted in all regions.
However, the accolade is also broken down into sub-categories and additional awards. The “Cactus of the Too Fragile Product” was awarded to the Nintendo Switch. “The game console shows worrying signs of fragility: defective motherboard, power supply out of order, malfunction of the joystick … But Nintendo despises the legal guarantee of conformity and makes repairs pay a high price.” While we have not heard wide-spread reports of the other issues, the Joy-Con problems surely contributed to their decision.
Back in May 12th of 2018, 60 millions reported on the above issues, along with the expensive repair costs, how quickly and frequently the issues occur, and Nintendo’s silence on being at fault.
We will keep you posted as we learn more about the Joy-Cons’ ongoing lawsuit.
