A mother and child have sued Nintendo over the infamous Nintendo Switch Joy-con drift defect, asking for over $5,000,000 USD.
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.
In late December, 2019 we also reported how French consumer magazine 60 millions de consommateurs awarded Nintendo their “Golden Cactus” award (specifically the “Cactus of the Too Fragile Product”), which is given to products and services that cause the most frustration.
Belgian consumer organization Testankoop also demanded Nintendo repair all Joy-Cons for free, and honor a two year warranty. In May of thus year, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled a lawsuit against Nintendo due to the Joy-Con drift must go to arbitration.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa reportedly apologized “for any inconvenience caused to our customers” due to the drift, during an investor Q&A in June 2020. Since July 2019, Nintendo have been repairing Joy-cons even outside of users’ warranties.
A leaked patent for a new Joy-Con controller also lead to speculation that the rumored 4K supporting “Nintendo Switch Pro” would not support handheld mode. Some also wondered if this new Joy-Con would no longer have the drifting issue.
Now, Wired reports Luz Sanchez and her son (a 9 or 10 year old only referred to in court documents as M.S.) have filed a class action lawsuit in Norther California for over $5,000,000 USD against Nintendo over the Joy-Con drift issue.
The lawsuit states after Sanchez bought her son a Nintendo Switch in December 2018, the Joy-cons allegedly began to drift within a month. Allegedly less than a year later, “the Joy-Con drift became so pronounced that the controllers became inoperable for general gameplay use.” New Joy-cons were purchased, but seven months later they allegedly began to drift as well.
“[The] Defendant continues to market and sell the Products with full knowledge of the defect and without disclosing the Joy-Con Drift defect to consumers in its marketing, promotion, or packaging,” the lawsuit reportedly claims. “[The] Defendant has had a financial motive to conceal the defect, as it did not want to stop selling the Products, and/or would need to expend a significant amount of money to cure the defect.”
Nintendo and Sanchez’s lawyers reportedly declined to comment to Wired.
Image: Nintendo
