Rumors of Nintendo’s broken Joycon continue to circle the internet and but it seems that after acknowledging the problem exists, Nintendo is out to fix the issue.
As we reported recently, the number of anecdotal reports on Nintendo’s ailing Joycons has been growing and the Japanese home of Mario made an initial statement to website Kotaku which seemed to acknowledge that this was indeed an issue. Now it appears that Vice has its hands on an internal memo that suggests Nintendo is doing more than paying lip service to this problem.
Free Fixes
The memo confirms that customers impacted by the issue known as Joycon Drift will be offered free repair without any questions asked. This covers Joycon controllers that fall outside of Nintendo’s very limited hardware warranty. Gamers who already paid for repairs are also being contacted to receive refunds as per the details from this memo
“Customers will no longer be requested to provide proof of purchase for Joy-Con repairs,” is included in the memo details, as well as describing. “Additionally it is not necessary to confirm warranty status. If a customer requests a refund for a previously paid Joy-Con repair […] confirm the prior repair and then issue a refund.”
For any of you that have a Nintendo Switch that is playing nice, you might not be aware of this problem. Joycon Drift details a situation where the analog sticks on a Joycon controller seem to take input without any interaction from the user. The result is a drifting effect that can move characters and cameras over time, making some games difficult to play. While Nintendo has not issued a reason for this, the fact that the company will be working to replace broken peripherals is a good sign.
While this isn’t an official statement from Nintendo, and we don’t even know what this means for the Switch Lite, we do hope that it brings at least a little comfort for anybody with a broken Joycon attached to their console right now.
