Nintendo President Apologizes For Joy-Con Drift Issue

Nintendo's president has apologized to Nintendo Switch owners impacted by faulty Joy-Con controllers. During a financial Q&A, Shuntaro Furukawa offered a brief statement about the drift issue, but declined to comment further, citing a pending class-action suit.

During the Q&A (via Kotaku), one questioner raised the issue of the class-action suit and asked what Nintendo is doing to improve Joy-Con reliability.

"Regarding the Joy-Con, we apologize for any trouble caused to our customers," said Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa. "We are continuing to aim to improve our products, but as the Joy-Con is the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the United States and this is still a pending issue, we would it like to refrain from responding about any specific actions."

Joy-Con controllers have been criticized for an issue that fans have nicknamed Joy-Con drift. During the lifespan of Joy-Cons and in the course of normal use, the analog sticks seem to register a slight tilt input even when players aren't touching the stick at all, leading to "drifting" that the player has to counterbalance. This is on top of another issue that has been raised, the controllers desyncing. Nintendo has been offering free repairs or refunds for the controllers since 2019.

The issue hasn't appeared to stop the momentum of Nintendo Switch sales, however, which have been consistently strong, especially during the period of isolation and social distancing due to coronavirus. Joy-Con controllers themselves have been selling out regularly as well.