Joy-Con Drifting Issues on the Switch Lite

So the Switch Lite has only been out a week or so and there are already reports of it having Joy-Con drifting. This is a bit disappointing really and I was hoping that they would have fixed this issue before releasing the console, especially as the Joy-Cons can't be removed on the Lite to be repaired. Has anyone had any issues with this personally yet?

For those not in the know, Joy-Con drift is where the control stick slowly starts moving by itself, causing your characters etc to move by themselves.

I've had it happen to me a few times while playing Fortnite on my regular Switch. (Don't own a Switch Lite.)

I think it's to do with me pressing down on the joystick to run while playing in portable mode. Which, in my opinion, you do have to press quite hard because I find that it isn't very responsive otherwise. I've found that my Joy-Cons at least aren't...clicky enough I guess.

I haven't noticed any on mine yet... hopefully it isn't as bad as people think but it's the main thing I worry about as a switch lite owner.

I hope they fix it soon. I was close to buying one until I heard about the problem. Now I'm just going to wait and see how Nintendo fixes the problem.

@DEVILinIRON: They have got to fix it now surely, they can't keep producing a product that is defective.

I'm surprised they used the same parts in the lite. I thought they would avoid the same problem.

i had it happen on my launch joycons after almost a year of use.

however since i bought the pro controller i havnt touched my joy cons in a year.

@robert_sparkes: Same here, supposedly there is a rumour that they have begun manufacturing a new model with a fix but I'm not sure how true that is.

I've held off for the time being but that would be interesting if there is a new model.

I think it's an issue that could arise later down the line especially playing games that use the stick intensively. The sticks are the same used in the og joycons I believe.

I saw an video of them opening the new Switch but they didn't open up the actual joystick unit though.

From what could be seen in the video, it's obvious that they at least changed the factory but not whether or not the full design of the joystick unit was still unknown last I had heard. Of course, it's been a couple of weeks since I last went poking around about it so that's probably changed by now. AFAIK, some changes have been made in the new production models which presumably include the new Switch Lite but whether or not it's enough to prevent the drift..... Only time can tell atm. My bet however is probably not.

See, I can say that there is something that doesn't seem to be getting any notice yet (and my theory can be wrong)-- But, from what I can tell, Xbox/Playstation primary players seem to get drift much faster than Nintendo primary players.

Bear with me.

Wifey is primarily an XBox/PS player and she started getting drift on her Switch something like 3 months of us owning them. Me? Primarily Nintendo and PC and I'm not getting drift. Then, at 6 months, she's getting drift again. When I open her joycon, I swear, the mountings had actually been snapped clean off indicating a seriously forceful handling of the unit. I love her but, there honestly isn't any other way that the mounting brackets could have snapped like that on a brand new joystick unit unless she had been seriously ham-handing that thing.

Well, that got me to thinking, and asking, of anyone I encountered that said they had a Switch the followup questions of: Do you have a PS or Xbox? You get that drift issue yet?

Now, I'll admit that there's been a couple that hasn't corresponded but, by far, more PS/Xbox owners I've encountered are getting drift and this bears out under logic.

I mean, the much higher resistance of the controllers for Xbox and Playstation have conditioned those players to being much more forceful with their analog sticks and Nintendo went with a much lower resistance for comfort as well as the much smaller footprint which, unfortunately, led to a much lower durability as a result.

So, my bet? The drift hasn't been solved yet and may not ever be solved for the joycons.

Having been inside of several for mods as well as to repair the drift issue for my still ham-handed wife, I can state that there is just no wiggle room in those things so anything that they do to the stick unit itself is still going to have to be the same size as the original. Now, it could be that there are designs that could increase the durability enough but..... Those things are awfully small and I am honestly not sure how much you can change that design to improve that durability and still keep them that size.

For now? I just got the wife a pro controller and so far that seems to be working out. It's a shame because for me, I've been a primarily Nintendo and PC player because of nerve damage to my fingers makes me unable to handle the high resistance of those PS/Xbox controllers. Because of that damage, the joycons have been an absolute godsend because the resistance is actually low enough not to hurt but, yeah, my bet is that if the drift issue is ever going to get solved, that low resistance has gotta go.