Microsoft (finally) sued over faulty Xbox Elite controllers

I've been hearing about the stick drift issue ever since these things came out. These controllers cost about as much as Xbox's frequently discounted consoles, and it took THIS long for suckers who got duped into buying this thing over new first party games to take action? Welp, the jig is up. One brave soul who stepped up, plaintiff Donald McFadden, has had enough...

McFadden claims to have purchased an Xbox Elite controller (RRP $179.99) and that after a short time he noticed the joystick on it had started to drift.

He eventually decided to purchase a second Elite controller only to experience the same problem “three or four months” later, it’s claimed.

The plaintiff claims he then spent “a considerable amount of time” attempting to fix the defect on his own, including manipulating the dead zones via Xbox settings, to no avail.

McFadden alleges that Microsoft is fully aware of the drifting defect after numerous online complaints received from its customers, and yet “failed to disclose the defect and routinely refuses to repair the controllers without charge when the defect manifests.”

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/now-xbox-faces-lawsuit-over-drifting-controllers/

It's RRoD 2.0! Did you get tricked into buying this piece of snake oil? Were you unsatisfied with this purchase, or did you just choose to defend it on message boards while suffering in silence? If it's the former, send your complaints to the offices of Migliaccio & Rathod LLP, and get some of that sweet class action dosh.

https://classlawdc.com/2020/01/15/xbox-one-controller-stick-drift-investigation/

I've never once in the last nearly 7 years heard of an Xbox One controller having stick drift, not once. There's a reason this is a lawsuit on the behalf of a single individual and there's no actual class action suit here, because it's bullshit.

That doesn't seem to be deterring the scummy lawyers from trying to make one though on the back of the attention Nintendo attracted.

This is frivolous nonsense.

Just got an Elite 2 the other day. Mainly bought it for DMC games since they're so button busy (wanted the paddles and multiple custom profiles), but it's gonna be my go-to controller now.

Can't say I feel duped. Aside from maybe the tank that is the Etoki Omni, this is by far the most well built controller I've owned. Seems like a steep price until you actually try one. Then it's like ok, makes sense. Makes standard controllers feel like fisher price toys.

Anyways, the shit happens. Like my first DS4, trigger fell right out of the thing lol. Bought a new DS4, wasn't long before the battery couldn't hold a charge for shit.

Hopefully my Elite 2 doesn't fvck up, but thank you for the dramatic concern. I'll make sure to complain on SW if it does.

Why didn't MS or the store replace it? Did the guy even try?

Yup, never had an issue with my Elite....but if he did buy it and is trying to sue MS for a faulty product while it was still under warranty (and thus he could have returned it) this lawsuit will be about as successful as Tormy's latest thread.

@BenjaminBanklin:

So much emotional hate towards a gaming machine and the company who makes it HaH

12 yr olds these days eh!

My Elite has worked fine from day one. My custom though has definitely seen some drift issues - but it’s been my main since launch and I used it a lot.

@Random_Matt: I was wondering the same thing? What sort of warranty do they come with? I've never had a controller break fast enough to ever need a warranty, well at least not an official 1st party one.

This lawsuit will either be thrown out by the court or will be settled out of court. It will never go to a jury trial.

I read about this 3 or 4 days ago and was wondering which cow would post it, and Benji was in my top 3 candidates lol, so predictable.

I'm surprised it took so long for a cow to post it. I've had mine go to shit but that was after 2 and a half years and heavy use, and funnily enough it was after playing a Nascar game where they only know how to turn left lol.

I've never heard about this issue. All I hear is complaints about Nintendo.

Lame that controllers cost more and are of worse quality than before. At least Nintendo's Pro controller exists, which is all kinds of awesome. I use it for everything.

That's because this isn't about the normal Xbox One controller, which is fine (outside of having to be powered on AA batteries), I actually own one. This is about the Elite, which the stick drift has been a regular issue for a while. Which really shouldn't be a thing when buying a premium product. It's something that didn't quite get resolved from v1 to v2 either.

Stop whining and let Microsoft take this L. It's not like they're not wealthy enough to fix these things. This is an emerging class-action suit. Rest assured, Xbox will still be here after it happens, trust me.

My story on stick drift is weird. I got it in a minor but annoying way about 1 year after buying my XB1 console. At first I thought faulty modules were the reason, some research shows pretty much all big three use same modules and they're made cheaper than last gen, using plastic instead of metal for a few parts and those parts can bend or break. Then I suspected dust from stick friction was getting into module causing interference with sensor, I could see ring under thumbstick from rotational friction and suspected the dust. I tried blowing air into module housing and that ended up helping mediate drift on and off for next year so I held off replacing it. Then about my second year of playing I was playing Titanfall 2 and stick drift was unmanageable. I noticed the game had a default narrow dead zone option and switched it to a larger dead zone. It not only eliminated the drift I was experiencing for Titanfall 2 but even after I went and played other games I had been playing I noticed the drift was gone, the controller that had been giving me grief was working like normal again. I suspect some part of my issue was dead zone related. I suspect that there's system controller settings for dead zones that games can alter (evident at least in game), but I suspect these system settings might not revert outside of game. I think maybe some of the poorly coded indie shit might have done something to narrow my dead zones and left that as my systems control setting. I can't think of any other reason why it just stopped after a whole year.

Now there's apps for the XB1 that allow users to set both dead zone settings and tilt sensitivity. I know people who want more responsive controls can narrow these and doing so could be cause for drift if they don't know what they're doing. There's a reason they have dead zones but some people bitch about their existence like they're a trigger word like DRM or microtransactions. I imagine given the prevailing attitude around dead zones many users are altering the settings and then complaining about the consequences.

There seems to be multiple variables at work, for instance the suit brings up same issue that Switch analogs experienced regarding the potentiometers, that's probably a factor for some people. On my end though I have to wonder if this coupled with dust getting into analog housing is interfering with potentiometers, and whatever input it is detecting might be registering movement outside of dead zones, which themselves might be a changing variable depending on games possibly altering system dead zone settings, plus the possible variable of users altering dead zones through apps. There certainly is a lot for MS to consider when addressing this issue, I do support this lawsuit though because at very least it might lead to a greater degree of quality control, and if MS and Nintendo ride their Chinese manufacturer cutting corners and using cheaper modules then maybe things will be better for everyone if those part makers have to start making better modules.

Worth mentioning too both PS4 and Steam controllers use same cheap modules and they don't have same issue (or at least haven't been sued for it). They'd have same problems relating to module materials and potentiometer, but I suspect maybe if this isn't as big an issue that part of the problem might (again) be on the software side with how system, games, and users are managing its system/user dead zone settings.

On the lawsuit side too they mentioned posts in Microsoft's support forums regarding this and Microsoft being well aware. I can speak to frustrations on that, as I had made several support threads on their forums for these issues and in at least a couple of them got removed because I had posted YouTube videos of other people taking these apart and detailing flaws in the design, but posts were removed because, as I was told, MS didn't want material posted that might encourage people to take apart their hardware.

Honestly I don't know if support forum even has a ways for Microsoft/Xbox engineers to get escalations on issues. Ambassadors seems to be only ones engaging in these forums. If there are teams that deal with it they seem too eager to deflect and close issues as quick as possible. Having family members in customer support they've talked about overseas teams doing this with their customers, saying untrue things or making promises that can't be fulfilled, whatever they have to say to close the ticket but not resolve the issues.

But, just seems nobody with ability to help ever reads the support forums. Ambassadors are just volunteers, many of the issues I see on the forums are things they can help with, but for these special circumstance situations, there's really nobody who does anything or can do anything to escalate.

Anyhow, I can't be part of lawsuit, like in my above post, my issues resolved themselves without needing new controller. But I can certainly tell my story about how those forums or utterly pointless for people with controller issues.

@BenjaminBanklin: You always excel at sounding like a sad person. You didn't disappoint.

I have always say it this controllers are over prices pieces of shit,is a way of MS making money on suckers,who ever pays 180 dollars for a controller is really a sucker.

Worse it say allot about is ""superior regular controller"" which they say is superior yet feel the need to bite into MS over price garbage.

I don't see why anyone would drop 200 bones on a controller to begin with. It's not gonna make anyone better at a game.

As much as I put a lot of punishment on my Elite Controller for years, it never not once drift me in any ways and it still runs well whenever I game on PC. Seems like this individual got unlucky or trying to play dumb and get money out of MS. Either way, I'm sure MS would offer a free replacement if this keeps happening to other folks but other then that, my Elite still works wonders.

Oh and like @I_P_Daily said, I'm surprise this story didn't get posted here in SW sooner when I first heard it day one.

I would but the build quality would have to be there. So far they all seem just like expensive controllers, they don't last longer at all.

The same happened to me but with my DS4, the left analog started to drift after 1 month of buying my Pro, but I only gamed like 10-15 hours a week.

Took it back to where I bought it and got a clear red one, but it started doing the same thing after only 1 week.

Took it back, got a regular red and this one finally worked fine.

But my Elite that I got like 3 years ago still works like new, but my xbox only gets about 15-20 hours a month.

@ConanTheStoner: you are nowhere as composed as post make you seem , if you've made a ds4 trigger break.

You gotta be a low key rage quitter or something lol

:P

Ha, nah man. Haven't been the type to toss a controller since my NES days. Wasn't even a hard game anyways.

Was playing Bayo on PC, working the trigger a lot for dodge. Shit just fell out lol.

Turns out it's a common issue. The hinges are just cheap plastic and can easily break. That's what happened to me. Other people experience the opposite issue where the springs pop and the trigger sticks. Either way though, faulty triggers on DS4 are fairly common.

Sucks really, since I do prefer the feel and layout of the DS4. From a design standpoint, DS4 is nice, but the build quality for Sony controllers has sucked for two gens running now. I ended up going back to the 360 controller as my default, until recently getting the Elite 2.

Any controller can have issues of course, but I never had issues with the DS or DS2 and I was using those all the time. Every DS3 or DS4 I've owned has shit the bed in one way or another. Hopefully Sony steps it up with the Dualsense, it's a nice looking controller.

My Elite was great, and I didn't suffer stick drift. My gripe, was that they used the same plastic bumper triggers as the Xbone controller, which is basically one piece of flexible plastic connecting them, and it broke whilst playing Sekiro.

This is it: