Nintendo is offering a lifetime fix for the Switch known issue

Updated 4/5/2023 5:44 PM

Nintendo Switch consoles are notoriously prone to failure. Nintendo knows it too, which is why the company is now promising a lifetime repair. This applies even if the warranty has expired.

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Joy-Cons for Nintendo Switch often cause problems. A common controller malfunction is known in the community as Joy-Con Drift or Response Syndrome. Due to a slight deviation, the character, camera, or menu control moves as if by magic in a direction not planned by the user.

The good news: Nintendo is finally promising to improve. To match the affected gamers, the company promises to fix the defective Joy-Cons. Even if the manufacturer’s warranty has already expired. This is usually up to 24 months.

This goodwill isn’t entirely voluntary: European consumer association Beuc complained to the EU Commission about the Switch console drift issue after there were some 25,000 complaints about the Joy-Con defect by January 2021 alone. Consumer advocates have argued that it is a case of premature wear and tear.

The EU Commission is now celebrating the result of the effort. “This avoids the disposal of unrepaired controllers and unnecessary waste,” says a press release from the EU Commission.

Nintendo Ph.D. controller sticks

Nintendo refers to the new repair service in German Customer support page there. There it states that you are offering “to customers who have purchased the product in question in the European Economic Area (Editor’s note: in the European Economic Area), in the United Kingdom or Switzerland, free EU Response Syndrome treatment until further notice related to Control Sticks through a repair service Official Nintendo”.

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On the online repair page, you record your Joy-Con repair and describe the problem. Then you send the console to the repair service.

However, there are exceptions: the right to repair does not apply if unofficial modifications were made to the console or if the damage was caused by third party accessories.

According to Nintendolife, this is an approximation of the a systemswhich has long been in force in North America, Latin America and France.
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