Ten-Year-Old Sues Nintendo for Drifting Joy-Cons

Credit: Patrick Holland/CNET

The drifting problem continues to be the legal bane of Nintendo’s existence.

If you own a Nintendo Switch and haven’t experienced any noticeable problems with the joysticks on the Joy-Con controllers, then good for you. You got one of the good Switches. Unfortunately, a lot of people did not get good Switches, and as such, have been experiencing progressively heavier drift in their joysticks as time passes. If you don’t know, joystick drift is when the console registers the joystick as being moved even when it’s completely still due to a fault in the controller’s construction. Nintendo has been bombarded with lawsuits for this problem for the last couple of years, with one of the more recent ones even accusing Nintendo of planned obsolescence; they fix Joy-Cons for free, but haven’t changed the way the manufactured.


A new lawsuit has popped up today with similar complaints, but the interesting thing is the accuser: a ten-year-old and his mother. The mother, Luz Sanchez, and her son, whose name has been withheld, have filed a class-action suit against the gaming giant for not going far enough to remedy an issue it is already more than aware of.

According to the Sanchezes, their family purchased a Switch in December of 2018 and started experiencing Joy-Con drift in just a month. After a year of use, the drift was so bad, the controllers simply couldn’t be used anymore. The Sanchezes purchased a second set of Joy-Cons, but that set went they way of the drifter seven months later.

Credit: Nintendo Life

“Defendant continues to market and sell the Products with full knowledge of the defect and without disclosing the Joy-Con Drift defect to consumers in its marketing, promotion, or packaging,” the formal complaint reads. “Defendant has had a financial motive to conceal the defect, as it did not want to stop selling the Products, and/or would need to expend a significant amount of money to cure the defect.”

The Sanchezes are seeking $5,000,000 in damages from Nintendo.

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