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The Joy-Con drift lawsuit filed against Nintendo earlier this year has included the new Nintendo Switch Lite to its claims that the controller design is leading to malfunctioning hardware (via Polygon).
In July, Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith law offices collated the stories from Switch players experiencing Joy-Con drift to file a class action lawsuit against Nintendo. Joy-Con drift is when the Switch reacts like you’ve moved the analog stick or D-pad even when you haven’t, and causes play to suffer for it. The lawsuit asserts that there are federal claims of fraud, breach of warranty, and violations of state consumer protection laws as a result of this hardware issue.
The compact Switch Lite console released last week, and although Nintendo says this one uses a different design for its analogue sticks, plenty of players are reporting problems. ‘I beat Link’s Awakening over the weekend on my original Switch Lite system, I had only put like 20 something hours on it, and it started to show joy-con drift,’ one player’s story was referenced in the legal document. ‘Why is this happening earlier on than with the earlier Switch?’
@TheWulffDen pic.twitter.com/LJqXIuZgPS
— Emily M. (@emily_mantone) September 23, 2019
And now, the lawsuit applies to allegations of Joy-Con drift on the new Switch Lite. The lawyers representing 16 American plaintiffs across 18 U.S. states will be receptive to claims from Switch Lite players as well as the initial complaints on the Switch. In a press statement in summer, Nintendo responded with, ‘At Nintendo, we take great pride in creating quality products and we are continuously making improvements to them. We are aware of recent reports that some Joy-Con controllers are not responding correctly.’
‘We want our consumers to have fun with Nintendo Switch, and if anything falls short of this goal we always encourage them to visit http://support.nintendo.com so we can help,’ it concluded. It also offered Joy-Con repairs for free in the wake of the Joy-Con lawsuit and stated that it would refund players who had paid for drift repairs previously. At present, Nintendo has not commented on the Switch Lite controller issue.
