Xbox controller drift class-action lawsuit will be settled out of court

An ongoing class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for "stick drift" for its Xbox Wireless Controllers has been moved to arbitration. That is, it'll be settled out of court.

Whether using the Xbox controller on either Xbox Series S/X consoles or PC, players have reported drift cropping up on the new tech, and US law firm CSK&D brought the issue to a US court in April 2020.

The law firm, as per GamesIndustry.biz, states that a high volume of Xbox controllers have been affected by drift that crops up after general use of the hardware.

In an article over at The Loadout, Benjamin Johns (a partner at CSK&D) said that going to arbitration is likely the “end of the road” since the case will probably now never hit a public court.

That said, the firm noted that it's acquired a “sufficient volume” of drift-afflicted controllers from clients, which it'll be seeking to recover damages for. After conducting its own tests, the firm points to the root issue being with a controller's potentiometer – and it's not the first time we've heard about that being an issue, either.

“In a general sense, the theory of these cases is that had the drift defect been disclosed, no reasonable consumer would have bought them in the first place,” Johns told The Loadout.

“At Microsoft, we put all of our products through rigorous quality assurance testing and are committed to providing customers with an unparalleled gaming experience,” Microsoft has told The Loadout previously.

The same firm is also involved in class-action lawsuits regarding the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift issue and the PlayStation 5 Dualsense, too. The former was moved to arbitration in March 2020, and the latter is still in process.