Nintendo is making "continuous improvements" to Joy-Con controllers to combat drift
In a new interview, Nintendo of America's Doug Bowser confirmed that the company is still iterating on Nintendo Switch's problematic Joy-Cons
The Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift issue is an unsightly blemish on an otherwise great console. The issue caused Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa to apologise to consumers, and has prompted lawsuits from miffed customers, too. Safe to say, it's been a big issue for the company.
But at least Nintendo is attempting to tackle the issue. In a new interview with The Verge, Nintendo of America boss Doug Bowser has stated that the company is making "continuous improvements" to Joy-Con controllers in efforts to prevent the infamous hardware fault.
"As we've gone through the first five and a half years of the Nintendo Switch, we've observed gameplay, we've observed as people have returned units how they've worn, and we've been making continuous improvements overall to the Joy-Con, including the analog stick," he told the site.
"This latest version, Nintendo Switch OLED, has the same updated analog stick that's now available in the original Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite."
Ahead of the Switch OLED's launch, Nintendo said it had made improvements to the controllers, particularly to the internal parts of the analog sticks. The company said it has been making improvements to the controllers continuously since the console launched and incorporated these changes into the Joy-Con controllers included with the base console, Nintendo Switch Lite, and the controllers that get sold individually, too.
Here's hoping the issue gets better over time, then. Despite the improvements that have been made to the Switch hardware since its launch back in 2016, Nintendo admits there's still a chance drift could happen and says it's just something that happens thanks to wear and tear.
“The degree of wear depends on factors like the combination of the materials and forms, so we continue to make improvements by researching which combinations are less likely to wear,” Toru Yamashita, deputy GM of Nintendo’s technology development department, said back in October, when he explained the company also altered how it tests durability for its hardware in order to better isolate and solve the problem.