Nintendo president apologizes for Joy-Con drift amid class-action lawsuit in US

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa apologized for the ongoing issues affecting Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers, the most notable being those infamous drifting analogue sticks, in a recent financial Q&A. 

"Regarding the Joy-Con, we apologize for any trouble caused to our customers," Furukawa said (translated by Kotaku) "We are continuing to aim to improve our products, but as the Joy-Con is the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the United States and this is still a pending issue, we would like to refrain from responding about any specific actions."

Furukawa never calls out Joy-Con drift by name, but there's little doubt as to what "trouble" he's referring to. Especially since he highlights the class action lawsuit regarding Joy-Con drift which was filed against Nintendo in the US in July 2019, and later expanded to include Nintendo Switch Lite issues. Joy-Con drift is still very much a problem, and this is perhaps the first time a Nintendo executive has officially apologized for it. 

Joy-Con drift is such a ubiquitous problem that Nintendo updated its Switch troubleshooting forum specifically to call it out. There are a few home remedies for how to fix Joy-Con drift, but for many users, recalibrating or resetting a controller merely delays their inevitable RMA. And even after sending their controller in for repairs, drift often returns within weeks or months. Newer generations of Joy-Cons have yet to do away with the drift issue, but it's certainly not too late for Nintendo to finally stamp it out. 

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