Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser says that the company is aiming to "make improvements" to the Switch's controversial 'Joy-Con drift'.
In an interview with Polygon, Bowser discussed the fault, as well as why certain games will be disappearing from Nintendo's storefront in the spring.
When asked about Joy-Con drift, Bowser said that "first and foremost, we want every consumer to have a great experience with their Nintendo Switch," and that "if consumers have any issue with our hardware and/or software, we want them to contact us, when we will work through the proper solution to get them up and running as fast as possible." As for solving the problem, however, it would seem that Nintendo is still working on it.
"We've been working very closely with consumers if and when they might have issues, whether it's a replacement or repair. And then, what I will say, as we look at our repair cycles, we're always looking at what is being sent in and for what reasons, and understanding that better. And without going into any details, it always gives us an opportunity to make improvements as we go forward." That's not a definitive solution, but it does sound as though Nintendo is looking into the issue, which is one of the Switch's most public faults, and has been the subject of several lawsuits filed against the company.
Elsewhere, Bowser discusses Nintendo's decision to pull several games from its platform after a limited time. Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Super Mario Bros 35, and the Super Mario Game & Watch are all being removed from stores on March 31, 2021.
He says that despite the popularity of some of those titles - Super Mario 3D All-Stars has sold more than 2.6 million units - the aim was to specifically celebrate Mario's 35th anniversary. With that in mind, Nintendo "felt it was an opportunity to release [the games] for a limited period of time." If you're worried you might miss out, you still have a few months to pick the titles up, but thankfully it sounds as though this won't be an ongoing concern - Bowser says that this is "not a strategy that we're going to be using widely, but it's one we thought was very unique for the actual anniversary," although he "can't speak to plans beyond the end of March."
