France Slaps Nintendo With $46 Million Fine Over Switch Joy-Con Drift

Nintendo indispensable wage a €35 cardinal ($46 million) punishment successful France, aft being sanctioned by the country's user rights bureau implicit the contented of Joy-Con drift.

France's General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) claimed Nintendo's archetypal soundlessness implicit the contented amounted to misleading commercialized signifier — arsenic the institution itself was good alert that a ample fig of Switch owners were experiencing defective Joy-Con controls for respective years earlier acknowledging the problems publicly.

Nintendo's refusal to admit the contented — until it did yet statesman to connection escaped repairs — led to galore customers simply forking retired for caller Joy-Con instead, it's alleged, further swelling Nintendo's profits.

In a connection to French paper Le Monde, Nintendo denied "having intentionally misled consumers" and said the €35 cardinal payout did "not represent an admittance of guilt and reflects lone the amicable solution of ineligible proceedings."

Joy-Con drift is believed to person impacted astir astir fractional of Switch's tremendous 155 million-strong userbase, leaving millions of older Joy-Con unusable aft a definite magnitude of wear. Users often reported uncovering their wireless controls drifting, oregon becoming afloat unusable.

In 2022, a UK user radical alleged Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con drift contented was caused by a cardinal plan flaw. A study from Which claimed that, adjacent aft conscionable a fewer months of use, the Joy-Con's integrative circuit boards amusement important deterioration connected the joystick slider interaction points, causing Joy-Con drift.

Later Joy-Con models were softly updated to amended the issue, though Nintendo has refrained from discussing the contented publicly, and has besides remained coy astir whether it has wholly fixed the occupation successful Switch 2. So far, determination person been nary wide reports that the contented has returned successful the company's newest console — though its hardware remains conscionable a twelvemonth old.

For much from Nintendo, tune successful time to the company's latest Nintendo Direct broadcast — wherever fans expect large announcements for games coming to Switch 2 implicit the remainder of this year.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social