Nintendo Hit With €35 Million Fine Over Switch Joy-Con Drift

Nintendo has agreed to pay a €35 million ($40 million) fine to France’s consumer protection agency, the DGCCRF, putting an end to a long-running legal battle over the original Switch’s notorious “Joy-Con drift” defect .

Nintendo Switch

The French watchdog accused the gaming giant of misleading commercial practices and planned obsolescence . Investigators revealed that Nintendo was aware of the widespread stick drift defect—which causes the analog sticks to register phantom movements without user input—as early as 2018 .

Despite this internal knowledge, the company failed to formally notify consumers until 2020 . Because Nintendo stayed quiet about the hardware defect, millions of frustrated players purchased costly replacement controllers out of pocket , unaware that they were eligible for the company’s free repair program .

Despite agreeing to the hefty €35 million payout, Nintendo is holding its ground. In a statement to Le Monde, the company denied any intentional wrongdoing, asserting that the fine is not an admission of guilt but rather an amicable resolution to the legal dispute . However, Nintendo’s latest financial filings tell the real story, recording a matching ¥6.4 billion loss under litigation expenses to cover the settlement .

Joy-Con drift quickly became the defining, most frustrating hardware flaw for the original Switch’s 155 million users . Independent investigations by consumer advocacy groups eventually traced the issue back to a fundamental design flaw: rapid wear and tear on the joystick slider’s delicate plastic circuit boards .

Although Nintendo quietly revised subsequent Joy-Con models to mitigate this wear, the company has historically avoided publicly discussing its hardware adjustments . Fortunately, the gaming giant appears to have taken those painful lessons to heart. With the Switch 2 now on the market for a full year, there have been no widespread reports of the dreaded drift returning to haunt Nintendo’s latest console .