BEUC launches Europe-wide complaint against Nintendo over Switch Joy-Con drift
The BEUC and its members have submitted a complaint against Nintendo to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities following close to 25,000 reports concerning Joy-Con drift. Switch owners filed complaints from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Greece. These reports claim that the Joy-Con controller malfunction in 88 percent of cases within the first two years of use.
Today’s announcement states that the “BEUC has submitted a complaint to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities for premature obsolescence and misleading omissions of key consumer information (on the basis of the EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive).” It is now “calling for a Europe-wide investigation into the issue and for Nintendo to be obliged to urgently address the premature failures of its product.” For the time being, the BEUC says consumers should have their Joy-Con be repaired for free and consumers “should be properly informed
about the limited lifespan of this product.”
BEUC general director Monique Goyens said in a statement:
“Consumers assume the products they buy to last an appropriate amount of time according to justified expectations, not to have to pay for expensive replacements due to a technical defect. Nintendo must now come up with proper solutions for the thousands of consumers affected by this problem.
It’s high time for companies to stop putting products onto the market that break too early. Creating unnecessary electronic waste completely goes against the objectives of the European Green Deal. To help combat this problem and to help consumers make the right purchase decision, manufacturers should be obliged to provide pre-purchase information on product durability to help consumers make both more informed and more sustainable choices.”
Complaints regarding Joy-Con drift have gone back to the early days of Switch’s life cycle, and numerous lawsuits have been filed since then. Although Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa apologized for any issues experienced with the controllers, it has not made any obvious changes to the device in hopes of preventing future issues.
