If you own a Nintendo Switch, you may have heard this week that there’s a way to fix your Joy-Con Drift. This issue causes games to register movement even when you’re not touching your console. A YouTuber has found a way to fix this issue using nothing but a tiny piece of cardboard. Apparently, the cardboard pushes up the metal plate beneath the joystick to help it connect better again. Even if there are issues with dust and dirt, it’ll help alleviate those. Nintendo needs to start packaging this stuff with its consoles, mainly because it seems entirely uninterested in fixing the issue itself.
With the Switch OLED Model on the way, Nintendo has basically confirmed that it’s not going to redo the hardware for Joy-Cons. You wither pay a tonne of cash to have them officially repaired, or you just buy some new ones. With this fix, you can get rid of the issue without spending a penny. Or at least that’s how it should be. In reality, you’ll need a tiny toolkit and a piece of cardboard of the appropriate size. This will also cost you the time that you could be playing on the console itself.
If this issue is going to be present in the OLED Model, Nintendo needs to do something about it. If it is packaged in small pieces of cardboard like the one in the video with a tiny toolkit, it gives all users the ability to fix Joy-Con drift without spending a tonne of money. The number of Switch consoles I see on resale sites that have drift and are being sold for scrap because the owner can’t afford to send them off to be fixed is astounding. If the fix is this simple, Nintendo needs to admit it, accept responsibility, and spend a few extra quid on each bundle so that it can include the fix.
I’m only writing all of this because when it comes down to it, consoles are a lifeline for some people. By law in the UK, these devices must be guaranteed under warranty for six years, and Nintendo is doing everything it can to ignore that. Things need to change fast.