Nintendo cannot catch a break when it comes to the Joy-Cons, as the BEUC and its members have submitted a complaint against Nintendo to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities. This is following close to 25,000 reports regarding Joy-Con drift from Switch owners in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Greece. The reports note that the Joy-Con controller malfunction in 88 percent of cases within the first two years of use.
The announcement states: “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).”
They are 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.” Currently, the BEUC says consumers should have their Joy-Con be repaired for free and notes that consumers “should be properly informed about the limited lifespan of this product.”
“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.”
We will keep you updated on this matter