A Canadian law firm have announced they have started a class action lawsuit for those in Québec affected by the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift defect.
Lambert Avocat Inc. announced they have filed the application for the suit on January 16th, seeking compensation for all Québec, Canada consumers who bought a Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, Joy-Con, or Nintendo Switch Pro controller.
They discuss how their client bought the Nintendo Switch in November 2017, only for the drifting issue to occur 11 months later. After getting it repaired by Nintendo, the defect arose again two months later “with the right controller, then with the second pair of Joy-Con controllers she purchased, as well as her Nintendo Switch Pro controller.”
Calling the issue a “hidden defect,” Lambert propose that the Joy-Cons violate the Consumer Protection Act; that it is unfit for purpose and not durable under normal use. They state consumers would not have bought the system or paid “such a high price” if the defect was known.
The class action lawsuit is open to all residence of Québec who purchased the relevant devices since August 1st, 2017. Residents can register here.
In case you missed our prior reports, the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons have issues with drifting–which is when the joystick remains untouched, yet input is still registered.
This resulted in a class action lawsuit by Chimicles, Schwartz Kriner, & Donaldson-Smith in July 2019. Reports suggest Nintendo even began repairing Joy-Cons for free mere days after the lawsuit became public knowledge.
The Nintendo Switch Lite was later added to the lawsuit, and the hardware failure causing the drift was exposed. Curiously, a Tencent representative (the distributor of the Nintendo Switch in China) told a customer that the drift was caused by playing an imported game.
In late December, 2019 we also reported how French consumer magazine 60 millions de consommateurs awarded Nintendo their “Golden Cactus” award (specifically the “Cactus of the Too Fragile Product”), which is given to products and services that cause the most frustration. Belgian consumer organization Testankoop also demanded Nintendo repair all Joy-Cons for free, and honor a two year warranty.
In May 2020, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled a lawsuit against Nintendo due to the Joy-Con drift must go to arbitration.In early October 2020, a mother and son sued Nintendo over the Joy-Con drift, asking for over $5,000,000 USD.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa reportedly apologized “for any inconvenience caused to our customers” due to the drift, during an investor Q&A in June 2020. Since July 2019, Nintendo have been repairing Joy-cons even outside of users’ warranties.
A collective of European consumers’ associations announced in early December 2020 that they were investigating the infamous Joy-Con drift defect. As part of the European Green Deal (“promoting policy to make consumer products more sustainable”) curbing issues with durability, repairability, and tackling products that fail sooner than expected are “high on the agenda.”
A leaked patent for a new Joy-Con controller also lead to speculation that the rumored 4K supporting “Nintendo Switch Pro” would not support handheld mode. Some also wondered if this new Joy-Con would no longer have the drifting issue.
Image: Nintendo
