Joysticks: Probably Still Drifty
Joy-Con joysticks use a potentiometer to read the voltage at a wiper that slides across a strip of resistive material. That material wears down over time, or plastic and dust can dirty the sensors.
Stick drift is a huge problem with other Switch models. One survey found that 40% of Switch owners had problems with their Joy-Cons drifting, and things didn’t get any better with the Lite or OLED editions. After a bunch of lawsuits, Nintendo’s president even admitted it and apologized, setting up a free repair program for customers in some parts of the world.
everyone: Nintendo is a horrible company that does shit that’s harmful to consumers and the gaming industry!
also everyone: WOW can you believe I was able to buy a Nintendo Switch 2 the literal day it released?!?!
We really showed them. 🤷♂️
Yeah, I’ll just buy a 3rd party joycon if it’s supposed to drift anyway, at least they last a bit longer and cost much less
That will show them
The more I learn about the Switch 2, the less I want to buy it. thanks Nintendo I’ll wait until Ryujinx 2 comes out
did the nintendo management change or something? did we get new laws about repairable devies standards?
so im just wondering what did you guys expect
Anyone else getting a 404?
Everyone was telling me that this time they would have fixed it. Called it. I think I’m down to one joycon that doesn’t drift :P
I’ve never had stick drift with PlayStation or Xboxes despite people telling me it’s a problem. The switch though is awful for it.
I don’t know what they do to make their analogue sticks so bad but they’re definitely getting them from the world’s cheapest supplier, apparently one that even Sony and Microsoft turned up their noses to.
PS/Xbox controllers have more internal space, so their joystick modules are much, much larger than what goes in the joycon. That means they can have more material in the potentiometers, meaning less susceptible to wear and dust/dirt intrusions.
JoyCon 1s also have a flap that dust can get into, and that’s likely a large part of the problem. This is fixed with JoyCon 2s, so I’m not sure why everyone’s jumping to the assumption that they will be equally brittle.
450 USD and they won’t spend an extra 40 cents on hall effect sticks?
Have you even thought about the shareholders?
It’s intentional. How else are they supposed to sell you a new set of joy cons every year?
If its still there and its obviously a well known issue, they left they in there so you artards would have to give them more money for repairs 🤣🤣
They’ll just get sued again if they try that.
What do you mean try? It’s done.
It’s been out like a week I don’t think there’s been time for anyone to experience stick drift yet.
Dw, it’ll come.
You can’t bring a lawsuit for something you think might happen.
Oh wow what incredible insight, here i was thinking time worked in reverse soz man.
Yet suckers keep buying that junk. Luckily I just hate Nintendo.
Oh, yeah!
You gotta get sDrifty
You gotta get sDrifty in here
It’s time to get sDrifty.
I will never, ever buy the switch 2 then.
My gamecube controller still doesn’t drift. Nintendo can do better.
Your Gamecube controller also isn’t Hall Effect.
Yeah, I think we should wait and see how prevalent the drifting is this time around before freaking out. Of course it’s going to happen to some people because every stick that uses this technology has some incidence of drifting, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be as bad as last time. I have lots of these kinds of sticks on lots of gamepads over the years and only the joycons have ever drifted.
I’ve genuinely had more fun with an 80€ Anbernic loaded with old Gameboy games than any other modern console.
Joysticks still drifting is an embarrassment.
It would be, if that were the case.
This article is not alledging a systematic pattern of stick drift in the Switch 2, like there was with the Switch. It isn’t even saying that so much as a single case of stick drift has been found.
What it’s saying is that the Switch 2 still uses potentiometers, a technology which can be susceptible to stick drift. You know, like every single other major console ever launched. So, as of now, we have no particular reason to believe that the Switch 2 will drift worse than the PS5 or any other system.
That said, all the major players are dragging their feet a bit longer on Hall effect sticks a little bit longer than is warranted, Nintendo included.
like every single other major console ever launched
dreamcast would like a word
What do they use? Is it Hall effect sticks?
Dreamcast can’t come to the phone right now, it’s dead.
You’re absolutely right! Dreamcast and Saturn make a very good point: The major players are dragging their feet way longer than is warranted.
Nintendo doesn’t want to use Hall for the same reason neither of the Steam Decks have, the increased power consumption. From there it was easy for them to justify a magnetic locking mechanism for the new joycons.
But also fuck Nintendo
Hi, are you able to share more about the power efficiencies of each type of sensor? Some cursory browsing of TI datasheets gives me the impression that both types use a similar amount of power. I may be missing some context, though.
I did also find this cool report there. Could be pertinent, although from what I understand of the technology I don’t see why you couldn’t use the same techniques to save power with a digipot.
HE uses like 25% more power compared to the usual sensor. Meaning a huge decrease of about 2% in joycons battery life.
Not sure if that’s supposed to be sarcasm
Honest question; was it not possible to mod the original JoyCons to add hall-effect joysticks?
Yes, end users should not be responsible for having to do this - but if a cottage industry exists to repair/upgrade drifting joycons that would be awesome to see.
The problem is that it requires disassembling the controller. Apparently that’s a quite the pain for the switch 2
Yeah, I did it. It was annoying. It seems it will be more annoying for the switch 2 (which I’m loving begrudgingly).
That exists, you can get switch form factor hall effect joysticks on aliexpress.
Yes, it is possible
Disappointing to say the least.
My wife loves the switch but has gone through 3 or 4 different sets of controllers. I tried my hand at repairing one of them and it was not fun – to put it mildly – and I do not savor repeating the experience. I honestly did not know there were hall effect replacements for the original joycon sticks, and wish I had known that when I replaced the one I did.
