The conclusion of a class-action lawsuit about Joy-Con drift on the Nintendo Switch has been reached, and the judge’s decision is favorable to Nintendo.
Joy-Con drift class-action
About a year ago, we had previously covered the Sanchez et al. v. Nintendo of America case here at First Amendment Watch. At first, it was decided that the two moms involved in the case were not permitted to go on with a class action. Despite this, the case went on, and in the end, it came down to the question of whether or not children could file lawsuits. According to Axios, the Switch comes with an End User License Agreement “which disallows lawsuits and forces aggrieved parties to go into arbitration.” However, the attorneys for the parents argued that their children were too young to be bound by the terms of the agreement because it states that lawsuits are prohibited.
In November of this past year, a federal court in California issued a ruling that was favorable to Nintendo. Even though their children had been given Switch consoles as presents, a prior judgement was maintained, which stated that the parents were the true proprietors of the gaming systems. Because of this, the children were unable to file a lawsuit against the malfunctioning game machines.
In the meanwhile, Nintendo is still looking into two further occurrences of Joy-Con drift, which is a problem in which the left joystick does not operate as it should. However, as of the beginning of 2020 and 2021, they have been put on hold. Arbitration is now being conducted for the clients involved in those lawsuits as well as more than 40 others.
Recent history
In the year 2020, the President of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, issued an apology to customers for problems they had had with their Switch Joy-Con. Toru Yamashita, the deputy general manager of Nintendo, was quoted as saying in an interview that was published in October 2021 that the business has been “continually making changes that may not always be evident” and is “still working on enhancements.” In addition, he said that Nintendo has “investigated the Joy-Con controllers used by the consumers and consistently enhanced the wear resistance and longevity.”
Those who are interested in reading the whole legal filing may do so at this link; https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-06929/pdf/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-06929-1.pdfÂ
