Since the launch of Nintendo Switch at the beginning of March, people have had trouble with the left Joy-Con controller, when it comes to maintaining a stable connection. Now, Nintendo has admitted that the problems are due to a "manufacturing variation".
“There is no design issue with the Joy-Con controllers, and no widespread proactive repair or replacement effort is underway,” Nintendo of America said in a statement. “A manufacturing variation has resulted in wireless interference with a small number of the left Joy-Con. Moving forward this will not be an issue, as the manufacturing variation has been addressed and corrected at the factory level.”
Earlier, Nintendo had deemed the left Joy-Con’s connectivity issues as "not significant," and maintained that it’s “consistent with what we’ve seen for any new hardware we have launched”. The new admission comes days after a report by CNET, which detailed how new units seemed to have a different circuit board number, which suggested that Nintendo had quietly come up with a fix.
It’s still not exactly clear if that indeed is the solution, but it does hew close to the "manufacturing variation" statement from Nintendo. The company even seems to have a fix for the faulty ones that get sent in, as CNET demonstrates, involving a piece of conductive foam. Nintendo included that in its statement, too: “We have determined a simple fix can be made to any affected Joy-Con to improve connectivity.”
So there you have it – if you’ve been having connectivity trouble with your left Joy-Con, you can send it to Nintendo, who will replace it "free of charge" within a week.
Get your daily dose of tech news, reviews, and insights, in under 80 characters on Gadgets 360 Turbo. Connect with fellow tech lovers on our Forum. Follow us on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News for instant updates. Catch all the action on our YouTube channel.