Nintendo recently announced that it will begin to sell single Joy-Cons at a lower price soon, which is good news for Switch players hoping to make a change or correct a problem with a controller. The offer is somewhat limited, though, since the price seems to only apply to very specific products. The Switch's dual portable/home console concept relies heavily on the tiny, removable Joy-Cons, making it a nightmare for players trying to cope with controller-related problems.
The most widely discussed of these problems is the notorious “Joy-Con drift,” where a malfunctioning Joy-Con analogue stick senses input independent of the player actually doing anything. This irritating technical snafu has already landed Nintendo in hot water several times since the Switch’s launch and though the company has acknowledged the problem, it has expressed widely different outlooks on the issue over the years. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa lamented the problems Joy-Con drift had caused costumers while the company was engaged in a class-action lawsuit over the issue earlier this year. However, more recently, Nintendo’s legal representatives dismissed the idea that the defect was genuinely affecting the company’s user base.
Fans experiencing problems with the Nintendo Switch controllers, or players that want a different look, will have an easier time purchasing a new Joy-Con come November, according to a Nintendo Twitter post. On November 9, Nintendo announced, customers will be able to purchase individual Joy-Cons for $39.99, or $10 cheaper than it currently costs, though the deal is limited to only one type of color per controller, at least for now. According to Nintendo’s tweet, the only discounted offerings will be the left, neon blue Joy-Con and the right, neon red controller.
It is important to note that gamers experiencing Joy-Con drift have other options besides buying a brand-new controller when dealing with the issue. Nintendo had offered during the summer to begin fixing malfunctioning controllers for free, but there is a critical, pandemic-related, caveat. Nintendo’s repair centers have been hit with the same issues facing the rest of the globe which means repairs could be slow or, in some cases, not available at all.
That gamers can now get ahold of in-demand Nintendo hardware at a cheaper price is a positive piece of news, though it is difficult to forget that demand for the controller might, in part, spring from the fact that Joy-Cons can have serious technical issues. It is also interesting that the price change is being implemented right around the time that Sony and Microsoft are releasing their next-gen consoles, which is only a few short weeks away.
Source: Nintendo/Twitter