A class-action lawsuit against Nintendo regarding faulty Switch Joy-Con controllers will proceed in arbitration. One US District Judge ruled earlier today to overturn the Switch manufacturer’s motion to dismiss the case, meaning that the matter will now move to deliberation outside of court.
This lawsuit was filed on July 19, 2019 by Seattle resident Ryan Diaz, who claims that Nintendo has ignored a long-standing defect in the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers that causes players to occasionally “drift” out of control, even when the joystick is untouched and in the default position. Diaz recalls sending a faulty controller back to Nintendo for repairs during its one-year warranty period, only to experience the glitch again mere months later. Nintendo refused to pay for further repairs or replacements, hence Diaz’s lawsuit, which was modified last September to include defects in the since-released handheld Nintendo Switch Lite.
According to Video Games Chronicle, US District Judge Thomas S. Zilly of the Western District of Washington, Seattle denied Nintendo’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit today, despite approving of the publisher’s request to bring the case to arbitration (meaning that the dispute is to be settled outside of court by one or two third-party individuals). This also means that the class-action lawsuit will be paused until the arbitration is completed, but if the case is not resolved in arbitration it will likely return to court.
This isn't the first time the company has faced a lawsuit regarding controllers, as back in 2017 Nintendo was sued by iLife Technologies Inc. over the use of accelerometers in Wii remotes. However, it is worth noting Nintendo has since been offering to pay for the repairs of any drifting controllers following Diaz’s suit, as well as offering refunds for any customers who already paid for the fix before. However, this only came after the lawsuit, and Nintendo still leaves the flaw itself unacknowledged even with the new coral-colored Switch Lite set to hit US stores this April.
Defects in major consoles (ranging from malfunctioning Valve Index joysticks to the Xbox 360’s infamous “Red Ring Of Death”) are par for the course in the world of gaming, but it seems that the drifting glitch plaguing the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers has occurred often enough to pose as a problem for a lot of customers like Ryan Diaz, which in turn isn’t a good look for Nintendo. While Judge Zilly may wish for the issue to be resolved outside of the courtroom, the fact that he hasn’t dismissed the case outright means he, at the very least, sees logic in Diaz’s assertion that Nintendo has some responsibility for this continuing defect in its most prominent product. Given the company’s previous actions following this lawsuit, the best thing Nintendo could do might be to settle the case and work to resolve this uncontrolled drifting before it becomes a serious liability for the Switch console.
Source: Video Games Chronicle