A drifting issue in the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller has prompted the US-based law office of Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP has decided to take legal action, which has announced a class-action complaintagainst Sony. The firm previously set up a site where PS5 owners could report instances of drift, a hardware defect that causes a controller's joysticks to wear down, resulting in unwanted “drift” input and causing headaches for players trying to move around a given game world or operate a menu.

Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith has handled this kind of case before, as it was recently involved in a similar lawsuit against Nintendo for the notorious issue of Switch Joy-Con drift in 2020. Multiple other firms filed actions against Nintendo across the United States, France, and Canada, with noted Nintendo executives like company president Shuntaro Furukawa and Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser eventually addressing and apologizing for a lack of action regarding the defective Joy-Con joysticks. Now, it seems that history may be repeating itself with the PS5.

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In a court filing obtained by Screen Rant on February 12, Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP announced that it's filing a class-action complaint against Sony Corporation of America, Inc. and Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC in The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of PS5 owner Lmarc Turner and other affected plaintiffs. The document cites a defect in the PS5 DualSense controller that “compromises the DualSense Controller’s core functionality” by causing “characters or gameplay to move on the screen without user command or manual operation of the joystick,” also noting Sony’s failure to “disclose this material information to consumers.” The document details one unlucky customer's experience: they were unable to get their controller to even work for 10 days after receiving their PS5, having reportedly tried every many methods to reset it.

The's filing also indirectly refers to Nintendo's similar controller defect, bringing up Sony's previous marketing of the DualSense's revolutionary haptic feedback and dynamic adaptive triggers. The firm argues that Sony has been aware of this drifting problem through months of fan feedback and pre-release testing, and customers have had to wait a long time for repairs due to a lengthy customer service backlog.

So far, the PlayStation 5 has enjoyed a successful launch despite ongoing console shortages, but legal trouble surrounding its DualSense controller so soon into the system’s lifespan isn’t the best look for Sony. While no official court dates have been set at publication time, Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith is looking to bring Sony into a jury trial, as well as getting the company to properly address the drifting defect and give the affected plaintiffs due compensation.

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