Nearly 25000 complaints about Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Drift have been launched by European consumers

The European Consumer Organization has filed a complaint with the European Commission surrounding Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Drift and is calling for a “Europe-wide investigation” into the matter.

The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) released the news on the website of the organization, reporting that “nearly 25,000” complaints have been lodged by Switch-owning customers across Europe. If you’re unfamiliar with Joy-Con drift, it’s when the analog sticks on the console controllers register gestures without feedback from the player.

According to customer testimony, ‘in 88 per cent of cases, game controllers have failed within the first two years of use.’ This prompted BEUC to send a report to the European Commission and national consumer protection agencies ‘for premature obsolescence and misleading omissions of key consumer information.’

The BEUC also calls for a “Europe-wide investigation” into the Joy-Con Drift problem, urging Nintendo to “urgently address the premature failures of its product.” The article also indicates that Nintendo’s defective controllers should be fixed free of charge.

Per the complaint letter submitted, the BEUC is asking the European Commission to “call on the national authorities to investigate Nintendo’s practices in their countries, launch a coordinated enforcement action and issue a joint position, which should request the company to change the design of their product, to effectively prevent its early obsolescence, and until then, to repair this product for free and properly inform consumers about the limited lifespan of the Joy-Con controllers.”

Monique Goyens, Director of the BEUC said that consumers believe that the goods they purchase will last a fair period of time according to justified expectations and that they will not have to pay for costly repairs due to a mechanical fault.