© Nintendo LifeFollowing more than 25,000 consumer complaints from countries such as France, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece, the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) has asked Nintendo to properly investigate the Joy-Con drift (thanks, Eurogamer ).
Acting as a joint EU consumer program, BEUC has lodged its own complaints with the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities across Europe, arguing that in most cases (88%, in fact), the Joy-Con drift has become evident in the first two years of ownership. BEUC claims that Nintendo is violating existing rules to prevent “premature obsolescence and misleading key consumer information.”
The organization also asks Nintendo to repair all affected Joy-Cons for free and to inform consumers that the controllers have a “limited lifespan” due to the problem.
BEUC chief Monique Goyens said:
Consumers assume that the products they buy last for an adequate period of time as justified, do not have to pay for expensive replacements due to a technical defect. Nintendo must now come up with appropriate solutions for thousands of consumers affected by this problem.
Nintendo has filed several class action lawsuits on this issue, the most recent coming from Canada. Previous lawsuits have been filed in France and the United States.
Nintendo has sent mixed messages on this issue; While President Shuntaro Furukawa apologized for the problem in June last year, the American law firm Chimicles Schwartz Kriner and Donaldson-Smith said in October that Nintendo did not consider it a “real problem.”