Joysticks: Probably Still Drifty
Joy-Con joysticks use a potentiometer to read the voltage at a wiper that slides across a strip of resistive material. That material wears down over time, or plastic and dust can dirty the sensors.
Stick drift is a huge problem with other Switch models. One survey found that 40% of Switch owners had problems with their Joy-Cons drifting, and things didn’t get any better with the Lite or OLED editions. After a bunch of lawsuits, Nintendo’s president even admitted it and apologized, setting up a free repair program for customers in some parts of the world.
Looking forward to the Nintendo fanboys telling me how this is actually good for switch 2 owners.
Seriously Nintendo is so fucking cheap and ridiculous sometimes. They’ve had almost a decade to solve this. Given what they charge this is inexcusable if it’s even half as bad as they’re speculating. Who knows what idiosyncrasies and breakdowns we’re going to see as people explore using the Joycon as a mouse as well
Why fix something that is making you even more money?!
Exactly this. Lots of companies have figured out that filling our landfills with cheap plastic crap is a lucrative business model. In this case, it’s cheaply made and expensive to replace - making it hugely profitable. Shareholders would be furious if they were to fix this issue.
I like how they raised the price on the controllers and only used magnets for a non-issue and not for the thing that is the problem.
Eh, those rails were a huge issue over time for people who primarily used their switches in handheld but did swap/remove joycons semi-regularly. My launch model (that I ended up giving to a friend’s kid when I got my Steam Deck) would often need me to attach and detach the right joycon a few times to make it fully register that it was connected.
But yeah. Tinfoil hat and all but a LOT of speculation is that the magnetic based connection is to prevent hall effect aftermarket sticks from working since those are also magnetic. TMR isn’t impacted by that but the vast majority of folk would have never considered TMR for a gamepad until the past year or two.
And the deluded fucks still charge more than US$250 for their half-a-console. It’s got good processing power and stellar shell construction, but charging the same price Xbox and PlayStation do for their full entertainment consoles, for a handheld main with the same defect-prone joysticks, tiny battery, stickers for the Joy-Con socket decal, plastic screen and 1080p display? In 2025?
I do appreciate how hard it is to make a powerful, lightweight, long-battery life handheld. But where they are cutting corners is the real issue to me. $450 isn’t even that insane of a price, but at $450 I am right to expect the joysticks - the MAIN, CRITICAL input system - to last more than 6mo lol
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Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best games ever made, shame they keep it exclusive though.
Emulators play it better than on original hardware 🤷
I disagree, and I think open world games are basically the cheapest way to pump a game out. Game development has stagnated, and basically, everything Nintendo releases is a testament to that. Indie games are basically the only realm in which real game design is happening.
While I’m not a huge fan of BotW and TotK, I think it’s a disservice to say they were a cheap way to pump out games. You can see the design intent in both exploration and gameplay mechanics. There’s a lot that works well in those games that allows for the player to continue playing for a while and still have fun.
And this is probably the only time I’d be seen defending those games.