Summary
TheNintendo Switch 2has mostly been celebrated so far. That’s to be expected, less than 48 hours into its run. However, some are already worried about potential problems with the console’s future. Just hours after receiving their shiny new Switch 2, at least one person dismantled their Joy-Con to assess the controller for how likely it will be to drift.
Despite selling more than 150 million consoles over eight years, the word drift has plagued theNintendo Switch. It has landedNintendoin court and has become so widespread thatit eventually offered to fix Joy-Con suffering from it for free. There were hopes that the Switch 2’s Joy-Con might have hall effect sticks to ensure they don’t end up suffering from drift. That is not the case, and the fan teardown shared on Reddit paints a worrying picture for potential drift on the Switch 2.
Reddit user moshi_yois the Switch 2 owner who took apart their Joy-Con on day one, sharing their findings onthe console’s subreddit. They confirm that the sticks aren’t Hall effect, nor are they TMR. The only magnets in the controllers are the ones that connect them to the Switch 2.
One Day Of Having A Switch 2 And Someone Has Already Ripped Apart Their Joy-Con
For The Greater Good
The teardown also appears to show the same markings as the original Switch’s Joy-Con, which likely means Nintendo has continued to work with Alps on its sticks despite the prior console’s drift issues. As demonstrated by the replies to the post, that has dampened the Switch 2 launch weekend spirits of quite a few people, even those who haven’t managed to bag a Switch 2 yet.
Also noted in the replies is confirmation that Nintendo told everyone the Switch 2’s Joy-Con won’t have Hall effect sticks earlier this year, although, for obvious reasons, it didn’t exactly yell it from the rooftops. It did claim that its new Joy-Con had been redesigned from the ground up, though, and that doesn’t appear to be the case.
It’s going to be a while before we know if the Switch 2’s Joy-Con are prone to drift. Potentially years, as no matter how similar the new controllers are to their predecessors, it’s going to take a while before they’ve endured so much use that they start to suffer from drift. This first look inside the Joy-Con doesn’t paint a promising picture, though, as right now, it isn’t clear what Nintendo has done to combat drift in the Switch 2, if anything.
