While Nintendo hasn’t found a permanent solution to Joy-Con drift, the company revealed in a new interview that it is continuously improving the Joy-Con’s durability since its launch and that the Switch OLED models will come with the newest controllers with the latest improvements.
The Nintendo Switch has had a high-profile, public battle with a phenomenon known as “Joy-Con Drift.” This is when the detachable controllers for the Switch will begin to stop registering the correct inputs from the analog stick.
There have been many teardowns and research into why this is the case, but the most common answer is seemingly general wear and tear over time. And according to Nintendo’s general manager of technology Ko Shiota and deputy general manager Toru Yamashita, Nintendo has been making improvements to the Joy-Con materials regularly since its launch.
“As we have always been trying to improve it as well, we have investigated the Joy-Con controllers used by the customers and repeatedly improved the wear resistance and durability,” Yamashita says.”
“We mentioned that the Joy-Con controller specifications hadn’t changed in the sense that we didn’t add new features such as new buttons,” Yamashita adds. “But the analog sticks in the Joy-Con controllers included with the Nintendo Switch – OLED Model are the latest version with all the improvements.”
Yamashita explains that Nintendo continuously improves the tests for Joy-Cons and when improvements are discovered, these changes are implemented into the Joy-Cons that are sold individually as well as the ones in the Nintendo Switch Lite. The OLED Switch will feature the latest version of the Joy-Cons with all the latest improvements.
Nintendo acknowledged that Joy-Cons will constantly face wear and tear due to general usage. Shiota likens this to car tires that “wear out as the car moves, as they are in constant friction with the ground to rotate.” So the goal for Nintendo is to continuously improve operability and durability.
IGN hasn’t had the Switch OLED long enough to speak in-depth about Joy-Con drift in our review. But we’ll cover any developments regarding the Joy-Con durability as more people get their hands on the new OLED units.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.