Animal crossing and Joycon drift

[Mick]

It's weird how this continues to be a problem because Nintendo is well aware of it by now. You'd think they would improve the design, but no?

Unfortunately joy-con drift is not a matter of if, but when: the problem occurs with the electronics of the analog stick once some connectors inside become contaminated or start wearing out. Like with ps4 stick drift (and probably the ps5 too since it uses the exact same sticks), this is a problem with the parts used to make the thing, and some will last a long time, some will not, but eventually they will all start doing it.

There are temporary fixes to this problem, but the only real way is to have it repaired by either Nintendo, a third party or if you're brave, by doing it yourself.

Hey I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, I just popped into this thread to mention this quick.

They sell replacement joy sticks on Amazon. I bought a little kit for like $10? It's surprisingly easy to take apart your joy con and replace the joystick. Put the screws back in and it's good as new! Save yourself a boatload of many. I repaired 4 Joy cons that I thought were toast!

This definitely works but I would be a bit hesitant to recommend this to people that don't have much experience repairing smaller electronics. The switch joycons are full of small and fragile parts, and the chances of accidentally ruining a connector or ribbon inside are rather high if you don't know exactly how it works. Definitely requires a steady hand and some sense of what you're doing.

If you do want to DIY it, be very careful both when taking it apart and when putting it back together again.

 

[dizzy bone]

Haaa I've lived with the same drifty joycons for almost a year now. It gets worse and then I'll clean it a bit and it will get better and then reappear again. Drift + animal crossing is really impossible for me because I can't do things like terraforming or rock hitting without wildly spinning around or misclicking. I'm so terrified of accidentally telling a visitor that it's okay to move out because my drift decides my fate. When drift occurs I usually switch to games that make the drift seem less noticeable like splatoon or mario kart. Once I mash the sticks around for a while I feel like the drift temporarily goes away. I don't recommend anyone do this as a solution though, it's just what I do to cope with it hahaha. I haven't had drift issues so far since the autumn update, which is surprising since before this AC was almost unplayable for me.

 

[Starboard]

This is a good question... over years I collected significant amount of Nintendo consoles and still have GameBoy Color with working condition, despite its age! Controlling GBC is not as perfect as before, but I can understand this after all of those years. On the top of this, I have GBA and GBA SP in perfect working order with no problem with steering whatsoever. I'm not so sure about NDS as my distant family has it currently and can't tell much about condition. My 3DS working perfectly, Wii and WiiU - with original controllers never broke for me. I trusted so far for Nintendo quality, but it looks like recent Switches having quality issues. So sad.

Yeah my old DS lite still works perfectly. My 3DSXL's camera has stopped working most of the time but that was after like 6 years. It still sucks but apparently some Switches are getting dodgy after just a year or less which is just wrongggg.

 

[rianne]

This definitely works but I would be a bit hesitant to recommend this to people that don't have much experience repairing smaller electronics. The switch joycons are full of small and fragile parts, and the chances of accidentally ruining a connector or ribbon inside are rather high if you don't know exactly how it works. Definitely requires a steady hand and some sense of what you're doing.

If you do want to DIY it, be very careful both when taking it apart and when putting it back together again.

Seconding this. I'm thankful that my partner has replaced the analog sticks for both of his joycons because mine started drifting a week or two ago. So he was able to fix mine since he got a tool kit and the extras and watched a video how to do it. According to him, it was more difficult to do the right joycon vs. the left one, but of course YMMV.

 

[Radio]

Here's hoping that the issue isn't as prevalent in whatever the next generation of Switch Nintendo is going to launch next. I was going back and forth between buying a switch or a lite and ended up paying extra for the full switch because if you get joycon drift on the lite it's not really fixable. People from my country have had 50/50 chances of Nintendo agreeing to fix broken joycons so I'd just didn't want to risk it.

 

[littlewing]

@Starboard i have equally terrible luck with technology, so i feel your pain lmao... i feel like it's not a matter of if it starts drifting, but when.

i bought the lite rather than the regular switch to save money, but now i'm considering buying a regular one anyway and begging a nintendo rep to port all my data to that one. just seems easier to only have to replace the joycons. sigh.

thanks, nintendo, for making me feel like a money-wasting doofus.

 

[Holla]

I first noticed drift with my joycons in AC earlier this year. I first noticed in my one joycon when making custom designs as I noticed the preview of the dress I was designing at the time was spinning around really fast on its own even when I wasn’t touching anything. A few weeks later my other joycon started to drift resulting in my character walking upwards all on her own. I submitted a repair request with Nintendo and I was able to send them in free of charge to get fixed. I got them back a bit later good as new and they haven’t drifted again since.

 

[DarkSlayer1331]

I got my Switch about a week after it came out. I didn't have any drift issues until after Animal Crossing came out. I want to say May was when I first started noticing the drift, and it wasn't all of the time. Now it seems that whenever I try to "nudge" my character down and left, it just starts drifting that way. It'll still randomly drift that way too, and that is the only direction that it drifts. So far it's not so terrible that I want to replace them, but it is kind of annoying. And I had gotten the AC mint green skin, so I really don't want to have to replace them.

 

[idiotdoomspiral]

playing new horizons was definitely the nail in the coffin for my joycons. the drift on my pair is very severe now and its unbearable to play with them, doing simple tasks like hitting rocks and staying in one spot to do something such as taking a photo is a nightmare. i also did some terraforming like this and i mustve wasted many minutes trying to work against the drift. i wouldnt play at all if i didnt have my gamecube-style controller but i can never play in handheld mode because of this. apparently nintendo has recently made the legal defense that the joycon drift isnt a real problem so they will probably never attempt to fix it lol

 

[Starboard]

How is this not a real problem? It sounds gamebreaking lol. Do they at least fix it for free? Does it have to be under warranty? And what about in countries other than the US?

Honestly this year Nintendo has reaallly started to get in my bad books, for various reasons. I still love them, but, sighhh.

 

[Mick]

How is this not a real problem? It sounds gamebreaking lol. Do they at least fix it for free? Does it have to be under warranty? And what about in countries other than the US?

Honestly this year Nintendo has reaallly started to get in my bad books, for various reasons. I still love them, but, sighhh.

It is definitely a real problem and it does become game-breaking if you let it get bad enough. I've heard of people getting them fixed for free, but I have no idea which countries and whether this was under warranty or not. I suppose the only way to find out is to contact them yourself once it happens.

Nintendo has acknowledged & apologised this problem, but refuses to comment on it too much. I believe this is partly because they still have an ongoing lawsuit/arbitration against them for exactly this problem (continuing to sell the joy-cons despite being aware that the parts are flawed/have a very limited lifespan).

I was kinda hoping that they would start using alternative, better parts for their joycons or at least for newer switch versions (like the lite) but so far, nothing yet...

 

[Rinpane]

Joycon drift on the left joycon is why I didn’t play much on my Switch for several months. Using the q-tip method would alleviate it a bit, however it became less effective each time. (It also became a bit difficult to get anything out of hand sanitizers as they emptied out.) Since I’m in Europe, there are no free repairs so...it sucked all around.

Ended up going the wired pro controller route, with a usb cable so I can use it out of docked mode. A pretty cheap yet effective alternative to buying a new joycon with a wireless function. At the same time, I kinda wish it didn’t start drifting a month into playing ACNH, (Only had it for a little over a year), let alone drift at all. Joycon drift sucks.

 

[Viewing]

This is a good question... over years I collected significant amount of Nintendo consoles and still have GameBoy Color with working condition, despite its age! Controlling GBC is not as perfect as before, but I can understand this after all of those years. On the top of this, I have GBA and GBA SP in perfect working order with no problem with steering whatsoever. I'm not so sure about NDS as my distant family has it currently and can't tell much about condition. My 3DS working perfectly, Wii and WiiU - with original controllers never broke for me. I trusted so far for Nintendo quality, but it looks like recent Switches having quality issues. So sad.

I read something about the manufacturer that Nintendo uses for their joycons is the only one that makes them that small. IF that is the case, then sure. Otherwise, I believe Nintendo is still doing free joycon replacements. Either that, or if you can (afford it & not using a switch lite), i'd heavily suggest buying a controller for the game.

 

[Livia]

How is this not a real problem? It sounds gamebreaking lol. Do they at least fix it for free? Does it have to be under warranty? And what about in countries other than the US?

Honestly this year Nintendo has reaallly started to get in my bad books, for various reasons. I still love them, but, sighhh.

They sent me a new left joycon for free after I sent in my broken one. I live in the US so it might be different for other countries. This is the site I went to to start my repair. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/ask/ht/789

 

[kkpears]

They sent me a new left joycon for free after I sent in my broken one. I live in the US so it might be different for other countries. This is the site I went to to start my repair. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/ask/ht/789

Helpful to know! How long did it take to get your new controller?

 

[Livia]

Helpful to know! How long did it take to get your new controller?

I sent it in on October 14 and just got it back a few days ago.

 

[6iixx]

i was starting to worry about my left joystick doing this - whenever i would try to go down, it would falter or i would have to adjust it so it was more 'pressured' than normal. but the past few days it's gone completely back to normal, 100% same sensitivity as every other direction and i'm not putting any more pressure than normal.

should i still look into possibly getting it replaced? o:

 

[KayDee]

i was starting to worry about my left joystick doing this - whenever i would try to go down, it would falter or i would have to adjust it so it was more 'pressured' than normal. but the past few days it's gone completely back to normal, 100% same sensitivity as every other direction and i'm not putting any more pressure than normal.

should i still look into possibly getting it replaced? o:

That’s usually how it starts. I was able to live with mine probably for a year because it would fix itself but it eventually became worse and made the game unplayable.

If it’s working ok right now they might just send it back telling you there’s nothing wrong with it so I think it’s better to wait until it’s consistently drifting without a fix.

 

[6iixx]

That’s usually how it starts. I was able to live with mine probably for a year because it would fix itself but it eventually became worse and made the game unplayable.

If it’s working ok right now they might just send it back telling you there’s nothing wrong with it so I think it’s better to wait until it’s consistently drifting without a fix.

that makes sense - i'll keep that in mind then. thank you c:

honestly hope it doesn't start to go again, though. one of the most annoying things is trying to move down in your inventory or storage and having to press it down 3 times just to move it once

 

[daringred_]

mine started "sticking" a few months ago. maybe september, i'm not sure, which is total garbage since i bought my lite brand new in march. holding the left stick down didn't register fully and my character would stutter in her walking cycle, between slow and fast. re-calibrating the stick worked for a little while but stopped having an effect these past few weeks. now i have to blow into/under the stick before i play and that's been working so far.

this morning, my ac character finally moved on her own. stick was working fine for a good five minutes and then, out of nowhere, the character started slowly walking right on her own. blowing didn't work and i had to somewhat aggressively rotate the stick a couple of times before it stopped. fortunately it hasn't been an issue again so far today but i don't doubt it will resurface again which sucks.

since it's a lite, i can't just send in the controller and i don't really want to send in my device for repair (if i even can for free) because turnover time is said to be like 2-3 weeks, during which i obviously wouldn't be able to play, and i don't want to go third party in case they accidentally break my device or wipe my data. (which is also why i don't want to send it to nintendo themselves tbh.) £200 for a console they know is defective and barely lasted half a year is such trash.