Credit: Nintendo Life

Shuntaro Furukawa formally apologized for drifting in Joy-Cons.

If you own a Nintendo Switch and haven’t experienced any problems with the Joy-Con’s joysticks, then congratulations, you’re one of the lucky ones. Unfortunately, there are quite a few unlucky ones out there; for over a year now, Switch users have been reporting “drift” in their joysticks, which basically means the controller is registering movement from the stick even when it’s sitting completely still. As someone who once played through an entire game while trying to corral my character into a corner so they wouldn’t drift out of a room during a cutscene, I can speak to how unbelievably annoying stick drift is. Nintendo has been quietly enduring the controversy for a while now, but it seems the time has finally come for someone to take the hit.

Nintendo’s current president Shuntaro Furukawa offered a formal apology on the matter of Joy-Con drift, which was translated by Kotaku. “Regarding the Joy-Con, we apologize for any trouble caused to our customers,” Furukawa said. “We are continuing to aim to improve our products, but as the Joy-Con is the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the United States and this is still a pending issue, we would it like to refrain from responding about any specific actions.” Furukawa added that Nintendo, as a whole, apologizes for “any trouble caused to our customers,” and noted that they are “continuing to aim to improve” their products.

Credit: Scott Stein/CNET

As for the lawsuit Furukawa mentioned, the case against Nintendo for selling faulty products that was built in July of last year is still going strong. Not too long after the lawsuit was first filed, Nintendo began offering free repairs for any controllers afflicted with drift. This assuaged some concerns, but when the Switch Lite was released in September, it was discovered that its sticks had drift problems as well, prompting it to be added to the lawsuit. Nintendo expanded their repair offer to Switch Lites, but since the Lite’s Joy-Cons are built into the system, repair would require someone to give up their entire console for an unspecified period to get it fixed, which many owners were understandably not on board with.