The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) in France has slapped a €35 million fine on Nintendo for the Joy-Con drift issues that continue to plague users on the Switch after an investigation found that "Nintendo of Europe had committed a misleading commercial practice from 2018 to 2023."
Thumbsticks on Joy-Con controllers drifting until the point they are unusable is an issue that seemingly every Nintendo Switch owner has had to contend with at one point or another, if not multiple times. Despite the issue being widespread from the beginning, Nintendo didn't issue a formal apology until 2020, three years after the Switch 1 launched in 2017.
Multiple class-action lawsuits regarding Joy-Con drift have been brought against the company over the years, and though it did eventually start selling Joy-Cons individually (rather than forcing players to buy a pair) and eventually offered free repairs for consumers in Europe, those responses were too delayed for the DGCCRF.
First reported by Le Monde, the investigation found that Nintendo knew about the drift issues with Joy-Cons well before the issues were publicly communicated, and that its response "constituted the offense of misleading commercial practice which altered economic behavior of consumers."
Nintendo, for its part, denied that it "intentionally misled consumers" and that agreeing to pay the fine did "not constitute an admission of guilt and reflects only the amicable resolution of legal proceedings," in a statement given to Le Monde.
It's the latest development in what has been a story that has followed the first Switch and will likely continue to so long as they are being made. Now, as we're officially a year into the life of the Nintendo Switch 2, it'll be interesting to see how Nintendo responds if/when we start seeing the issue crop up for Switch 2 owners, especially as the console is about to get more expensive in the coming months.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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