Topic: Joy-con, could go from worst Nintendo controller to their best.

This is perspective of someone who went through five sets of joy-con in less than three years due to stick drift. In addition to that, the rails for the joy-con would eventually wear out, leading to the joy-con slipping out of a locked position and disconnecting from the console, even though they're attached. The joy-con are easily Nintendo's worst controller. And I used to own a Virtual Boy.

But I think the change in the analog stick mechanism and changing the connection method to the console from a rail system to a magnetic system...combined are going to change my perspective of this controller design. I am genuinely excited to find out.

Just here to dispute the central tenet of this thread. Joy cons are very good in my experience, and either my joint favourite, or second favourite controllers. So there 😋

N64 are my least favourite.

@gcunit To be fair, Sony doesn't make a good controller either.

The controller that came with the PS5 Slim I bought in late 2024 didn't even last ten months, lol.

Here's hoping the Hall Effect mechanism restores my faith in the joy-con.

I've had two Joy-Con sets experience drift, the original grey pair that came with my launch unit, and a Neon Red/Blue pair bought separately to replace that. The grey pair became dedicated Ring Fit Joy-Cons after that since drift doesn't impact them much.
Playing Animal Crossing New Horizons with drift is the worst, the game sets the smallest possible deadzone for the analogue sticks so even the faintest input is detected.

I later bought a pair of custom shelled Joy-Cons from GameTraderZero on Etsy; transparent atomic purple with SNES-color face buttons, and an actual d-pad on the left Joy-Con.
Exactly the same as the Switch you often see in some Nintendo Life articles, Damien McFarren's own I believe.
Those ones have been perfect and never developed drift, which was just luck since they don't do anything special to prevent it. It's more likely that the analogue stick parts being manufactured just improved with time.

The new sticks definitely look a lot better but I'm looking forward to confirmation if they're hall effect or not.
My first controller with hall effect was an updated version of 8bitdo's SN30 Pro 2, still my favourite controller for Switch and PC in general (and I really hope it can connect to Switch 2).

On the subject of durability, I'm hoping that the launch units of Switch 2 hold up well.
The cooling fan on my launch Switch did not and it got very noisy, and eventually stopped working and would lead to the system overheating and shutting off for safety. I had to send the system in for Nintendo to service, thankfully free of charge.

I finally this past week changed my on my Splatoon and TOTK that recently unpacked to put glass HD on so now both are Hall Effect stick and with Cruisineer she doesn't keep running left. Now we know Switch 2 has Hall Effect that will stave off drifts until the stick themselves wear out. And changing your Joy-Con sitck - people have video online to do so and they don't cost much to buy so that isn't a had endure to do. Just take some time to change them and you'll know it's a job well done and no more drifts with the older stick rubbing out.