Random: Not All Joy-Con Are Created Equal

So, these are not good, buy the ones that are. Slow day on Twitter?

I mean... the ones that actually come with the Switch ‘should’ work with the console as well. Out of curiosity, I’m going to have a quick look at these. The d-pad ones are... intriguing!

What's the point of just showing them off? Test them!

"Some Joycons are more equal than the others."
G. Orwell

Then again Nintendo's own Joycon drifted in the wind, so that makes them all crap.

Cheap and nasty. Much beyond things where not much can go wrong like carry cases or cartridge holders and I always buy official merchandise.

@SmaggTheSmug Right? My thoughts exactly. Third party controllers have existed for decades and some of them are just as good as the originals (and in a rare instance, actually better). Is the author just claiming all of these are bad without testing them?

Looks fine to be, but then again the original ones are horrible for those of us with larger hands. Would love to get a pair with proper sticks and better grip, right now they are gathering dust and the pro controller is used for everything.

@Electric-Dreams Yeah, have fun buying the official screen protector. Apparently it's hot garbage and comes off dirty.

Licensed doesn't always mean good. After all, they license gear from PDP - formerly known as Pelican - which has a history of being god awful. It was rather "fun" getting saddled with the Pelican-made, GameStop branded controller with a junky right thumbstick for Halo 1v1 all the time.

Let's also not forget that Nintendo's very own Joy-Con have that nasty "drifting" problem.

This mantra used to hold true back when Nintendo's controllers didn't drift, disconnect, or randomly start sending inputs on their own. There is a motion controlled minigame that I've never been able to start because it has never been able to get past the calibration test.
These days you might as well take a punt on the competition.

Yeah, you may want to test at least some before disregarding all of them in one go. It's a little like saying you ordered a pizza from Dominoes and saying that there could be no better, when old Pizzadudes down the road may get some ingredients from somewhere else, but they might just be tastier ingredients.

Would love to see an actual hardware review of some of these third-party joy-cons. I have two pairs of official joy-cons - and am experiencing drift on at least three of them. Seriously considering third-party options for my next pair.

Surely they cant be less reliable than the real ones. Ive got 6 Ninty ones and they ALL have faults.

I beg to differ. Some of the 3rd party accessories match or surpass Official Joycons and controllers in quality or feel.
Hori makes damn near good dpad joycons for handheld use, and I'd argue the PowerA pro controller feels better than the official Pro Nintendo controller.

Also some of these fake joycons have clever tricks up their sleeves (like being able to charge via USB c cables rather than the Switch itself).
Don't discard all 3rd party joycons without testing them.

A very useless article. I thought you'd test every single one of them instead of just complaining about the controller designs. Lame clickbait as usual.

Thanks for the images, but have you not tested them? Not going to report on their functionality? Build quality?

Hmm, what's the point of this article?

I think the point is that they all look terrible, which they do.

Yes you have the disposable cheap knockoffs and the expensive drifting low-quality garbage too

NL is the biggest pile of garbage though

Its a dumb article(and im still pissed after you ripped grandia hd collection one fin crash in 45 hours does not = a bad game and grandia 1 let alone 2 is a classic but now youve learned something from this article) but i havent used my joy cons much since i got my pro controller

The see through one could be cool but the colored buttons ruin it. I've always been a fan of see through handhelds.

Are the "bad" ones $69 USD for a pair? Maybe there's something to that...

You asked for a D-PAD, the Chinese knock-off companies heard you

I just want something better than the fragile, drifty stock controllers!

I`ve got the fat ones ( 3-right-bottom) and the curved ones ( 5-right top) - they work like a charm, both are well maid. They are good alternative, when you incounter drifting problems in originals. Im happy to answer any questions.

I like seeing all these weird controllers. I haven't yet bought any, but I'll look at all the weird colored and shaped pro controllers on online shops and wonder how comfortable they are and how well or poorly they function. I do have I wired GameCube style controller that works well. I've also bought a wired PDP controller for it's turbo function, which I really like because you can make any button fire at 5 different speeds and you can make it do turbo fire automatically continuously, without even being held down. That can be nice because then I can try to play a game one handed. I want to get a 8 bitdo sn 30plus, the new programmable one that has a dpad in the spot where the analog stick is on Nintendo's pro controller. It sounds like a great controller as long as you don't get one that has loose buttons/d pad that rattle around if you shake the controller.

@AnnoyingFrenzy Not THAT terrible imho

I've just started thinking that I consider the Switch crap now, since all my Joy-Cons malfunction. I prefer consoles over PC gaming partly because of the convenience of controllers on consoles. Getting my controllers working with my PC can be fiddly. With the Switch, my controllers are hopeless. And with no free repairs in EU, my option would be to repair or buy new ones for €€€. With the most expensive (default) controllers maybe ever? On the paltform where even old games are sold at very high prices. The controllers that also have a disconnect issue and also creak. It's a disgrace. I'm very unhappy, free repairs might alleviate this a bit but the damage to the brand (at least in my eye) is already done.

@nintendolie id bet money none of these drift.

Those square ones look really weird and don't fit well

@SmaggTheSmug Yeah seriously, this "article" does no real research and just declares that all third party joycons are crap. They may well be crap, but without doing any testing and simply judging a book by it's cover, all that we're left with are some assumptions, which does not make for a reliable article at all.

The top left ones look decent to me, others not so much. But it's not about the looks as much is it about function. As everybody said already, why not test these? Sure they can't be expensive, buy 'em and give us poor mortals a fair review. Putting up pics about controllers just saying they're ugly is like looking at covers of books saying they look ugly. Yeah they might but what if they are good books with a great story?

I like how the ones in the first pic look (the green/yellow/black ones )

Perhaps actually use them. Here I'll do your job.

The curved joycon you can see at the top right are actually a very reasonable second pair option. Not only do they have vibration and motion controls but they are less than half the price of a single official joycon.

The analogue sticks aren't quite as comfortable as the official: opting for a more unusual concave surface however the analogues themselves seem just fine with zero drifting thus far.

Don't expect NFC or HD Rumble, but the old school rumble does the job. The interesting oval buttons require a little more pressure to use but are satisfyingly clicky and the shoulder buttons may actually be preferred to the original which sometimes felt awkward.

The final point, the shape for larger hands can feel more comfortable for longer play sessions.

Final verdict: for £15 shipped this pair of unofficial joycon may not quite match the official Nintendo ones but they do a great job for a fraction of the price and don't suffer the dreaded drift.

You're welcome.

I wonder if these Joy con drift

bet they do drift more..

I find no Joy in these "Joy Cons". Which is why I call them "Only Cons".

Ok, and...?
Everyone knows that third-party controllers have always been weird and don't control well, and you didn't event test the second part of this assessment. So what's the point of this article?

Here's an idea: Test them out first! Heck, I'd rather pay $30 for a "subpar" knockoff than $60 more for another pair of official joy cons. At least for right now, my cons are pretty good and don't act up.

Honestly all you've done with this article is make me want those neon-edge arcadey looking ones.

This site’s content is getting more and more baffling as time passes.
It should be enough to take a look at the puzzled comments users leave to get that, but I already know some apologist will come out and point out the “Random” tag.
“Random” is for random, marginally related stuff, not for incomplete crap like this. It’s embarrassing that a news outlet put this out, as it in no way is news, nor a review; just a big pile of nothing, which seems to be becoming the standard around here.

@premko1 It's subjective, to me and I assume the artist they all look pretty bad from an aesthetic standpoint. Tbf though, I don't think normal joycons look that great either.

Id buy the first one if it worked flawlessly. I dont know why, maybe its the colours;)?

The truth is, I usually only prefer to do first-party hardware and the occasional stray third-party hardware when it comes to controllers. But with this drift issue, I wish there were some officially licensed 3rd party Joy con controllers. I would have nothing to lose, because they may use different parts to get around the drifting issue. But at this rate, it's only a matter of time before I give in and buy a new set of Joy cons that will probably have a soft revision. I still really don't want to send in my stock joycons but at least I can play on the dock. I just have to figure out which days I want to sacrifice being able to play my switch portable so I can send them in...

I tried to like them, but, I just don't think Nintendo put out very good controllers this time around. The joycon are too small for my hands and awkward when playing Mario Maker 2, and the Pro controller looks and mostly feels great but it's reading incorrect inputs on the d-pad making certain moves in Super Mario Maker 2 impossible (namely the long jump in 3d world). I'm just glad there's other controller options you can use with the Switch.

@clvr : They jumped on the BS bandwagon when somebody decided to spread the lie that Nintendo were offering free Switch upgrades to the new model.

They eventually amended the article (without publicising it) but the damage is done. One platform spreads misinformation and the rest fall like dominoes without doing any research of their own. Hell, they hadn't even amended the article's title, and it will continue to appear that way in search results elsewhere. -.-

@Silly_G yeah, unfortunately this site is nothing but the hollow husk of what it once was, it’s embarrassing.
I hope Thomas doesn’t visit it anymore, otherwise he might have a stroke 😅

Is there a video where the writer of this article actually tested these things before writing about how bad they are? Just curious.
Its the same as when i walk past a restaurant and say without even tasted their food that their food suckks.

I had third party wiiU pro controllers and never had any issue with them almost the same as the original.

Funny part is that the knockoff joycons probably lasts ages before drifting starts unlike the authentic ones from Nintendo.

Knowing that Nintendo will fix their joy cons for free (I’ve had them fix some for me), I’ll stick with the Nintendo branded stuff. Hori’s left-con with a d-pad is also a good piece of hardware and I’m interested in their Daemon X Machina controllers that seem like they might be the most comfortable handheld option.

I've used unofficial gamepads for the GameCube and the Wii and I can't honestly say they were any worse than the native ones.

Sure, Joy-Cons are a more complex piece of tech, but just dismissing stuff out of hand because it's not first-party feels kinda... Dumb?

So howzabout you actually review them, including on a bang-for-the-buck scale since a few of these cost as little as $15 on AliExpress? Perhaps there is a diamond in the rough hiding out there among all the "here, have a D-pad" sets?

They are all winners if they don't drift!!