JoyCon
Image: Nintendo Life

The ongoing class-action lawsuit concerning alleged Joy-Con drift issues will go to arbitration, it has been confirmed.

According to Law360 (thanks, VGC), US District Judge Thomas S. Zilly has allowed the case to enter arbitration, finding that Nintendo and console buyers had a "valid" agreement. Despite this, the same judge also rejected Nintendo's request to dismiss the case altogether.

The case was first filed back in July 2019; the lawsuit alleges that "the joysticks on Joy-Con controllers are defective, leading users to experience drift issues". A few months later, following its launch, the Nintendo Switch Lite was also added to the lawsuit as user reports of drift with the new console also started to emerge.

In November, Nintendo commented on the Joy-Con drift issue in a statement to The Verge, saying that if players aren't having "a great experience" with its products, they should "contact our customer support groups and we’ll do our best to help them through that."

[source law360.com, via videogameschronicle.com]