Switch Joy-Con
Image: Nintendo Life

Following more than 25,000 complaints from consumers in countries such as France, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has called for Nintendo to properly investigate Joy-Con drift (thanks, Eurogamer).

Acting as the EU's joint consumer programme, the BEUC has submitted its own complaints to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities throughout Europe, claiming that in most cases (88%, in fact), Joy-Con drift became apparent within the first two years of ownership. The BEUC claims that Nintendo is breaking rules which are in place to prevent "premature obsolescence and misleading omissions of key consumer information".

The organisation is also asking Nintendo to repair all impacted Joy-Con for free and to inform consumers that the controllers have a "limited lifespan" thanks to the problem.

BEUC boss Monique Goyens said:

Consumers assume the products they buy to last an appropriate amount of time according to justified expectations, not to have to pay for expensive replacements due to a technical defect. Nintendo must now come up with proper solutions for the thousands of consumers affected by this problem.

More than one class-action suit has been filed against Nintendo on this topic, the most recent coming from Canada. Previous suits have been filed in France and the United States.

Nintendo has sent out mixed messages regarding the issue; while president Shuntaro Furukawa apologised for the problem in June of last year, US law firm Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith claimed in October that Nintendo didn't consider it to be a "real problem".

[source eurogamer.net]