Nintendo Joy-Con
Image: Nintendo Life

Updated with Nintendo UK's official statement at the bottom of the page.

Nintendo will now offer free repairs of faulty Joy-Con to Switch owners in the UK, European Economic Area, and Switzerland.

This is according to an update to the company's support page on its UK site (which appears to be reflected on other official sites across affected territories), which labels the now-infamous 'Joy-Con drift' as "responsiveness syndrome or so-called 'drifting'".

This change brings the company's policy in line with various other regions, including North America, Latin America, and France. The new policy also covers the same issues with Switch Lite.

Here is exactly what is stated on the Nintendo UK support page:

Until further notice, Nintendo will not charge you in the European Economic Area (EEA), UK and Switzerland for the repair of the responsiveness syndrome irrespective of whether this is caused by a defect or by wear and tear.

Nintendo takes great pride in creating high-quality and durable products and is continuously making improvements to them. Therefore and until further notice, Nintendo offers to consumers who purchased the respective product in the EEA, UK and Switzerland that repairs for responsiveness syndrome relating to control sticks will be conducted at no charge by official Nintendo repair centres. This applies even if the syndrome is caused by wear and tear and even if the 24-month manufacturer’s warranty provided by Nintendo has expired. The manufacturer's warranty does not affect any statutory rights which you may have under consumer protection legislation as the purchaser of goods. The benefits described here are in addition to those rights.

Nintendo notes that it reserves the right to refuse free repairs if it judges the fault to come from unofficial modification or a cause unrelated to the stick defect. However, assuming you are suffering from your common-or-garden Joy-Con drift, Switch owners in the territories above can now get them repaired free of charge.

The company has encountered criticism since early in the Switch's lifecycle concerning this widespread controller issue. Joy-Con drift is caused by wear to the mechanism in the analogue sticks which can cause false inputs to register, making gameplay frustrating at best and impossible at worst.

Nintendo has faced various legal challenges in different territories over the defect and instigated a policy in some regions whereby drifting Joy-Con would be repaired for free regardless of their warranty status. Increased pressure from consumer groups and the European Union to address the widespread issue has mounted, but until now Switch owners in the UK and Europe (outside France) have been unable to send their controllers for free repairs once the warranty period has expired.

Nintendo has previously said that wear of the analogue stick is "unavoidable", with hardware developers from the company comparing the mechanism to how car tires wear over time. A report from a former repairs supervisor in the US called the volume of Joy-Con controllers arriving for repair "very stressful".

We reached out to Nintendo UK for comment on this policy change and were provided with an official statement that largely reproduces the text from the support page, with added support links. Full text reproduced below:

Nintendo takes great pride in creating high quality and durable products and we are continuously making improvements to them.

Therefore and until further notice, Nintendo offers to consumers who purchased Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers in the European Economic Area (EEA), UK and Switzerland that the repair of a responsiveness syndrome of the analogue stick will be conducted at no charge by Nintendo official repair centres. This applies even if the syndrome is caused by wear and tear and even if the 24-month manufacturer’s warranty provided by Nintendo has expired. For more information please visit dedicated article on Nintendo website: Joy-Con Control Sticks Are Not Responding or Respond Incorrectly (responsiveness syndrome or so-called “drifting”).

The manufacturer’s warranty does not affect any statutory rights which consumers may have under consumer protection legislation as the purchaser of goods. The benefits described are in addition to those rights.

If consumers have any issues, we always encourage them to visit https://support.nintendo.com/ so we can help in resolving, openly and leniently, any issues they may be having.

Are you a resident in any of the above countries who will be taking advantage of this policy change? Let us know below.