© Nintendo LifeAfter more than 25,000 consumer complaints in countries such as France, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece, the European Consumer Association (BEUC) has called on Nintendo to properly investigate the Joy-Con drift (thanks, Eurogamer).
Acting as the EU’s joint consumer program, the BEUC has filed its own complaints with the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities across Europe, claiming that in most cases (in fact 88%) the Joy-Con deviation became apparent within the first two years of ownership. BEUC claims Nintendo is in violation of rules put in place to prevent “premature obsolescence and misleading omission of important consumer information”.
The organization is also asking Nintendo to repair all affected Joy-Con for free and to notify consumers that the controllers have a “limited life” due to the issue.
BEUC boss Monique Goyens said:
Consumers assume that the products they buy will last for an appropriate period of time according to legitimate expectations, and will not have to pay for expensive replacements due to a technical defect. Nintendo must now come up with the right solutions for the thousands of consumers affected by this problem.
More than one class action lawsuit has been filed against Nintendo on this topic, the most recent being from Canada. Previous lawsuits have been filed in France and the United States.
Nintendo has sent mixed messages on the matter; while President Shuntaro Furukawa apologized for the problem in June last year, US law firm Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith claimed in October that Nintendo did not consider it a “real problem.”