Although Nintendo has long been known for attracting kids, it was reluctantly embroiled in a class-action lawsuit over its notorious Joy-Con joystick drift issue. It is reported that after using it for a period of time, it is difficult for the handle of the Switch game console to avoid the problem of automatically drifting in a certain direction.
Interestingly, according to Axios, two mothers who bought Nintendo Switches for their children played a key role in the pre-2019/2020 class-action lawsuit before it was submitted to this stage of arbitration.
As a company that has been ridiculed by many for having the “strongest legal department in the Eastern Hemisphere”, Nintendo has experienced defeat in the United States.
If agents were not allowed to file a lawsuit against the Japanese gaming giant in the names of the two children, Nintendo might not have been so blunt in offering a rare follow-up apology and promise of free repairs.
One hurdle for plaintiffs at the time was when Switch owners were prompted to digitally agree to what’s known as an “End User License Agreement” (EULA), which included a waiver of any form of class action recourse.
However, the lawyer pointed out that only adults over the age of 18 have the obligation to accept and fulfill the EULA agreement. In the end, the parents in the Sanchez case said their children should not be bound by the EULA agreement and wanted to sue Nintendo on their children’s behalf as guardians.
Even so, Nintendo argues that the child was not the actual buyer of the Switch console, and the Joy-Con did no significant material harm to it. The latest news is that the case will be submitted to a federal judge in California today. At the same time that Nintendo was involved in a class-action lawsuit due to joystick drift, console players from Microsoft and Sony also encountered the same problem.