No joy in a malfunctioning video game piece: Lawsuit

A mother and son team on Monday filed a lawsuit against Nintendo over long-reported problems with its popular Nintendo Switch controllers, Wired magazine reported.

Joy Cons, as the controllers are called, tend to “drift” in a way that sends characters in directions without the device’s being moved, according to the suit.  

The experience, as reported by Wired, is much like a “ghost” playing the game — an issue Nintendo has already apologized for and fixed for free. According to Monday’s suit, which piggybacks on similar “Joy-Con drift” suits, it hasn’t been enough.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in Northern California, by Luz Sanchez and her minor son, describes how Ms. Sanchez purchased a Nintendo Switch for her son in December 2018, when he was 8, and within a month the controllers began malfunctioning. A year later the same thing happened with replacement Joy Cons that she purchased, according to the article.

Her suit contends that Nintendo hasn’t done enough to fix the issue or warn customers about it upfront. “Defendant continues to market and sell the Products with full knowledge of the defect and without disclosing the Joy-Con Drift defect to consumers in its marketing, promotion, or packaging,” the complaint reads. “Defendant has had a financial motive to conceal the defect, as it did not want to stop selling the Products, and/or would need to expend a significant amount of money to cure the defect.”