- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.ml
One of the biggest issues that’s plagued the Nintendo Switch since its launch in 2017 is stick drift. In fact, Nintendo faced several lawsuits as a result of the issue, with an ex-repair supervisor previously stating that the workload to fix drifting Joy-Con was “very stressful”.
Now, while we can acknowledge that Nintendo has undoubtedly been working hard behind the scenes to mitigate the issue for the upcoming Switch 2, we’re nevertheless disheartened to confirm that the Joy-Con 2’s joysticks will not be Hall Effect.
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The fact that they dodged questions of durability and did nothing to reassure says that they’re probably identical and Nintendo just enjoys the revenue it gets from people buying more joycons.
Just FYI, getting them repaired is 100% free. It was their part of a class action lawsuit. You make a report, print out the label, ship it and wait.
This doesn’t hold true for every country though. So a lot of people are better off buying some third party controller or not giving any money to Nintendo at all.
That’s fair. I forget about my US centric mindset at times.
Just for reference in case someone needs it, Nintendo is “offering” free joycon replacements in North and South America, most of Europe (EU+EFTA+UK), Australia, and New Zealand.
I couldn’t get in contact with Nintendo in Mexico, I ended up buying those AliExpress repair kits and did it myself after several frustrating hours.
Can confirm I did it like 3 times before I just started installing 3rd party Hall effect switches.
The bitch of it is waiting for them to get back or spending $80 on a backup pair while you wait.
At least the joycons were easier to open and work on than the xbox and PlayStation controllers I’ve opened up. The sticks are diy replaceable, but I wouldn’t recommend a shell swap unless you have really steady hands.
They raised prices a ton, and they didn’t even switch to the better sensor type that would fix such a persistent issue? Why?
They decided to use joycons to nickel and dime their customers.
same company that made a system that could always wirelessly pair with bluetooth headsets/ear buds but didn’t enable that function for 4 YEARS then randomly dropped a software update activating that feature. That will always blow my mind.
Enabling that BT connection was a mistake that Nintendo made under pressure tbh. Switch doesn’t support low latency audio of any sort so that feature is useless imo.
I’ve used it in car rides and its not that bad. its not amazing, but better than no sound.
I’d rather buy $5 headphones at a train station shop than to use BT but I envy people less sensitive to latency because I did that and those headphones sucked XD
Didn’t enabling audio mean you couldn’t have 4 players connected while in use, though? But, if you’re using headphones you probably don’t have more than one player anyway.
Nintendo hates their customers and fans. Or at the very least view them with disdain and contempt.
I thought this was universally known and accepted?
Nope, have a goofy mouse mode that will be used in exactly 4 games.
The goofy mouse mode is honestly the only thing about the Switch 2 that reminds me of the old Nintendo, adding new input methods to new hardware. Even if it has limited support, it will be a very good thing for certain experiences like shooters, strategy games, Pikmin, and Mario Maker.
Because they’re a shit company
Revenue stream
Console gaming is nuts to me, just a bottomless money pit
Exactly, People could use all that money and just get a computer
That’s what I did around 2012 and ditched consoles ever since and have no regrets. Gaming on a PC is just so much better in every fucking way
You spend 2k on the PC instead of 600 for the console, but you save all that by then not having to pay double for internet, 90 bucks for a game and whatever much the licenced peripherals cost
At the time I bought my Xbox Series X, an equivalent PC cost 3 times more in my country (India). Sure, i get the pros of owning a PC. But if you’re someone like me who doesn’t play more than 3-4 games (and almost always story driven single player ones) in a year and already has a laptop for work/personal use, buying a PC is just dumb.
The only people who should be buying a PC imo are
- Those who will use the powerful compute for purposes other than just gaming
- Those who buy a ton of games as games are typically cheaper on PC and they might end up spending less in the PC ecosystem despite the significant upfront costs
- People who want the best performance and have the money to spare.
Fuck Nintendo though. I will never buy anything they sell
FWIW, Hall Effect isn’t the only way to prevent drift, they could be using some other tech.
But they really gotta clarify what they are doing about it then.
And also the joycon already has strong magnets inside of it that would probably intefere with hall effect sticks. It’s not a silver bullet.
That’s like saying earths magnetic field can mess up the sensors.
The Hall effect sensor could be calibrated to ignore the magnets holding the joycons. They’re stationary magnets so they could literally just calculate their effect on the Hall effect sensor
Joycon doesn’t have magnets the switch itself does. Although when docked with the switch it probably would interfere. I have to imagine there’s a way to program against that if there’s a consistent magnetic source.
I worked at a company that relied on magnetometers (digital compass) and used strong magnets as well to attach the product to existing infrastructure. All we needed to do was calibrate the sensors with that magnetic field and we got very accurate results. We even had a method for users to do this in the field if something in their environment changed, our method was a lot more precise (we had a motorized, standard rig to do the rotations), but you can get really good results just by following some simple directions.
I highly doubt it would be an issue here. Worst case scenario, fall back to a relatively user-friendly calibration process. The main goal is to get the device to rotate in all axes, and slowly enough to get a reading for a range of angles. The process wouldn’t be that different than those fingerprint sensor things, but with rotation instead of touching a sensor. They do something similar already with the Ring Fit calibration, so I don’t think it would be a deal-breaker.
If the magents are in the handheld it would mean that they would need to be recalibrated every time the joycons are taken off right? Thatcwould be terrible in a consumer product if I’m understanding correctly.
No, it can detect when it’s connected, so it would just switch to the other calibration factors.
I don’t know why i didn’t think of that. Was kinda trying to figure out why not use them when they aren’t that much more expensive considering how expensive the new joycons will probably be.
The cynic in me says, “so they can sell more replacements,” but there could be a technical reason that I’m not aware of. I’m not familiar with the technical details of hall effect sticks, so I could very well be missing some downsides.
Ah, so that’s why joycons attach magnetically this time! /s
The pentiometer joysticks were fine, its just manufacturers all cheaped out and produce inferior ones now. Its a win win for them, cheaper to produce and you buy more when they break! Same damn thing happened with mouse buttons.
Yeah I am done with the Mario console.
Yeah you should switch to PS because their controller has hall effect sticks.
Wait, no they don’t either. Neither does Xbox.
Do those consoles have a history of drifting sticks across all their first party controllers?
Yes. Pretty much every single PS or Xbox controller I’ve ever owned has developed stick drift. I’ve had 3 Elite 1/2 controller replacements and each of them had stick drift (among other faults).
The Xbox ones constantly have issues, even their pro line.
It is nowhere near to as well known and in my circles Xbox controllers are referred to as the ones that never die or break instantly which is a very different issue.
I have a PS5 and have had to repair at least one stick per year on a pair of controllers.
Did you know someone made an online tool for calibrating the sticks for dualshock controllers?
It saves the config on the controller too so it stays when you go back to the PS5.Just as an option to replacing the sticks again.
You can’t just “calibrate” stick drift away. You can increase the deadzone to hide it, but you lose some control precision and it doesn’t stop the stick drift from getting worse.
Sure. That doesn’t change that’s the name of the tools to everyone else, as steam, Xbox, windows and playstation call it calibrating even if it’s technically not.
Thank you if you were just trying to provide more context for others but it doesn’t feel like that. It’s a temp fix and information I was offering.
Nintendo really is the Apple of gaming.
Maybe if Apple sued the pants off all their biggest fans…
looks at the fan game and emulator makers big Nin has sued
I’m no fan of Apple, but Nintendo is worse.
That’s fucking stupid
Buy more 100 joy cons
I think that tunnel magneto-resistance (TMR) are more favored for 3rd-party sticks. They’ve significant advantages over Hall Effect sensors in latency, power consumption, and, apparently, resolution. Plus, they operate on more similar electrical principles to the traditional pot-based sticks, so, they require less effort to design around.
The worst thing about the switch is the pricing of their games, stick drift and the lack of frames. Glad they improved… One thing?
Not surprised, NintenDON’T is all about pure profit now. One can feel the uninspired releases stemming from the Switch/Switch 2 in terms of quality and care. The 3DS, Wii U was their last good releases.
The Wii U doesn’t get love but it sure was interesting and an upgrade beyond just resolution.
The 3DS line was inspired. Practically a smartphone in an era where they weren’t yet everywhere.The Wii U was the real Switch 1
Yup you are correct! If only Nintendo got the advertising right, the Wii U would of been a lot more successful despite it being under powered. At least it was innovative with great games, features and unique technology to match! Not to mention (Free) backwards compatibility. Same goes for the 3DS!
NintenDON’T’s/ Industry (GREED) is the same reasons why Retro gaming is making a comeback!!!
The Wii U library has some real gems that were ported to the Switch.
Nintendo filed that patent about joysticks that wouldn’t get drift, like Hall Effect, but some other tech without magnets (IIRC), I was hoping we may see it in Switch 2. Seems like either it wasn’t ready yet, or it was just one of the random patents companies regularly file.
They will wait a few months and then sell the premium joycons at twice the price of regular joycons.
Even that will be cheaper than buying 3 sets of JoyCon, so don’t keep your hopes up.
Well… To be fair, I have a switch for me and a switch for my wife that we played daily animal crossing on for years besides our other games and never had a tracking issue, or any other issue, on either one, so it isn’t an inevitable failure. But it does give me anxiety expecting it to happen at any time.
Another reason why the emulation experience is so much better.
None of the big 3 console manufacturers use hall effect sticks because they need people to buy controllers regularly to keep their business afloat.
This is why Sega needs to come back. They had Hall effect sticks on the Saturn and Dreamcast.
Maybe they’re not in the business because they used Hall effect sticks 🤔
I’m being cheeky. I really just mean it’s an old technology that anyone could use and doesn’t.
If you want a real answer. Sega died because of the conflict between its American branch that was pushing the 32x (putting the genesis on life support when 5th Gen consoles like the 3DO were already releasing) and the Japanese parent that botched the Saturns release. ($100 more than the ps1, and retailers weren’t told about the initial exclusivity with KB toys so other retailers didn’t order any.) The Saturn was also hard to develop for and the Dreamcast had no piracy protections when it finally did release.
Basically a series of bad internal communication and multiple failures to keep up with consumer and retailer expectations and demands. They still made some of the best hardware of all time. The Dreamcast is a near perfect console the only gripe anyone has now is that the controller isn’t particularly comfortable.
A side note. The Xbox brand is the spiritual successor to Sega. The developers of the OG Xbox took a lot of design inspiration from the Dreamcast and helped to implement a windows compatibility layer for the Dreamcast before the Xbox was in development. Xbox also targets the same demographic of sports gamers and middle/high school boys.
Thank you for making the effort to write this down. My comment was obviously cheeky too although younglings might appreciate the history lesson :)
I bought aftermarket joy con hal effect sticks. One drift and the new one are switched out.
So much for all the “leakers” claiming otherwise.
