The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has called for an investigation into Nintendo due to the Joy-Con drift issues.
The investigation will span across the whole of Europe after the organisation received over 25,000 complaints in regards to Nintendo’s controllers.
Therefore, BEUC has passed along its own complaints to the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities. It cited premature obsolescence and misleading omissions of key consumer information on the basis of the EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive,” as the reason why.
Complaints have been seen across the continent, namely in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece. However, all nine of these countries first banded together to investigate the Joy-Con issues last month.
Moreover, according to 88 per cent of those who complained, issues arose with their Joy-Cons within the first two years of purchase.
Drift apart
“Consumers assume the products they buy to last an appropriate amount of time according to justified expectations, not to have to pay for expensive replacements due to a technical defect,” said BEUC director general Monique Goyens.
“Nintendo must now come up with proper solutions for the thousands of consumers affected by this problem.
“It’s high time for companies to stop putting products onto the market that break too early. Creating unnecessary electronic waste completely goes against the objectives of the European Green Deal.
“To help combat this problem and to help consumers make the right purchase decision, manufacturers should be obliged to provide pre-purchase information on product durability to help consumers make both more informed and more sustainable choices.”
No joy
The Japanese games giant has faced several lawsuits over the past couple of years, all of which have been due to issues with the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers.
A new suit was recently filed in Canada, with Montréal-based law firm Lambert Avocat Inc behind the recent filing.
However, Nintendo was first slapped with a class-action lawsuit in 2019. Since then, other people have come forward with complaints of their own. In October 2020, a mother and son duo decided to sue the company.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has claimed that the issues consumers seem to have with its product are not “a real problem.”
