After four years on the market, the Nintendo Switch is still plagued by joy-con drift. This malfunction makes controllers for the switch nearly unusable and can happen in only a few months of playtime. Despite apologies and promises to fix broken controllers, the core issue of joy-con drift is still present in any controller on the market. This ongoing problem is only becoming more frustrating for fans now that the Switch OLED has been announced and is still using the same core design for its’ joy-cons, meaning that it too will deal with joy-con drift.
Luckily, YouTuber Victorstk seems to have a solution. In his video, Victorstk (otherwise known as VK) explains what is happening to the hardware to cause joy-con drift. Apparently, the metal casing holding the stick of the controller in place wears down rapidly, loosening the stick and making it harder to make contact with the pads within the controller that actually read the player’s inputs. VK’s proposed fix is to take the controller apart and place a 1mm piece of paper or cardstock in a specific place inside the joy-con itself, which allegedly makes up for the loose control stick to tighten up the connections within. This technique is far less complicated than it sounds on paper and is far faster than sending the joy-con in to Nintendo or replacing the entire stick. Based on the video, this solution seems to work great and, as VK notes, offers a far more permanent solution than other DIY fixes. According to VK, after this fix both of his broken controllers worked great! Keep in mind that it’s probably best to take this all with a grain of salt, as videos like this one might not work or be equally as convenient for every specific case.
VK also explains how Nintendo could fix the joy-con solution entirely by adding a screw to hold the input sensing plates against the stick itself, preventing it from loosening and failing to read player input. Maybe this simple fix could be all that stands between switch owners and working controllers, but it’s impossible to say for sure. You can watch VK’s full video below.