Nintendo Hit With €35 Million Fine in France Over Joy-Con Drift
Nintendo of Europe has agreed to pay a hefty €35 million fine in France after a government investigation revealed the gaming giant kept quiet about widespread defects in its Switch controllers.
The fine comes from France’s consumer rights watchdog, the General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF). According to the regulator, Nintendo committed deceptive business practices by withholding information about their notorious Joy-Con drift issue. Investigators found that the company knew about these technical flaws as early as 2018 but hid them from the public until 2020.
Because of this prolonged silence, many frustrated gamers simply went out and purchased expensive replacement controllers out of pocket, unaware that the hardware itself was inherently flawed. The watchdog noted that this lack of transparency ultimately boosted Nintendo's corporate profits.
Joy-Con drift is a well-documented glitch where the Switch's thumbsticks register movement even when a player isn't touching them. The hardware defect is incredibly widespread:
- The issue is believed to have hit nearly half of the console's 155 million global user base.
- The UK consumer group Which reported that more than 40% of original Switch controllers suffered from the defect.
- Testing by Which highlighted a fundamental design flaw where the plastic circuit boards inside the controllers show intense wear on the slider contacts after just a few months of normal gameplay.
The official French investigation originally kicked off back in 2020 following a formal complaint from the consumer group UFC-Que Choisir. The organization had raised alarms about potential "planned obsolescence", a practice where companies deliberately make products with a restricted lifespan. They pointed out that even when Nintendo rolled out subtle manufacturing updates, the underlying defect kept happening.
On top of the millions in fines, Nintendo is facing a highly embarrassing public punishment. The company is being forced to display a formal notice confessing to deceptive business practices directly on the homepage of its official French website.
While the gaming giant has been offering free hardware repairs for impacted buyers since 2019, its legal team has been fighting these battles globally for years. A major class-action lawsuit filed in the US over the drift issue was ultimately dismissed in 2024.
Despite accepting the multi-million euro settlement in France, the Mario maker is refusing to take the blame. In an official corporate statement, Nintendo of Europe clarified that it did not "intentionally mislead consumers" and added that the payout does "not constitute an admission of guilt and reflects only the amicable resolution of legal proceedings."
