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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Is Joy Con Drift Nintendo's Biggest Hardware Reliabilty Issue?

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Jumpin on 25 July 2019

Not at all. It's an easily fixable issue with some alcohol, a cotton swab, and about 5-10 minutes of cleaning.

As people have mentioned:

* SNES oxidation (Not sure what this is about, but something did happen to my SNES where the switches became very tight to move until they no longer functioned)

* N64 analog stick disintegration leading to powdery white gunk looseness and unresponsiveness - went through about a dozen N64 controllers as a result of this; and while I did fix a few, usually I broke the controller permanently (because the fix is invasive) and others fixed did not function the same as they used to.

* NES cartridges having lots of trouble connecting to the system (this is why people think blowing on them helps).

* NES and some SNES save capability permanently breaking (not one of my old NES games can save anymore, they stopped doing so over 20 years ago)

And let's not forget this shit:

Floppy 3DS top screen

The bottom of the 3DS biting into the top screen.

The whole idea that Nintendo's hardware is some kind of sacred durable and high-quality perfection is frankly: BULLSHIT. Nintendo has had issues on nearly every console and handheld they've ever released.

Last edited by Jumpin - on 25 July 2019

I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

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Jumpin on 26 July 2019
NightlyPoe said:
BraLoD said:

Sadly is not a misusage problem, it's a design problem.

The internal part of the stick rubs itself against the piece that's holding it, making it get weared, which makes it start to get loose, mostly making it move alone and not making it go back in place after it's released.

I have one controller that was not used that much and is only a bit loose, but the other was simply unplayable, which now has a GameCube stick changed into it and works great.

Yeah, I'm aware of the design flaw.  I just suspect think it's not as bad as people make it out to be.

I knew plenty of people at the time with N64s and never had anyone complain about the stick not working.  I don't even recall internet complaints about it until well after the system and controller had been retired.  Again, mine work just fine to this day and I played the N64 more than any other console since.  If it's a design flaw and not misuse, then it's pretty curious that mine wouldn't wear down like everyone else's supposedly did after thousands of hours worth of heavy use from a teenager.

It's not as though friction causing wear is the sort of hardware failure you could just get lucky about dodging.

Really? It was an extremely widespread issue, and plenty of people were talking about it during the GE007/Mario Kart 64 fanbase, and especially with Mario Party since that game would wear out controllers in literally weeks if not days.

Gretzky Hockey was probably the first game that wore out controllers very quickly. I have several N64 controllers still (of those that I didn't break while fixing) and they all have loose sticks.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Trunkin on 26 July 2019

Rubbed the rubber off of every gamecube controller I ever had, and they all developed stick drift too. I just figured the combination of hours upon hours of Smash Melee plus MK double Dash's drift boost mechanic were just too much for any controller to handle. That's why I hardly use my joycons or pro controller for Smash Ultimate today. Smash ruins controllers... and lives.