How A Child Sued Nintendo

big companies whether they make video games or not have a tendency to get sued sometimes these are frivolous lawsuits courtesy of weirdos sometimes they're class actions when a company gets it wrong in a major way and sometimes a child and his mother sue nintendo over joy con drift you heard that right a mother and a young child sued nintendo because of their total inability to adequately address the biggest hardware problem in games since the xbox 360's red ring of death joycon drift while nintendo has to some extent acknowledged the issue and taken steps to address it it hasn't been enough today we're going to take a look at how and why a child sued nintendo over the controllers on their switch console and we're going to examine the joy-con drift issue and why it's still a major problem today if you haven't heard the phrase joy-con drift before don't worry the situation isn't great but it isn't all that complicated either since the launch of the original nintendo switch in 2017 and through all the refreshes of the mainline switch console joycon drift has plagued switch owners in short over time switch owners report that the analog sticks on their joy cons randomly input commands to the console even when they're not being physically moved around this problem tends to affect left joy-con controllers which are traditionally used for movement more so than right joy-con controllers but the problem is pervasive many switch owners report drifting issues on both joy cons and even on replacement joy-cons as well however there are not exact reports and exact numbers for users experiencing joy-con drift issues in comparison with how many switches have been sold because many users don't report or notice issues and many others never experience issues whatsoever without a clear understanding of the problem and little clarity given from nintendo's end joy-con drift is a murky issue it's hard to tell exactly how serious it actually is and which is partly by design no doubt either way considering the expense of joycon controllers the awkward slow nature of repairs during a pandemic and nintendo's relative silence on the issue regardless of how many switch users are actually impacted by the issue it's safe to say joy-con drift has evolved from problem into controversy accordingly it's not hard to see how these kinds of issues can lead to lawsuits and considering the target audience of nintendo products any hardware defect is liable to just hurt frustrate and disappoint children so how do joycons the nintendo switch and controller drift hardware problems relate to a kid suing nintendo in october of 2020 a class-action lawsuit against nintendo was filed in northern california by a woman named liz sanchez alongside her young son the complaint described how sanchez had purchased her son a switch in december of 2018 but that within a month the controllers began drifting less than a year later sanchez claims the joy-con drift had become so pronounced the console wasn't usable anymore so sanchez purchased another set of joy-cons for her son unfortunately a mere seven months later these replacement joy-cons had also experienced drift sanchez argues that a product with a major defect that undoubtedly affects its value should have had that defect be communicated to prospective buyers before going up for sale sanchez is asking for five thousand dollars in damages and both sanchez's lawyers and nintendo's lawyers have thus far declined to comment on the suit looking ahead it's unclear where this lawsuit will go exactly and whether or not sanchez will actually win and be awarded anything but independent of the outcome of the suit itself a kid and his mother suing nintendo for selling them a broken product they couldn't even replace it cost to them is not a good look for the longtime family-friendly gaming company however this is not particularly surprising when you think about how nintendo has responded to the entire larger problem of joy-con drift over the years since the launch of the switch if you thought there was a chance nintendo responded quickly and efficiently recalling damaged devices and issuing refunds and replacements for whoever well we have some bad news nintendo's reputation is fairly sterling it's unimpeachable or so it would seem on most corners of the internet nintendo fans are a passionate loyal bunch precisely because of nintendo's long track record of producing quality hardware quality games and even having excellent customer service this has not been the case in terms of joy con drift unfortunately for the longest time in the beginning nintendo refused to in any way acknowledge joycon drift was an issue let alone acknowledge the seriousness of the issue and outline a plan to address the problem in july of 2019 years after the switch launched nintendo took a better stance when over a dozen switch owners filed another class-action lawsuit over joycon drift and began to fix joycons for free and out of warranty for all switch owners nintendo's president shintaro furukawa apologized for any trouble caused to nintendo's customers but noted that pending active litigation he couldn't comment further on the issue ultimately nintendo's response has been lackluster for years there was nothing and now there's a slow way to get the product you paid for that shouldn't fail to be fixed and other than that nintendo hasn't outlined any plans to actually fix whatever design flaw causes joy-con drift so even if you get your joy-cons fixed really you're just playing the waiting game until your joy-cons inevitably once again begin to drift it's better than nothing sure and maybe there wasn't some kind of massive internal conspiracy where hardware defects were concealed but nonetheless people's devices are not worthy of the nintendo seal of quality that used to mean so much what's more unfortunate is that this is not even the first time nintendo has been sued by a kid for a video games company that started as a greeting card maker and then moved on to produce lighthearted adventurous and family-friendly video game experiences often packaged in upbeat colorful boxes and shells nintendo has historically been a much more litigious company than you might expect at a glance in the world of shall we say business politics like companies illegally selling or reselling nintendo products fan games and mods emulation and more nintendo has always been ready and willing to let their lawyers earn their retainers ultimately not so many of their battles in the courtroom directly impact the consumer in a major way so largely any bad vibes a steady stream of lawsuits might give off has been avoided by nintendo however even setting these kinds of lawsuits aside nintendo has been sued by a kid before way back when in 1990 another kid with the help of an adult sued not just nintendo but also major league baseball because the mlb game he bought for his nintendo console a game that cost 40 dollars of that didn't live up to his expectations though it's fair to note that this lawsuit was obviously somewhat spurious and the much more serious issue of joy-con drifting does deserve attention and possibly even repercussions depending on what the actual situation behind the scenes was and has been regarding joycon drift to that end nintendo's lackluster performance and handling joycon drift isn't just embarrassing in of itself it's embarrassing in the context of other major gaming console defects another major console manufacturer microsoft had a much much worse problem with the xbox 360 but managed to do a much much better job of handling it the most major gaming console hardware failure in history happened not too long ago only a few generations behind beginning back in 2005 with the release of microsoft's xbox 360. you see the xbox released a year before the playstation 3 jump starting the console's success in the market and giving the xbox an early lead over the playstation however to make that release date microsoft pulled out all the stops and produced as many devices as fast as they could without giving them as rigorous a quality assurance screening as they could have as you'll likely recall this led to almost comically widespread failure in the form of the infamous red ring of death if you thought the red ring of death was just a cute misnomer to describe a simple problem unfortunately that was not the case the red ring of death actually meant death as in repair or replacement for your console was now required many many users had not just an xbox die on them but multiple xboxes die on them in the wake of the technological devastation microsoft eventually made a radical unprecedented move they extended the 360's warranty and they promised to repair or replace all affected consoles the cost of this has been estimated at a staggering 1 billion dollars this cost was staggering for microsoft who was and is a much much larger and more profitable company than nintendo has ever been while the joy-con problems are thankfully nowhere near as severe as the red ring of death microsoft's consumer-friendly moves made the red ring of death much much more manageable and came out the other side largely smelling of roses when their own incompetence caused the problem in the first place this is where nintendo could and perhaps should take some notes where does this all leave us unfortunately the simple fact of the matter is that since it has now been over three years since the switch launched and there has been no meaningful addressal of the issue suggests nintendo isn't going to do the right thing on its own it's possible lawsuits and simple public opinion could pressure them into doing more if the outcry became loud enough but it seems more likely that the issue will instead be quietly addressed in a new version of the switch the long rumored switch pro refresh will supposedly offer better performance and higher resolutions than the original switch and if there is indeed a new switch product coming it would make sense any redesign would include a new take on the joy cons for improved durability if this turns out to be the case however the millions and millions of nintendo switch users out there will be left in the lurch though it's important to remember that if this is an issue with the joy-con and not with the switch itself it's possible an updated joy-con could eventually be sold alongside the switch pro and this joy-con could fix the drift issue and be backwards compatible with earlier switches though if it's a more serious problem that can't be addressed with an update or a replacement joy-con it's likely that the only course of action switch owners will have is to inevitably repair or replace joy-cons that drift have you ever experienced joy-con drift do you think this lawsuit is fair or is it another frivolous lawsuit brought for more publicity than merit let us know in the comments down below and if you like this video make sure to go 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Channel: TheGamer

Views: 413,327

Rating: 4.877871 out of 5

Keywords: TheGamer, Video games, Nintendo, Switch, Joy-Con, Switch Pro, Switch Lite, 3DS, DS, Wii, Wii U, Sony, Microsoft, PS4, Xbox One

Id: EyuPBZXV5zI

Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020