 Did Nintendo fix Joy-Con drift? It has been a problem plaguing the system since launch. I know this isn't a launch unit, it's actually a version two unit, but there's quietly been something talked about on the internet over the last couple weeks about how there's a new fix to fix Joy-Con drift and we talked about it on this channel about taking apart your Joy-Con, putting a little card stock, little thin piece of cardboard behind your joystick, closing it, it creates higher pressure on the joystick which seems to fix drift, even in sticks that aren't fixable in other methods. We've talked about the past, pull to the side, let the lip up, put some electrical contact cleaner in, swish it around a little bit, let it dry out and things seem to work as well. And I talked about in the past why I thought that that method was a good method because it created an extra layer on the contact pad which enabled it to work fine. But obviously pushing and putting more pressure on the stick itself, also pops that contact pad up more which fixes drift in ones where the electrical contact cleaner and stuff isn't doing the job anymore. So it looked at least on the surface to be a nice temporary solution, another nice fix to Joy-Con drift. But the question is, has Nintendo tried this method themselves to fix Joy-Con drift? And if they have, doesn't work. Well, let's talk about that. Before, I forget, we are giving away a Switch OLED system, that's right. We'll be announcing the winner live on stream before October 8th, so in early October. And to enter, it's very simple, just subscribe. That's it. It's been given away to one of our lucky subscribers announced live. All right, so obviously Joy-Con drift is something that many of us experienced. I've experienced that these current Joy-Con on here are not drifting, but I have had pairs that have in the past. And one thing I saw on the internet over the last couple of weeks when I was busy and on vacation was these potential fixes. We talked about the card stock going behind it, but it was like Nintendo might have tried something similar already, but the results are weird. So this initially came way of Spawn Wave and others out there, but I'm gonna reference this guy because I can link directly to this chicken noodle gamer who says thanks to YouTuber VK, which is how we talked about in the past, one of the guys giving credit for finding out this pressure fix is known that the pressure to the back of the Joy-Con stick stops drift. I opened my Zelda Joy-Cons and noticed strips. They're not in any Joy-Cons me or others have seen. Please share this post as a scene Nintendo has fixed their biggest issue behind the scenes and then here's the look at that. And yeah, that appears to be exactly the kind of thing that putting the paper back there would do, right? Like it's creates extra pressure, which has fixed drift in many Joy-Cons. And I did take apart these Joy-Cons and I'm not gonna show you any images because it just wasn't fruitful. There's no pads on these Joy-Cons on either the left or the right. These Joy-Cons are many years old at this point, but there's no pads. So them being present on the Zelda Joy-Con are interesting. But here's the thing, it was later responded to by this guy named Hoodbust. He said these pads have actually been here for ages. Unfortunately, it's not anything new, nor has it 100% solved the issues. I have multiple shell sets from all sorts of periods prior to last week that have these pads. Some I got cheap because they were drifting. And then he shows a picture of multiple shells with those pads on. And so it looks like bare minimum we can say this. If drift is still happening in the systems that have these pads, which it is, why are the pads there? And my best guess, there's two big reasons to put the pads there. Reason number one, and this is a logical one, is vibrations, right? Putting pads there can help with vibrations, except there's no vibrations in the sticks. They don't have like some sort of rumble like the triggers do on a dual sensor or something. There's no vibration from the sticks that would require those pads to have it not make noise, right? Like if there's any padding, it would be the HD rumble, touching the plastic shell, right? Padding in there. That's not, it's a logical reason to put padding, but also illogical since it's not a part that does that and creates noise. So okay, so then what's the other reason to put the pads there? Well, to create extra pressure on the stick because Nintendo must have figured out quite some time ago that the primary cause of Joy-Con drift, yes, it's a doodle faulty design, but putting this extra pressure on may in fact have led Joy-Cons to drift slightly less often. Again, Joy-Con drift is still a problem to this day and Joy-Cons that have these pads have gotten drift. It's just a matter of, is the drift a little bit less pronounced? Does it take a little bit longer to happen because of these pads? And that is something that we don't know because while these pads have been present, they haven't been well documented. So as I said, this is from version two, which came out right after the Switch Lite in 2019. And these Joy-Con do not have the pads. So when did they start using the pads? Wasn't it a year later? Was it in 2020? Was it last year they started using them? I have no idea when they started using these pads. Nobody seems to know, but the pads obviously are a sort of attempted fix by Nintendo to Joy-Con drift. A fix that hasn't really fixed drift, but it's, because the fixed drift, you gotta have a whole new stick design, but it at least potentially has made drift less often. So should you feel more confident if you buy new Joy-Con today than that this fix with the pads are in those Joy-Con? Probably, especially if they're newer released Joy-Con, not just old ones that maybe have been sitting on the shelf for a while. And it's possible that if you own a pair of these, like if you bought Zelda Joy-Con right now and they have these pads, pay attention. Like if they don't drift for a year, two years, three years, but all of the Joy-Con you had have drifted way sooner than that, then you have to start to wonder, maybe this padded fix was a sort of bandaid by Nintendo, a very, you know, .001 of a penny fix, or at least maybe not a fix, but a buffer point that makes drift take longer to occur on the system. Again, Nintendo's never gonna publicly say they put those pads in their fixed drift because then that's admitting that drift is a problem in the midst of a bunch of lawsuits they have where they've been denying that drift even exists. Yet they offer free repairs of Joy-Con outside of warranty in the United States. They don't specifically say it's because of drift, but we all know that there's only really one reason why they're offering those fixes outside of warranty because there's problems that are happening sometimes right outside of warranty. So yeah, it's a very interesting thing. Again, I don't have any Joy-Con on hand, mine or my daughter's switch, or my son's switch light that have these padding, but I have seen it in some friends Joy-Cons. So I do know it does exist. It's not just something I've seen on the internet. Some Joy-Con have it, mostly newer Joy-Con. A lot of the really old Joy-Con from the first couple of years don't. And the only logical reason I could think of anyways is the combat drift. But you guys let me know, do you think Nintendo was attempting to combat drift with these pads? Do you think it's been effective? Have you bought newer Joy-Con in the last year or so that haven't drifted yet and you're willing to take it apart and see if it has those pads? Because I'm very curious. I don't think this is something that's very well documented. And I feel like moving forward, it better be better documented. I want someone to buy a new set of Joy-Con that don't have the pads and a new set of Joy-Con that do, use them to equal amounts and find out which one drifts first. And even then, that's not a definitive measure because obviously drift happens at different frequencies. Anyways, you can be having the games you're playing, how rough you are with the controller, all that. So there's a lot of factors that go into how quickly drift can happen. Sometimes, I've known this, obviously some Joy-Con drift right out of the box. We've had that be a thing too. So I don't know, this is just something to keep your eye on. I don't think it's very well researched. I do think Nintendo did at least do this as a temporary band-aid to try and help with drift. Obviously, just give us new control sticks, better design sticks. We didn't even have this problem with the slider button on 3DS. So why we're having this problem with actual Joy sticks, I don't know. But it is what it is. I want Joy-Con drift gone forever. I think we all do. It's probably never gonna be gone. We're way too late into the platform. Nintendo's not talking about it with Switch OLED as a fix because I'm guessing they didn't. They're just using the same Joy-Con with different colors. But yeah, I don't know, that's what I gotta say for that. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I am Nathaniel Rajat from Nintendo Prime. Please, Nintendo, please keep tinkering in trying to make this less likely to happen or just give us a new design system. I'll take that as well. I mean, today I could have posted about some rumors I found out there about, you know, hey, the new, more powerful Switch, Pro, Switch 2 might be extremely powerful. But wait, you know what? Why talk about unsubstantiated rumors at this point? Let's let Switch OLED come out. Let's let that have its light of day. We can revisit potential next-gen rumors and all of that when there's some more concrete info out there instead of just a bunch of, hey, here's what this company's doing. They're factually making these things. Maybe that'll be used on Switch. I mean, yeah, it might or it might not. Some from Nintendo might not even work with Nvidia on their next-generation platform. Nobody really knows. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. I am Nathaniel Rajat from Nintendo Prime and I'll catch each and every single one of you in the next video.