Nintendo expands free Joy-Con repair system for UK and Europe

Drifting over to Europe

For a while, Nintendo kind of took a silent approach to the “Joy-Con drift” Switch hardware issues. Eventually, the number of impacted consumers hit critical mass and they had to respond: by offering free repairs. Although Europe and the UK have done this on a case-by-case basis (and not necessarily out of warranty): that’s changing now with a grander, more sweeping statement on the Nintendo EU support pages. In other words, the UK and Europe are getting a little deal-sweetener as of this month.

Here’s the full statement from Nintendo of Europe about the situation:

“Nintendo takes great pride in creating high-quality and durable products and is continuously making improvements to them. Therefore and until further notice, Nintendo offers to consumers who purchased the respective product in the EEA, UK and Switzerland that repairs for responsiveness syndrome relating to control sticks will be conducted at no charge by official Nintendo repair centres.”

Nintendo even calls this “responsiveness syndrome” or “so-called drifting” (ha!) on their official site. Here’s how you can actually get it fixed if you live in the aforementioned areas.

A link to book a repair for Joy-Con in Europe or the UK

You can find the full breakdown on this page here. Nintendo also has a full customer support page to book a Joy-Con repair here. I’ve actually had two pairs of Joy-Con repaired in the US, and it was a painless process. Hopefully this policy is here to stay and everyone can get their controllers fixed going forward.

[Thanks John!]

Chris Carter

EIC, Reviews Director – Chris has been enjoying Destructoid avidly since 2008. He finally decided to take the next step in January of 2009 blogging on the site. Now, he’s staff!