Nintendo recently won a class-action lawsuit brought by parents who accused the company of intentionally selling faulty products. The parents had initially tried to sue Nintendo themselves but gave up suing Nintendo directly because the Switch’s EULA (End User License Agreement) “does not allow for lawsuits” and requires the parties involved to engage in legal arbitration. However, the parents intend to pursue their case anyway, arguing that their children are not bound by the agreement and can therefore sue Nintendo.
The class action lawsuit was first filed in 2019, just three days after an internal Nintendo memo instructed employees in North America to begin offering free repairs for the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con. While the company took steps to address the issue, the parents who filed the lawsuit say the company hasn’t done enough to fix a known problem. As a result, they have been pursuing the lawsuit. One of the mothers, Luz Sanchez, explained that the console was purchased in December, but in less than a month, the Joy-Con developed problems. While there is now a free way to fix it, they argue that the fact that Nintendo knew there was a problem and still sold it is enough in itself to be sued.
However, this lawsuit over Nintendo’s Joy-Con problems was ultimately dismissed. The parents’ argument that their children weren’t bound by the end user agreement license didn’t hold water, because ultimately Nintendo won without question when those parents were identified as the true owners of the Switch. Now they also have to bear the legal costs when they could have just gone ahead and fixed Joy-Con for free.
Joy-Con joystick drift issues have plagued the Switch, and Nintendo has faced many other lawsuits in the past over the same issue. Before the free Joy-Con repair program was launched, the problem was so severe that Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa had to apologize for the inconvenience caused.
