The Nintendo Switch 2 hasn’t even been out for a full day – heck, Mario Kart World hasn’t even installed on mine yet and plenty of other fans are still patiently waiting for their pre-orders to arrive – but some early adopters are taking their new Joy-Cons apart to hopefully suss out if stick drift will be a problem again.
Joy-Con drift was obviously a loud, very public problem during the OG Switch era, causing the analog sticks to quite literally move by themselves whether you’re touching them or not. And it’s a problem Nintendo’s only vaguely addressed in the lead-up to its new handheld console.
Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto said the new Joy-Cons have “larger and more durable” thumb sticks in an ‘Ask the Developer’ blog, while Nintendo’s just promised the controllers have been rebuilt from the ground up this generation.
Not Hall Effect, not TMR, no magnets in the sticks from r/NintendoSwitch2
At least one early adopter has now stripped their Joy-Con 2’s down to the bone to see what’s really going on. “I took one of the Joy-Con 2’s apart and the markings seem to point to them being Alps, and they look so similar to the original Joy-Con sticks inside,” they said in a recent Reddit post. “Joy-Con drift lives on in the Switch 2 generation?” (Good spot, Nintendo Life!)
There is some hope that, despite the similar-looking design, the “larger” stick size that Kawamoto alluded to could spread the inevitable wear more evenly and, in essence, give stick sensors a bigger canvas to work with, hopefully preventing any would-be drifting.
Joy-Con drift always seemed like one of those things that was decided by Lady Luck. Some people would have faulty thumb sticks right out of the box, while others went the entire generation without needing to replace their little Joy-Cons, even without a clear correlation between play time and wear or drift. Only time will tell if Nintendo has actually avoided another stick drift situation with the Switch 2, though.
Check out our Nintendo Switch 2 review in progress to see what we think of the new console, live.
