Seemingly out of nowhere, Nintendo finally pulled back the curtain on theNintendo Switch OLED Modeltoday. It releases October 8 for $349.99, has an improved OLED screen, and a few new tricks and whistles from the baseSwitchsystem. Perhaps as surprising as this reveal is its reception, as many are not happy with the console.
While there’s time for the reception to improve, there’s a lot of things that some wanted to see in the a new Switch model (potential due to the variousSwitch Pro rumorsout there) that it does not have. One of those is how little the internals have changed, aside from the 64GB memory upgrade. Now, it’s also been confirmed that the Joy-Cons for theSwitch OLED Modelare the exact same as previous versions.
RELATED:New Pokemon Snap Players Are Having Huge Problems with Joy-Con Drift
GameSpot reached out to Nintendo with a rep confirming that, “[t]he Joy-Con controller configuration and functionality did not change with Nintendo Switch system (OLED Model.” To leave no doubt, the Nintendo rep also specifically clarified that the OLED Model’s Joy-Cons are “the same” as those of the regular Switch console. For many, this was one of the biggest Quality-of-Life updates Nintendo could make, and it seems that fans will continue to run into Joy-Con drift for the foreseeable future.
For those who have never experienced it, it’s exactly as it sounds. Even when theJoy-Consare not being used, the stick signals the console that it is in use and will drift across the screen. It’s far more frustrating than it sounds, as some games require a decent amount of accuracy. And given that the Switch OLED Model will continue to use the same Joy-Cons that Nintendo has released so far, the upgraded console will presumably still suffer from one of the system’s most well-known flaws.
It’s hard to imagine any Nintendo Switch owner who hasn’t dealt with the issue, either sending the hardware into Nintendo to fix, purchasing a new set of Joy-Cons, or just dealing with it in its mildest state. TheNintendo Switch’s Joy-Con drift has resulted in several lawsuits, and it has even been directly acknowledged (and apologized for) by Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa.
Ultimately, it seems it may be a more-involved fix than some anticipated, and with a new Switch seemingly susceptible to Joy-Con drift, it’s hard to say when, or if, the problem will ever be solved. There’s a good chance that theNintendo Switch OLED Model is not the rumored Nintendo Switch Pro, and if so, fans can at least hope a Switch successor in proper could finally fix this long-lasting issue.
