I design things that use hall effect sensors... The magnets in the joycons would not have interfered. Those magnets are: 1. Too far away from the sticks to matter. 2. Perpendicular/orthogonal to the magnets that would be in the sticks. Besides, you can cram hall effect stuff *super* tight just by inserting a tiny piece of magnetic shielding between components. Loads of products do this (mostly to prevent outside magnets from interfering but it's the same concept). What is this magic magnetic shielding technology? **EMI tape.** There's a zillion types and they're all cheap and *very* widely used in manufacturing. I *guarantee* your phone, laptop, and many other electronics you own have some sort of EMI tape inside of them. Just about every assembly line *that exists* for mass produced electronics has at least one machine that spits out tape a bit like a CNC machine (or they pay the cheapest worker possible to place it).

At scale a hall effect stick is about $0.25 more than a potentiometer version. That's about $38,000,000 if they sell as many Switch 2s as they sold Switches. Sooooo... *Nothing*. That's basically a rounding error to Nintendo. Remember: That figure is over eight years. If it means they won't have lawsuits (which cost millions on their own), fewer returns, and happier customers it most certainly would be worth losing out on ~$5 million/year. The part you're missing isn't *the cost*. It's the *potential sales* from replacement joycons. If you're going to make a devil's advocate style, capitalist argument that's the one to make. I don't think it's any of that, though. I think it's just management being too strict about design constraints (which I pointed out in an earlier comment).

I had a lot of PS4 controllers get stick drift. A fee minutes, some tools, and a lot of rubbing alcohol in the pot or whatever mechanism solved it every time. It's dust. It's dust and grime. It's solveable.

Pressing down too hard breaks the pushbutton functionality. It has nothing to do with stick drift. **But since we're talking about what causes things...** You know what *actually* causes potentiometer-based sticks to fail fast? *Sweat*. That's right! The NaCL in your sweat—even the tiniest microscopic amounts—is enough to degrade the coating and the brushes on potentiometers. The more your hands sweat, the faster your sticks will degrade. Got sweaty palms? Best to use hall effect sticks or save up to buy new ones on the regular! Also: If you allow your controllers to get really cold and regularly (and rapidly) warm them up with your hands while playing that can have a negative impact too.

The joycon connection isn’t the only use of magnets I believe. The steam deck has a bunch of magnets too and it’s the reason Valve didn’t include Hall effect sticks in that device. They did a bunch of field tests and found that they created more problems than they solved. Folks who’ve modded their ROG Ally with HES reported similar issues. It just seems like with the current tech they’re just not compatible with handheld consoles.

I have a feeling that most people play video games *way* more than I do. In 34 years of gaming, I've never experienced stick drift (not even on the Switch). The only joysticks I've ever had go bad on me were on the Nintendo 64. But they would literally wear out from plastic rubbing against plastic, never drift.

Thanks for the thorough explanation! Then it's a mystery why the didn't use Hall effect joysticks. It the cost of the part so much more expensive?

Their cost benefit never seems to include how negative my feelings for my switch became due to all the constant issues. It went from my favorite device to one I rarely touch.

It starts to separate the bottom half of the stick housing when you push on them hard all the time and causes it to drift. That's why shimming them temporarily works.

Nobody fucked with that. Everyone just bought whatever new limited edition colors were out and moved on with their lives.

Lots of people fucked with that. I sent them in for repair twice, I know other people that did. Why spend $80 when they'll fix their garbage equipment for free?

Yet more people just bought new ones, put the old ones in the box, and returned them for a refund while in the free return period, citing them as faulty. I don't own a switch but I know I would've done that at a large chain electronic shop rather than bother with the repair rigamarole.

I mean, not everyone is a liar.

Sure, but a lot of people are, and crucially nintendo is. Also, I'm saying this cost them also on the returns side of things even before the lawsuit.