NintendObs Thinks: Joy-Con drifting is real and here are the solutions.
Cleanup wipes and a toothpick are all you need, before it is too late.
Before I “defend” Nintendo and explain the rationale behind this situation, which I will do after providing the solutions, here is my Joy-Con drifting story. I got the Nintendo Switch at launch with two pairs of Joy-Cons and a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. I later obtained a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Splatoon 2 Edition for a total of four “dual hands” controllers. Every single one of these combinations ended up having their left stick not so much drifting but rather not responding correctly, especially every time I would direct a character to move forward. To this day, I no longer own a single one of these controllers (excluding the two right Joy-Cons) that I originally had.
At first, I would just use another controller without much regard for the origin of my discomfort. I had four combinations after all, there was much room to go around. But then, fewer and fewer controllers worked optimally, so I looked into the system to find out how to recalibrate them, and I did. Yet still, after a few play sessions, the problems persisted. And they persisted and persisted to a point when I just couldn’t unsee them anymore. Captain Falcon wouldn’t dash when I played online in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. My squid could not longer swim forward at full speed at all in Splatoon 2. All of this would happen no matter how much I would recalibrate my left sticks, and the more I would do it, the shorter it would take for the issue to reappear. So at that point I decided to just contact Nintendo’s customer support.
I sent my controllers to them and they sent me new ones in return so many times they no longer had any Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Splatoon 2 Edition to spare and only had to send me a regular Pro Controller instead. I sent back my left Joy-Cons so much that the whole process, even though they did fix the issues — temporarily — by giving me replacements, was a process of absolute frustration. At one time I sent in my Pro Controller and they sent it back claiming there was no issue. I had to send it again to them with a link to a video I made filming my controller in my hand as I played so that it clearly was undeniable that my squid just couldn’t run in Splatoon 2 anymore. So after a little bit of research on anecdotal YouTube videos, I got a grasp of what the problem was, I couldn’t bear it anymore and I just threw my controllers for recycling and bought new ones that I would actually take care of myself.