Joysticks: Probably Still Drifty
Joy-Con joysticks use a potentiometer to read the voltage at a wiper that slides across a strip of resistive material. That material wears down over time, or plastic and dust can dirty the sensors.
Stick drift is a huge problem with other Switch models. One survey found that 40% of Switch owners had problems with their Joy-Cons drifting, and things didn’t get any better with the Lite or OLED editions. After a bunch of lawsuits, Nintendo’s president even admitted it and apologized, setting up a free repair program for customers in some parts of the world.
It would be, if that were the case.
This article is not alledging a systematic pattern of stick drift in the Switch 2, like there was with the Switch. It isn’t even saying that so much as a single case of stick drift has been found.
What it’s saying is that the Switch 2 still uses potentiometers, a technology which can be susceptible to stick drift. You know, like every single other major console ever launched. So, as of now, we have no particular reason to believe that the Switch 2 will drift worse than the PS5 or any other system.
That said, all the major players are dragging their feet a bit longer on Hall effect sticks a little bit longer than is warranted, Nintendo included.
dreamcast would like a word
What do they use? Is it Hall effect sticks?
Dreamcast can’t come to the phone right now, it’s dead.
You’re absolutely right! Dreamcast and Saturn make a very good point: The major players are dragging their feet way longer than is warranted.
Nintendo doesn’t want to use Hall for the same reason neither of the Steam Decks have, the increased power consumption. From there it was easy for them to justify a magnetic locking mechanism for the new joycons.
But also fuck Nintendo
Hi, are you able to share more about the power efficiencies of each type of sensor? Some cursory browsing of TI datasheets gives me the impression that both types use a similar amount of power. I may be missing some context, though.
I did also find this cool report there. Could be pertinent, although from what I understand of the technology I don’t see why you couldn’t use the same techniques to save power with a digipot.
HE uses like 25% more power compared to the usual sensor. Meaning a huge decrease of about 2% in joycons battery life.