Nintendo Has A New Patent For Hall Effect Joysticks
Nintendo has allegedly filed a new patent for their own hall effect joysticks.
One of the big criticisms that Nintendo’s very successful Switch console has experienced through the years was the emergence of Joy-Con drift issues. Gamers had noticed that there was a sudden rise in complaints that Joy-Cons had drift, and it wasn’t clear what the reason for the issue was or how to fix it.
As far back as 2019, Nintendo offered free repairs for said Joy-Cons, first in America, and then in Europe. Nintendo also faced potential litigation in relation to this issue. However, they actually won decisions on these suits, and so they haven’t been forced to replace the potentiometer based analog sticks on their Switch devices, including the Joy-Cons, Switch Pro Controller, and Nintendo Switch Lite. But it seems Nintendo was busy finding a solution for the issue after all.
Last March, reports had come up that Nintendo had filed a patent for a “Directional Input Device and Controller”, a new design for the analog stick to reduce drift. These looked like they could be applied to future Switch controls, but we hadn’t heard news of this coming to market.
Today, we have reports that Nintendo filed a new patent, for their own hall effect joysticks. Hall effect controllers had actually been around for some time. These controllers do not make physical contact with each other, but instead use magnets. These actually have two advantages, as not only do they reduce potential wear and tear on the sticks, but they can also allow for fine tune analog controls on triggers.
Most recently, Gulikit popularized hall effect joysticks, on their King Kong and Elves controllers. They also sold replacement hall effect analog sticks for Joy-Cons and the
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