Previews for the Switch have surfaced online, and a number of reports indicated that there could be a major issue with the upcoming console’s Joy-Con controllers.
According to multiple early impressions posted online, the Joy-Con controllers are suffering from synchronization issues with the Switch console itself. This issue seems to be limited to the left Joy-Con controller, and is causing some pretty big problems for those who have got their hands on early units of the Switch.
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Polygon writes: “The biggest current issue with the Switch is one of basic reliability. Over the course of my time with Breath of the Wild, I’ve had repeated problems with the left Joy-Con controller partially or even completely losing sync from the Switch console while docked and connected to my television.”
Kotaku‘s early impressions post also reported the same issue, with Stephen Totilo writing: “My colleagues Jason and Kirk have used the controllers detached and they report a problem: the left Joy-Con sometimes fails to perfectly track their movements in the Zelda game. It seems to lose sync. We’ve asked Nintendo what’s up. Maybe they can fix it in a patch. Maybe Jason and Kirk got bum units. Maybe, I helpfully suggested the other day, having reliable left Joy-Con syncing is available as part of Zelda’s season pass.”
Polygon’s Arthur Gies also claimed that multiple reviewers he had spoken to had experienced this problem:
To put it into context, I think about half of the reviewers I've spoken with have had issues with the left joy-con (always the left).
— Arthur Gies (he/him) (@aegies) February 23, 2017
With the Nintendo Switch less than two weeks away from launch, this isn’t good news. Though there are many previews that do not report any issues with the Joy-Con controllers whatsoever, it appears that there is some issue that is impacting certain units, and this could be a key issue for Nintendo come the Switch’s launch. Hopefully the company will elaborate upon the problem and it’s an issue that can be solved with a patch, otherwise this could prove to be a costly misstep.
