I think that tunnel magneto-resistance (TMR) are more favored for 3rd-party sticks. They've significant advantages over Hall Effect sensors in latency, power consumption, and, apparently, resolution. Plus, they operate on more similar electrical principles to the traditional pot-based sticks, so, they require less effort to design around.
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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Yeah I am done with the Mario console.
Yeah you should switch to PS because their controller has hall effect sticks.
Wait, no they don't either. Neither does Xbox.
Do those consoles have a history of drifting sticks across all their first party controllers?
I have a PS5 and have had to repair at least one stick per year on a pair of controllers.
The Xbox ones constantly have issues, even their pro line.
It is nowhere near to as well known and in my circles Xbox controllers are referred to as the ones that never die or break instantly which is a very different issue.
Not surprised, NintenDON'T is all about pure profit now. One can feel the uninspired releases stemming from the Switch/Switch 2 in terms of quality and care. The 3DS, Wii U was their last good releases.
The Wii U doesn't get love but it sure was interesting and an upgrade beyond just resolution.
The 3DS line was inspired. Practically a smartphone in an era where they weren't yet everywhere.
Yup you are correct! If only Nintendo got the advertising right, the Wii U would of been a lot more successful despite it being under powered. At least it was innovative with great games, features and unique technology to match! Not to mention (Free) backwards compatibility. Same goes for the 3DS!
NintenDON'T's/ Industry (GREED) is the same reasons why Retro gaming is making a comeback!!!
None of the big 3 console manufacturers use hall effect sticks because they need people to buy controllers regularly to keep their business afloat.
This is why Sega needs to come back. They had Hall effect sticks on the Saturn and Dreamcast.
Maybe they’re not in the business because they used Hall effect sticks 🤔
The worst thing about the switch is the pricing of their games, stick drift and the lack of frames. Glad they improved... One thing?
The fact that they dodged questions of durability and did nothing to reassure says that they're probably identical and Nintendo just enjoys the revenue it gets from people buying more joycons.
Just FYI, getting them repaired is 100% free. It was their part of a class action lawsuit. You make a report, print out the label, ship it and wait.
This doesn't hold true for every country though. So a lot of people are better off buying some third party controller or not giving any money to Nintendo at all.
Just for reference in case someone needs it, Nintendo is "offering" free joycon replacements in North and South America, most of Europe (EU+EFTA+UK), Australia, and New Zealand.
I couldn't get in contact with Nintendo in Mexico, I ended up buying those AliExpress repair kits and did it myself after several frustrating hours.
That's fair. I forget about my US centric mindset at times.
Can confirm I did it like 3 times before I just started installing 3rd party Hall effect switches.
The bitch of it is waiting for them to get back or spending $80 on a backup pair while you wait.
At least the joycons were easier to open and work on than the xbox and PlayStation controllers I've opened up. The sticks are diy replaceable, but I wouldn't recommend a shell swap unless you have really steady hands.
So much for all the "leakers" claiming otherwise.
Nintendo really is the Apple of gaming.
Maybe if Apple sued the pants off all their biggest fans...
looks at the fan game and emulator makers big Nin has sued
They raised prices a ton, and they didn't even switch to the better sensor type that would fix such a persistent issue? Why?
They decided to use joycons to nickel and dime their customers.
same company that made a system that could always wirelessly pair with bluetooth headsets/ear buds but didn't enable that function for 4 YEARS then randomly dropped a software update activating that feature. That will always blow my mind.
Enabling that BT connection was a mistake that Nintendo made under pressure tbh. Switch doesn’t support low latency audio of any sort so that feature is useless imo.
I've used it in car rides and its not that bad. its not amazing, but better than no sound.
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Nintendo hates their customers and fans. Or at the very least view them with disdain and contempt.
I thought this was universally known and accepted?
Nope, have a goofy mouse mode that will be used in exactly 4 games.
The goofy mouse mode is honestly the only thing about the Switch 2 that reminds me of the old Nintendo, adding new input methods to new hardware. Even if it has limited support, it will be a very good thing for certain experiences like shooters, strategy games, Pikmin, and Mario Maker.
Because they're a shit company
Revenue stream
FWIW, Hall Effect isn't the only way to prevent drift, they could be using some other tech.
But they really gotta clarify what they are doing about it then.
And also the joycon already has strong magnets inside of it that would probably intefere with hall effect sticks. It's not a silver bullet.
That’s like saying earths magnetic field can mess up the sensors.
The Hall effect sensor could be calibrated to ignore the magnets holding the joycons. They’re stationary magnets so they could literally just calculate their effect on the Hall effect sensor
Joycon doesn't have magnets the switch itself does. Although when docked with the switch it probably would interfere. I have to imagine there's a way to program against that if there's a consistent magnetic source.
I worked at a company that relied on magnetometers (digital compass) and used strong magnets as well to attach the product to existing infrastructure. All we needed to do was calibrate the sensors with that magnetic field and we got very accurate results. We even had a method for users to do this in the field if something in their environment changed, our method was a lot more precise (we had a motorized, standard rig to do the rotations), but you can get really good results just by following some simple directions.
I highly doubt it would be an issue here. Worst case scenario, fall back to a relatively user-friendly calibration process. The main goal is to get the device to rotate in all axes, and slowly enough to get a reading for a range of angles. The process wouldn't be that different than those fingerprint sensor things, but with rotation instead of touching a sensor. They do something similar already with the Ring Fit calibration, so I don't think it would be a deal-breaker.
If the magents are in the handheld it would mean that they would need to be recalibrated every time the joycons are taken off right? Thatcwould be terrible in a consumer product if I'm understanding correctly.
No, it can detect when it's connected, so it would just switch to the other calibration factors.
I don't know why i didn't think of that. Was kinda trying to figure out why not use them when they aren't that much more expensive considering how expensive the new joycons will probably be.
The cynic in me says, "so they can sell more replacements," but there could be a technical reason that I'm not aware of. I'm not familiar with the technical details of hall effect sticks, so I could very well be missing some downsides.
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That’s fucking stupid
Buy more 100 joy cons
Nintendo filed that patent about joysticks that wouldn't get drift, like Hall Effect, but some other tech without magnets (IIRC), I was hoping we may see it in Switch 2. Seems like either it wasn't ready yet, or it was just one of the random patents companies regularly file.
They will wait a few months and then sell the premium joycons at twice the price of regular joycons.
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