Nintendo confirms: Switch 2 Joy-Cons won’t feature Hall Effect sticks

Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Cons won’t feature Hall Effect analog sticks, the company has confirmed.

The long-rumored feature, which would mark a significant upgrade on the original Joy-Cons, won’t be included in the launch models of the console.

Hall effect sticks (named after US physicist Edwin Hall) use magnets and electrical conductors to measure the position of the stick, which make them effectively immune from drift – an issue that has affected many original Switch owners.

When asked by Nintendo Life about the new Joy-Cons and their components, Nintendo confirmed that Hall Effect sticks would be missing.

“Well, the Joy-Con 2’s controllers have been designed from the ground up,” said Nate Bihldorff, senior vice president of product development and publishing. “They’re not Hall Effect sticks, but they feel really good.”

He added: “I like both (the Joy-Cons and the Pro Controller), but that Pro Controller, for some reason the first time I grabbed it, I was like, ‘this feels like a GameCube controller.’ I was a GameCube guy. Something about it felt so familiar, but the stick on that, especially.

“I tried to spend a lot of time making sure that it was quiet. I don’t know if you tried really whacking the stick around but it really is [quiet]. I’m thinking back to my Smash Bros. days, where you just whack it. [The Switch 2 Pro Controller] is one of the quietest controllers I’ve ever played.”

Nintendo has claimed Switch 2’s new Joy-Con analog sticks will be more durable than on Switch 1, when asked about potential stick drift issues.

Two significant lawsuits over Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift were dismissed in the US courts last year. A year earlier, following growing noise around the issue, Nintendo announced it would repair all Joy-Con controllers suffering from Joy-Con drift in the EEA and UK, even if they’re out of warranty.

VGC recently got a chance to play Nintendo Switch 2.