Nintendo VP Confirms Switch 2 Joy-Con Sticks Won’t Use Hall Effect Technology

Nintendo of America recently dropped some interesting news about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, confirming a change in the analog sticks of its Joy-Cons and Pro Controllers. Nate Bihldorff, who heads up Product Development & Publishing at Nintendo of America, chatted with Nintendo Life about this update. He explained that while the new console won’t use Hall effect sensors, a technology many hoped for, durability remains a top priority.

“The Joy-Con 2 controllers have been completely revamped,” Bihldorff noted. “Sure, they don’t have Hall Effect sticks, but the feel is really good. With every hardware release, Nintendo aims to create the most outstanding experience for its users, whether it’s how you engage with the Joy-Cons in your games or their lasting quality.”

The original Nintendo Switch had its fair share of issues with stick drift—a pesky problem where the analog sticks moved without being touched, leading to several class-action lawsuits. Nintendo has been quite apologetic, promising free stick repairs to make amends.

For those unfamiliar, “Hall effect” sticks offer a more modern take for detecting joystick movement than traditional potentiometer-based ones. The latter uses a wiper that slides across contact pads to gauge position, but this older method can degrade over time, leading to the infamous stick drift. In contrast, Hall effect sticks use magnets for detecting movement, a more reliable approach used in many third-party controllers today. Given this, many find it puzzling that Nintendo opted out of using this well-regarded technology.

Despite this choice, durability was reportedly a major focus for Nintendo as they redesigned the Switch’s controllers. In a recent developer roundtable, product leads from Nintendo stressed this point. According to Kouichi Kawamoto, producer for Switch 2, even though the new Pro Controller may look similar to its predecessor, it’s actually been rebuilt from scratch.

Tetsuya Sasaki, who leads the hardware team, talked about Nintendo’s long-time quest to create the ultimate controller. “We have a project at Nintendo with the ambitious goal of making the pinnacle of all controllers,” Sasaki shared. Though he stopped short of saying they’ve achieved that with Switch 2, the new “smooth-gliding switches” are clearly a source of pride for Nintendo’s engineers.

Whether Nintendo has truly cracked the code to avoid early stick drift in the Switch 2 remains to be seen. Stick drift affected Joy-Cons as soon as six months in the past, so we’ll have to watch and see how these new controllers hold up. Stay tuned for more updates on Switch 2’s exciting features, like DLSS and ray tracing, and dive deeper into all our coverage on what’s coming from Nintendo.