France fined Nintendo €35M — it knew about Joy-Con drift in 2018 and stayed quiet

Joy-Con drift — controllers registering ghost movements, becoming unresponsive or locking up — affected Nintendo Switch consoles worldwide. France's fraud watchdog DGCCRF concluded that Nintendo knew of the malfunctions from 2018 but did not communicate until 2020, and even then only about controllers becoming unresponsive — not the ghost movements or lockups. Free repairs outside warranty did not start until 2023.

The DGCCRF's national investigation service ruled this a misleading commercial practice running from 2018 to 2023: the late and partial communication dissuaded consumers from turning to Nintendo's after-sales service for a design flaw, and led some of them to buy new controllers unnecessarily. On 8 June 2026 Nintendo of Europe accepted a criminal transaction — a €35 million fine to the French Treasury and publication of a press release on its homepage.

The consumer group UFC-Que Choisir had filed its complaint in September 2020. The €35 million settlement is among the largest fines in DGCCRF history, and it turned a long-running product-quality complaint into an advertising violation: the sanction is not for the drift itself, but for what Nintendo did not say about it.

Nintendo's silence on Joy-Con drift from 2018 to 2023 cost it a €35M fine and a homepage notice.

The sanctioned conduct was silence, not the defect: knowing of a design flaw from 2018 while communicating only from 2020, late and partially.

Silence shifted the cost to consumers — dissuaded from seeking after-sales service, some bought replacement controllers for a fault Nintendo acknowledged.

Partial disclosure misled as much as none: admitting unresponsiveness while omitting ghost movements and lockups left consumers unable to claim their rights.

When your product has a known defect, the silence about it is itself a misleading practice: France fined Nintendo €35M not for the drift but for late, partial communication.

Nintendo accepted the criminal transaction to avoid trial, paying €35M to the French Treasury and publishing a notice on its homepage. Free out-of-warranty repairs for drifting Joy-Cons have run since 2023; the UFC-Que Choisir complaint behind the case dates to September 2020.