Workers at Nintendo’s third-party repair partner were reportedly overwhelmed with Joy-Con repairs

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

According to a report from Kotaku, the work environment at Nintendo's third-party repair facility was very stressed out due to a lot of Switches sent in for issues related to Joy-Con drift. A former supervisor at the New York-based United Radio, the company that partners with Nintendo to repair broken devices, told Kotaku that the large volume of Joy-Con repairs resulted in a high turnover rate and lots of mistakes.

Nintendo acts as the middleman, handling customer communications and leaving the repairing to United Radio, which serves Nintendo customers located in the eastern half of the US. The ubiquity of Joy-Con drift led to thousands of Joy-Con that passed through United Radio in a single week, and prompted the company to set up a workstation dedicated to Joy-Con repair, the former supervisor told Kotaku.

Joy-Con drift is a widespread issue that causes the controllers to input movement when there is no Joy-Con, which often results in your character moving around on-screen when you are not touching your thumbsticks. The issue of Joy-Con drift still persists even though many Switch owners hoped the newer model would fix it. Even with an expired warranty, Nintendo began repairing Joy-Con drift for free.

According to Kotaku, United Radio hires many temporary workers. After three months of work, workers can be hired as full-time United Radio employees. The former supervisor told Kotaku that most temporary employees stopped working after two-and-a-half months if they didn't show up for work or were fired. It was hard to establish an experienced team of workers because of this. One example of such errors is when a customer said their switch was returned with someone else's data on it. There are many other complaints online about faulty repairs, missing components, or damage to their system.

The former supervisor told Kotaku that a language barrier was one of the issues contributing to repair mistakes. The supervisor says it's difficult to train employees because they are the only native English speakers on the job. Bi-lingual workers would often have to act as a liaison between the trainer and the trainees.

The tight turn around times didn't help with the issues. The former supervisor told Kotaku that United Radio would replace broken Joy-Cons. Workers were required to repair 90 percent of Joy-Cons within four days of receiving them. It is unclear if these policies were mandated by Nintendo. Nintendo didn't immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.

According to Kotaku, Nintendo doesn't just rely on contracted employees to do repairs. According to Kotaku, Nintendo employs temporary workers for 11 months with a two-month break in between, with employees losing access to healthcare during this time. A former Nintendo employee filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming that they were fired for trying to organize a union.