The Joy-Con 2 is the linchpin of the Nintendo Switch 2 handheld experience. And nearly a full year after the device’s release, you can finally swap your controllers with a third-party alternative that’s built to outlast the dreaded “stick drift.”
The regular ol’ Joy-Con 2 controllers are using sticks that will inevitably break. That’s because the age-old potentiometer joysticks, like those in Nintendo’s consoles, are designed with two physical components that use electrical currents to determine stick orientation. That friction will inevitably wear down the components. Tunneling magnetoresistance, or TMR, instead measures minute differences in magnetic fields. It’s potentially very accurate and more power-efficient than the methods leveraged by traditional sticks. Better still, TMR is built with fewer moving parts that can cause breakage.
Gulikit, which makes controllers and other handheld accessories, now sells $20 TMR Joy-Con 2 stick replacements. These are similar to the drift-resistant Hall-effect replacements the company offered for the original Switch back in 2023, which eventually also transitioned to TMR. You’re unlikely to discern a difference between the original and the replacement nubs. The new products are such an accurate recreation, and they work without issue on Switch 2; they prove Nintendo could have provided TMR joysticks on its latest handheld from the very beginning.
Whether the Switch 2 could even support sticks that relied on magnetic fields was previously an open question. The Joy-Con 2 controllers attach to the main body with magnets that, in theory, are strong enough to disrupt TMR. But Gulikit’s sticks are just the latest evidence that Nintendo had non-hardware reasons for going with the traditional stick design. It may come down to the economics of scale. After all, PlayStation and Xbox have also stuck with this aging thumbstick technology. Valve’s Steam Controller currently remains the only first-party controller with TMR joysticks, and that’s for a console that’s not even available yet.
So this new development may sound very exciting, and it is—but the actual process of bypassing Nintendo’s locked-down hardware is another matter. And it’s complicated enough that only the most dedicated to their controller’s longevity should attempt it.
Nintendo didn’t make this controller easy to open
Anyone who wants to switch to TMR will have to take apart their controller. They may not enjoy the end result.
Nintendo promises to replace your Joy-Con 2 if something goes wrong. Which is good, because if you actually want to ensure your current Joy-Con sticks avoid wear and tear, you need to rip them apart like a dog at a bone. And the Joy-Con 2 is not designed to be opened up by novices. Replacing the thumbstick requires taking apart practically every other component, down to the mainboard.
I plugged the replacement stick into my personal Switch 2, and it wasn’t a beginner-friendly task. Gulikit wants users to follow iFixit’s guides for both the left and right controllers, totaling 55 steps. Replacing one joystick took me a little more than an hour and a half, made longer by the difficulty of removing the controller’s backplate.
What’s more, you need a specific set of screwdriver heads to excavate the joystick from its coffin—specifically, a tri-point Y00 bit and a JIS 00 bit. Though you can make do with any small, sharp Phillips head for the latter, you’ll need the specialty tri-point screwdriver if you hope to avoid stripping a screw.
iFixit sells a $30 electronics toolkit that includes the Y00 screw head, plus a few guitar picks for prying apart the plastic shell. You’ll also want thin tweezers to unplug the battery and controls from the mainboard and a narrow-tipped plastic rod, which iFixit calls a “spudger,” to disconnect the trigger board and joystick connection points.
Dismantling a Joy-Con is not particularly difficult, but it is time-consuming and constantly nerve-wracking. First-time DIYers will likely be concerned about bricking their $95 Joy-Cons. Confidence counts for a lot when working with small electronics. Just keep all your screws in their own separate piles and refer to the instructions for each step.
These TMR sticks feel different
I left my right-hand Joy-Con as stock and replaced the left stick to compare the two. While the Gulikit kit is aesthetically identical to Nintendo’s, the rubber feels distinct. It’s more slippery than the original Joy-Con thumbstick. That posed a problem when trying to play Super Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, when my finger felt like it was on an ice rink. These sticks also provide less resistance than Nintendo’s versions. Even the thumbstick’s click had slightly more “oomph” than the base model’s.
Stick caps can ease one of these pain points, but they’re not enough to erase the sense of regret, knowing I prefer the feel of the original stick to its replacement.
Last week, Nintendo said it would hike the price of the Switch 2 to $500 starting Sept. 1. These sticks cost $20, though without the right tools, you’ll end up spending more on specialty screwdrivers. That may be worth it for folks who love to dig into their electronics to find out how they work. The average gamer would be better off sending their controllers to Nintendo for a fix.
Your other option, if you want drift-resistant joysticks on the Switch 2, is to eschew Joy-Cons altogether. Mobapad finally released its long-awaited $100 M12 HD “Joycons” with TMR joysticks and ergonomic handles built for adult-sized hands. It seems to have everything you want from Joy-Cons, down to the NFC reader—all to excuse your excessive amiibo collection. The one issue is that it lacks the Switch 2’s landmark mouse mode. Maybe the games you plan to play don’t use the special Joy-Con 2 optical sensor, but I’ll personally miss it for titles like Pokémon Pokédex. There’s no perfect Switch 2 control option for everyone, but at least there are more options available now than there were at launch a year ago.
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