Nintendo Will Begin Selling Individual Joy-Cons

Buying new Joy-Cons, even just one of them has always been a steep investment since you could only buy them in pairs at $79.99. That will finally change, over 3 years after the Switch’s launch. Nintendo announced that individual Joy-Cons will be available for purchase in the very near future.  

Beginning November 9, Nintendo will offer the Neon Red and Blue controllers separately for a still-relatively expensive $39.99. Unfortunately, the colors remain locked to specific orientations. By that I mean you can only get Red left Joy-Cons and Blue right ones. While that’s been the standard layout since launch, it would have been nice to have the colors on the opposite side. That way pairs of Red/Blue Joy-Cons can be made more easily. On the bright side, my Switch can finally rock a pair of Grey/Red controllers. Yes, I’m weird – speaking of which, hopefully, Nintendo will offer single packs of the more exotic controller colors sooner than later. 

Nintendo’s Joy-Con issues, particularly with controller drift, and more specifically on the left Joy-Con, are well documented and still very much an issue. Class-action lawsuits continue to be levied against the publisher by angry Switch owners even after it began offering free repairs last year. Saving $30 bucks to only replace the offending Joy-Con instead of getting saddled with an extra one certainly helps. God help them if they still haven’t fixed the issue, though. If I were a betting man…I would suggest holding on to those receipts. Just in case. 

It’s good timing too given that Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Pikmin 3 Deluxe are just around the corner. The money saved by replacing that one problematic controller can go towards buying one of those instead. Or you would wait weeks for Nintendo to fix it for free. Up to you. 

Are you excited to finally purchase a single Joy-Con? Let us know down in the comments!