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A recurring issue mentioned in several Nintendo Switch hardware previews over the last few days concerns the quality of the wireless connection between the console and its satellite controllers - the Joy-Cons. Several reports state that there have been issues with the left Joy-Con in particular, de-syncing momentarily from the main unit, leaving Switch users unable to properly control their games.Out of the entire Eurogamer team, editor Oli Welsh has spent the most time with the system as he reviews The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. For the vast majority of the experience, gameplay has been flawless. However, on a couple of occasions, the left Joy-Con did appear to lose contact - with no obvious obstruction between controller and console. The Switch was docked and only 1m away from the Joy-Con. On a few other occasions, in similar circumstances, control was disrupted, with the Joy-Con unresponsive or responding erratically to movement inputs on the stick. On all occasions, the disruption lasted a few seconds and then fixed itself.
So, to what extent is this a real issue and is it only the left controller that is actually affected? After all, in Breath of the Wild, the left Joy-Con controls character movement - both may be affected, but the right controller may simply not have been in use at the time. At Digital Foundry, we decided to put some science into action to figure out whether the signal strength from both controllers is indeed equal - or not. The bottom line? While we didn't encounter any issues like Oli's in our more limited testing, we can confirm that one Joy-Con syncs better with the console than the other.
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