There's an awful lot of confusion surrounding the never-ending topic of stick drift at the moment, with some Switch Lite owners suggesting that their new consoles are suffering the same fate as seen in the original Joy-Con.

Things soon escalated when a teardown video of the console shared by Spawn Wave suggested that the sticks are identical to those found in the original Joy-Con - and could therefore be susceptible to the same issues - but a second teardown video soon found that there was a small difference in each stick's metal casing. Between the mixed messages and the user reports flooding social media (which can't always be fully believed), the whole situation has been a bit of a mess.

We've now stumbled across a new theory, however, which we feel inclined to agree with. It doesn't answer why users have been suffering with drift on their Switch Lites, but it does present a valid argument for why the metal casing has been changed on the new console and suggests that Nintendo has attempted to combat drift issues going forward.

In the video below, shared online by Twitter user @GoodonSwitch, you can see an original Switch which appears to have issues with stick drift, but it soon stops.

My thoughts on the #JoyConDrift issue with the #NintendoSwitch you can see here that the drifting on my left joy-con stops after a few seconds without touching the analog stick. pic.twitter.com/hPwiGQf6jO September 25, 2019

@GoodonSwitch's theory argues that the change in the metal casing (which is essentially a small bump in the middle) has been put in place to prevent the stick's spring from getting stuck in an incorrect position. In the original Joy-Con models, the metal part was a completely flat surface, which potentially causes this spring to slide around and get trapped away from its neutral spot; this new casing seems to fix the spring to the centre.

In this picture you can see my replacement stick on the right and the original on the left. The lower pic shows the one from the Switch lite. Both the replacement stick and the one from the Switch lite have bumps in the middle. pic.twitter.com/nOvG0ASWow September 25, 2019

As we noted above, while the theory should hopefully offer some comfort to Switch Lite owners, it still doesn't explain why some users are supposedly experiencing problems with the new machine.

Here's hoping Nintendo provides an official statement on the issue soon.