I think there's something that kind of needs to be cleared, because I think a lot of people have some kind of confusion / misconception about stick drift.
There are two kinds of "stick drift". The most common one we keep hearing about all the time during this generation, on modern controller, is not the same as the one that existed before, at all, so it hasn't been an issue for "50 years".
- The first and older thing that people seem to call drift, is when the stick doesn't physically perfectly center itself back. If you move the stick and let it go back to the center, it will be slightly off center, which in most games might not be noticeable, but if the game has no or very small dead zone, the stick might be a little bit outside of the dead zone, and therefore will trigger unwanted analog input in the game.
This has existed since probably forever, but it's nowhere near as critical as the recent type of drift we get on modern controllers.
- The new type of stick drift is different, it's an electronic issue, the amount of how much the axis is pushed is not related to the physical position of the stick at all. The electronics get faulty and send wrong signals, and the signal that is sent to the game can be something as much as if the stick was pushed all the way into a direction, even if the stick itself, physically, is at the center. It's a lot more random and chaotic, and can't be fixed by adjusting dead zones, because the broken zone is way too large.
I have never seen, experienced or heard about this type of drift before recent years.
I think the two things should have specific names, be called differently, because they aren't the same and one isn't as problematic as the other one, and doesn't appear as quickly. The recent type of drift can happen after just a few weeks if you are not lucky, while the first older type was more likely to happen after a long time when the physical mecanics start to wore out.
