Valve has commented on the worry about control stick drift, saying that it "didn't want to take a risk on that".
In a recent interview regarding the specifications of the Steam Deck, IGN asked Valve about thumbstick drift, considering how it's proven to be a big issue for the Nintendo Switch and has even been seen more recently on the PS5's Dualsense.
When asked about the issue, hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said, "We've done a ton of testing on reliability, on all fronts really – and all inputs and different environmental factors and all that kind of stuff, I think we feel that this will perform really well. And I think people will be super happy with it. I think that it's going to be a great buy. I mean, obviously, every part will fail at some point, but we think people will be very satisfied and happy with this."
Designer John Ikeda also commented on the subject, saying, "We purposely picked something that we knew the performance of, right? We didn't want to take a risk on that, right? As I'm sure our customers don't want us to take a risk on that either."
For those who are unaware of what thumbstick drift is, you might have heard it being called "Joy-Con drift" more recently. It's a flaw within a controller that has it reacting to movements and inputs that simply aren't being made. If you ever have your in-game camera spinning for no reason, or seeing a character move on their own, it's likely a result of stick drift.
As the name would imply, Joy-Con drift is specific to the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons and is inarguably the most controversial example of thumbstick drift. Recent console releases have also seen some thumbstick drift, with both the PS5's Dualsense and the Xbox Series controllers reportedly suffering from the issue. All three companies have been hit with lawsuits regarding the issue.