diff --git a/drivers/hid/hid-nintendo.c b/drivers/hid/hid-nintendo.c
index a000a287206e..b5e9d89b3fd2 100644
--- a/drivers/hid/hid-nintendo.c
+++ b/drivers/hid/hid-nintendo.c
@@ -1414,6 +1414,15 @@ static int nintendo_hid_probe(struct hid_device *hdev,
 		goto err_wq;
 	}
 
+	/*
+	 * Patch the hw version of pro controller/joycons, so applications can
+	 * distinguish between the default HID mappings and the mappings defined
+	 * by the Linux game controller spec. This is important for the SDL2
+	 * library, which has a game controller database, which uses device ids
+	 * in combination with version as a key.
+	 */
+	hdev->version |= 0x8000;
+
 	ret = hid_hw_start(hdev, HID_CONNECT_HIDRAW);
 	if (ret) {
 		hid_err(hdev, "HW start failed\n");