What will Switch 2’s gimmick be?
Nintendo has a unique philosophy when it comes to video game hardware, defined by its late designer Gunpei Yokoi as ‘lateral thinking with withered technology’. The idea is that instead of striving for cutting-edge technology, Nintendo’s engineers take cheaper, mass-produced, less powerful parts and then produce something unexpected and innovative. The philosophy has led to most, if not all, of the company’s greatest successes, including Yokoi’s original Game Boy: the dual-screen, touch-enabled DS; the motion-controlled Wii; and the Switch, a hybrid portable gaming console born from Nintendo’s realization that low-powered mobile chipsets were quickly overtaking mainstream gaming technology.
In other words: Nintendo loves a gimmick. As we wait for the reveal of the Switch’s successor – the Switch 2, as we’re calling it – it’s natural to wonder what this console’s gimmick will be, and whether it will have one at all. It would be out of character for Nintendo to release a straight, “same but better” sequel to one of its consoles. Even the 3DS, which was otherwise just an updated DS, had a glasses-free 3D screen. On the other hand, Nintendo was badly burned by the failure of the Wii U, its first attempt at a hybrid console. Seven years later, however, the Switch’s sales pitch remains unique enough to still stand out, even against a new wave of powerful handhelds like the Steam Deck.
From reports so far, Switch 2 will indeed be a fairly simple sequel, a low-power handheld that plugs into a TV. Here we’ve rounded up some of the more interesting theories about what other features Nintendo might be tempted to spice it up.
Will Switch 2… have two screens that separate?
From the DS to the Wii U, Nintendo has long had a penchant for a dual-screen setup, and a patent recently unearthed by Game Rant suggests it might consider going back to a DS-style dual-screen handheld device.
There are a few new twists here. The first is that even when closed, the device still has a touchscreen on the outside – either because it’s a clamshell device with a third screen on the back, or, more likely, because it slides shut, like an old-fashioned slider phone. The second is that the two screens can be detached from each other to form two independent units for two-player wireless multiplayer – as if each of the Switch’s Joy-Cons had its own screen.
While the patent artwork shows this device as a simplistic handheld that looks a bit like a DS, there’s no reason why the detachable dual-screen design couldn’t be integrated into a Switch-like hybrid. But by the time you add a dock and (possibly) detachable Joy-con controllers, it all starts to sound very complex and expensive, which isn’t really in the spirit of Yokoi’s maxim. Furthermore, patents are not necessarily indicative of products that will hit store shelves; sometimes they are just concepts.
The only thing that makes this more plausible is that a dual-screen design with touch controls would unlock a lot of Nintendo’s back catalog that’s currently impossible to play on Switch – namely the DS and 3DS games, as well as some Wii U games .
But in reality, it’s more likely that Nintendo is treating this device as its own thing, or simply making sure an interesting idea gets patented when it may not have any serious intention of making it. (Remember the NX oval?)
Likelihood: low
Will Switch 2… have a camera?
Another rumor that came to light last year was that the console would have a camera. According to an insider on the ResetEra forum“There’s a new camera feature with the Switch 2, I’m not sure if it’s VR.”
VR sounds highly unlikely – there are no reports suggesting the Switch 2 is or will ship with a headset. Nintendo experimented with VR early on, with 1995’s disastrous Virtual Boy, and has shown little interest in the technology since (unless you count the Labo VR kit’s almost parodic cardboard headset). It may be that the insider meant AR, or augmented reality. This is the technology that combines real-world camera input with game graphics, which is most commonly used in games Pokémon Go.
There are a few reasons why this is very possible. As a shareholder of the Pokémon Company, Nintendo is more than familiar with the gaming possibilities of AR and has also experimented with it in Pikmin Bloom. (Both games are made under license by AR specialist Niantic, in which Nintendo and the Pokémon Company are investors.) Cameras are also a great fit for portable consoles; Nintendo released a camera accessory for the Game Boy in 1998 and included cameras in a number of DS family consoles, including the DSi and 3DS. Nintendo’s designers were already playing with AR years ago Pokémon Go in titles like Nintendogs + catsand would probably come up with some cool applications with the processing power the Switch 2 will have.
The case against? Adding even a basic camera will increase the cost, and that would be for a feature that many games won’t use. Breakout AR goes further than that Pokémon Go there have been few. And everyone already has a device that is suitable for games and a camera: their smartphone. Nintendo got away with low-quality cameras in previous devices because of their novelty value, but that no longer applies. Yet this is far from impossible.
Chance Rating: Average
Will Switch 2… have fewer gimmicks than Switch?
As much as it goes against (some of) Nintendo’s instincts, we have to consider the possibility that the company will actually take away features rather than add them. The reason is simple: costs. The price of electronic components does not decrease over time as it used to be – Switch’s retail price has remained the same throughout its lifespan – and Nintendo needs to find a cost-effective way to make a more powerful console with a reportedly significantly larger screen.
Rumors say the console will still be playable “in portable mode”, which also suggests this won’t be the case – so the continuation of the dock, or some other way to connect it to a TV, seems like a given.
The place where Nintendo is most likely to make cuts is with the Joy-Cons. These are complex, miniaturized, expensive, somewhat overdeveloped and – by Nintendo’s high standards – quite unreliable. Could Nintendo simplify the design with a single detachable controller? This is certainly possible, although it would leave out one of Switch’s most unique and attractive features: out-of-the-box local multiplayer on a portable device.
However, there are many more candidates for cuts. The haptic feedback of “HD Rumble” can be simplified or removed entirely; so do the accelerometer and gyroscope that enable motion and pointer control. The Near Field Communication Reader (NFC) that works with Amiibo figures can be dropped, as can the infrared sensor that can detect nearby objects and read motion. Of these, it is almost certain that the very rarely used infrared sensor will be deleted. The NFC reader could also be used; While Amiibo are a popular series for Nintendo, their appeal is more as a collectible than for any gaming interface.
Cutting off motion controls is much less likely. This would pose a major headache for backwards compatibility, and it would also mean that Switch 2 wouldn’t be capable of some of the physical casual gaming genres that Nintendo started with the Wii and that the platform still uses in titles like Nintendo Switch Sports And Ring Fit Adventure. (Motion controls are also often used for aiming in shooters and action games.) Rumble is an expected feature, although it could be cut back a bit.
In summary, it seems very likely that Nintendo will try to streamline the engineering of the Joy-Cons, while hopefully improving the reliability and accuracy of their core components.
Likelihood: high
Will Switch 2… be just like Switch?
In all likelihood, you can expect the Switch 2’s design to be very conservative by Nintendo’s eccentric standards. As a rule, Nintendo does not make follow-up consoles, but on this occasion every factor is pushing the company towards one console. We’ll get into the reasons for this in a future article, but in short: Switch has sold almost 140 million units. It’s not broken and Nintendo doesn’t have to try to fix it.