In Search of The Perfect Pair of Pants to Game On

The biggest video games hardware launch in five years is nearly upon us, and Nintendo has been doing plenty to promote it, inviting journalists, influencers, and soon, the public, out to try its new wares. One of the more bizarre things to come out of the showcase has been the developers’ emphasis on the most unexpected video game peripheral accessory of all — your pants, or pair of trousers.

In a response to a question asked on Wednesday noting that the Nintendo Switch 2 will have computer mouse-like features, but that people generally game on consoles sitting in front of their TVs without any desks in sight, Nintendo hardware employees responded that you can use your pants as the desk. Huh?

“As you mentioned, usually the table is very far,” says Kouichi Kawamoto, producer of entertainment planning and development, in a group interview. “But we have made it so that you can control the mouse on your pants. Drag X Drive, you can play it while playing it on your pants.”

The many mentions of your pants had Nintendo employees chuckling on Wednesday, with senior vice president of product Nate Bihldorff joking that Nintendo wasn’t selling a pants peripheral quite yet.

All of this discussion had me wondering just what sort of pants would work best to play Nintendo Switch 2 games. While a full test of the fabrics involved and of skirts and dresses, too, will have to wait until we get our hands on the console for at-home testing, I was able to get back to games like Drag X Drive and test them out on the pair of very nice denim plus elastane Mugler pants I was wearing. The concept of Drag X Drive is that you control a guy on a wheelchair-like contraption by rolling both of the Joy Cons on a surface — whether it’s a desk or your pants — and then play basketball.

My Mugler pants were unfortunately, by design, too striated, so that not only did I have bumbling teammates to bump into in-game but I also had real-world obstacles for my controls by the nature of my pants. A pair of smooth denim jeans were, by contrast, I imagine, the platonic ideal for a good surface area to play with, but the jury’s still out.

Getting these expanded mouse controls to work on console is very exciting for some gamers, as the Switch 2 is portable and light so therefore more convenient for travel than lugging a heavy PC, and mouse controls give you more precision over selecting small units over a screen with a lot going on. Case in point here is Civilization 7, which will support the Switch 2’s mouse controls. Developed by Firaxis, Civ 7 is a turn-based strategy game that ran already on the original Switch, but it was more difficult for players in the past to use console controls. Some complained it was just not possible, but other more resourceful players resorted to using the touchscreen or just playing zoomed in all the way. Pants plus mouse is a combination that just might be game-changing, Firaxis says.

“In fairness, it’s not as stable as a normal mouse when you’re on such a small platform, so you do have to curb it more, because you don’t have that big flat surface,” says Firaxis executive producer Dennis Shirk, who worked on Civilization 7. “Otherwise, it’s been spot on. It’s been awesome.”

Pants or skirts or dresses aside, we can expect to learn more about the Nintendo Switch 2 in the coming weeks and months before its June launch. Some of the developers did not even learn of some of the Switch features until this week, such as the video-capturing C button, so we can likely expect game design that includes some of these weirder features to come out even later than June.