The Nintendo Switch 2 Drew Design Inspiration From Our Collective Nightmare
Spawned from our trauma.
Nintendo consoles always launch with some weird new feature. Some have been big hits, like the Wii’s motion controls. Others, colossal misses, like the Wii U’s tablet-like controller. This time around is no different. The Nintendo Switch 2 is going all in on socializing its gaming experience, incorporating a built-in microphone and an optional camera into the user interface.
The console's leading new feature, however, was directly inspired by humanity’s most harrowing collective experience of the decade.
A new feature that’s been added to the console [...] was born from our experience developing software remotely for a time due to COVID-19,” producer on the Switch hardware Kouichi Kawamoto explained in an Ask The Developer interview. “Back then, we were using a video conferencing system to check the software we were developing with our team, but the screen-sharing function built into the video conferencing system only allowed us to share one gameplay screen at a time.”
To circumvent that, Nintendo’s developers instead pointed their cameras directly at their screens. The unorthodox approach to screensharing sparked the idea.
The Switch 2’s unique social features camera was ideated during the 2020 lockdowns.
“It felt like we were all in the same place, each bringing our own console to play the game together, which was a lot of fun,” Kawamoto continued. “Based on this experience, we proposed adding a feature to Switch 2 where people can share their gameplay screen with other players.”
Adding the feature came with its fair share of challenges, though, according to Nintendo’s technology development general manager, Tetsuya Saskai.
“As video conferencing has become more common throughout the world [...] there are now more diverse demands and expectations for video call systems,” Saskai said. “When deciding on GameChat's features and which of those demands we could meet, we had to be careful, as devoting too much processing power to GameChat would affect how much is left over for games. Fortunately—or unfortunately—we had a group of fussy software developers who were very vocal with us, so we were able to strike a good balance.”
The Switch 2’s Joy-Con mice and social features are the two differentiating features for Nintendo’s new console.
When testing the feature, they realized that incorporating the player directly on screen was not nearly as alien as they were worried about, considering the popularity of platforms like Twitch.
“What I found interesting was that this makes you feel a bit like a livestreamer,” Kawamoto said. “This kind of pleasant moment was not something we anticipated in the early stages of development.”
Though the Switch 2 largely sticks to what its predecessor did well, it does have at least two genuinely refreshing features that can be considered a leg up on the competition. The Switch 2’s new Joy-Cons have a new mouse functionality which works remarkably well.
