We’re in Nintendo Switch 2 rumour season, my dudes. Now that Nintendo has actually revealed its console, we’re all spending our days pouring over the trailer frame by frame and wildly speculating based on what we see. Wait, is that just me? Oh well.
There are a few Switch 2 features that caught my attention in the trailer. Sure, many were disappointed by the lack of games shown (we knew it was a hardware-only reveal), the lack of specs shared (literally why would Nintendo do this now?), and how short the trailer was (would you have liked five more minutes of that? Really?). But there were a couple of details that caught my eye.
Firstly, the new Joy-Con. They’ve got cool little magnets that snap onto the main console, which is neat. I imagine they’ll work similarly to the Microsoft Surface, which felt satisfyingly kinetic when you snapped the keyboard into place. But that’s not the most important part. The Joy-Con can now act as mice.
This seems a little pointless at first glance. Why does a Switch need a mouse? Firstly, have you ever tried to input a password using thumbsticks? Of course you have, you own a Switch. While not quite a full keyboard, a mouse will help here. But more importantly, ii will also help when simulating a Nintendo DS.
The Joy-Con Mouse-Stylus
Many Nintendo DS games utilise the console’s touchscreen in unique and innovative ways. Whether it’s rapidly circling a Charizard in Pokemon Ranger or doing whatever it is you do in WarioWare DS, the touchscreen-top screen combo is important to so many classic games.
This makes countless DS games tricky to emulate, especially on the Switch. Via PC emulation, you can simulate a stylus by clicking with your mouse. It doesn’t have the same tactile effect as tapping a little plastic stick on your little screen, but it does the job well enough. The Switch doesn’t have this option. Sorry, I meant to say the Switch didn’t have this option.
But the Switch 2 having a mouse isn’t the only evidence to support my theory. The mice Joy-Con could just be Nintendo’s answer to the Steam Deck’s dual trackpads, which aim to simulate that of a laptop but in reality vastly surpass any single trackpad I’ve ever used thanks to excellent haptics and the typing capabilities of a split on-screen keyboard.
The Next Port Of Call
My next piece of evidence is even more speculative, but the Switch 2 has a port on the top of the console. It’s unclear what this is for.
The Switch 2 is shown to dock in the same manner as the standard Switch, locking its bottom half into a purpose-designed dock, from which it will charge, project your gameplay onto the telly, and all the rest of it.
So why does the Switch 2 have another USB-C port on the top? I wonder if you can connect your HDMI cable here as well as through the dock, allowing a split-screen functionality akin to the Wii U. I hear your cries, it may not make much sense as to why Nintendo would take inspiration from its worst-selling console ever, but this has never been a company to rest on its laurels.
Derided Wii U games paved the way for Breath of the Wild to iterate upon them and become one of the most influential games of the last decade, so who’s to say that can’t be the case for the console itself?
I envision your Switch screen working as the DS’ bottom screen when using a DS Virtual Console or similar, and what would have been the DS’ too screen gameplay shown on your TV screen.
Am I sure about this? No. But I can’t think of many other uses for that little port, unless Nintendo is also going to release a second-screen peripheral that clips onto the top of your Switch. Now that one’s really unlikely, but imagine if I was right?
Players have been asking for a DS emulator on Switch for years now, and Nintendo’s next gen console has a slim chance of delivering. With Joy-Con mice acting as styluses and a strange port for connecting a second screen, the Switch DS (or, more accurately, the Switch U) could become a reality. And if it doesn’t, I’ll eat my stylus. I’d have to buy one first though because I lost mine years ago and now rely on hoping my podgy fingers hit the right letters on the DS touch keyboard, but after that there’d be nothing stopping me.
If the Switch 2 can play DS games though, I’ll have no need for any stylus any more. Nintendo is on the cusp of grasping the back-compatibility holy grail. I’m on the cusp of some serious stomach problems.
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