Switch 2 may look conservative, but Nintendo still has space to get wildly creative

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In the lead-up to Nintendo’s reveal of the Switch 2 in January, some game writers fretted that the company behind the Game Boy, Wii, and Nintendo DS might be playing it too safe with its next-gen console. All indicators pointed to a more powerful Switch that was, well, just a more powerful Switch.

At Polygon, reporter Ana Diaz wrote ahead of Switch 2’s reveal of her one desire from Nintendo’s next-gen plans: “I hope that at least one thing about the Switch 2 is weird.” Whether a “wonky gimmick to the hardware” or at the very least “an adorable jingle,” Diaz pleaded, “I just want to believe that Nintendo can still make something that is at least a little bit goofy.”

In a similar piece for Kotaku, John Walker praised Nintendo’s “bizarre innovation” and its track record of being “utterly impossible to guess what the company might create next, given the complete surprises of, say, a two-screen clamshell touch-screen portable gaming device, or a gesture-led under-TV console that shines best when the whole family is prancing around together.”

The Verge’s Andrew Webster went so far as to call the Switch 2 “boring.” (He framed that as a positive.)

While the original Switch was a demonstration of Nintendo’s ability to surprise and swerve, the hybrid console was also lacking in some of the personality that made the 3DS, Wii, and even the Wii U appealing. There were no cute Miis, and no earworms to shop to.

But the Switch was weird too, and its successor has ample room in which to get a little funky. 

Remembering the ‘bizarre innovation’ of the Switch era

The Nintendo Switch came on the tail of Nintendo doubling down on creativity. During Wii and DS/3DS era, there were dozens of wild experiments that took advantage of motion control and touchscreens, resulting in inventive oddities like Let’s Tap, a game built around never directly touching a Wii Remote; Elite Beat Agents, a musical cheerleading rhythm game; and WarioWare: DIY, a microgame-making toolkit. 

Ahead of the Switch launch, some critics of Nintendo unifying its console and handheld gaming business into a machine that could accomplish both at the same time would put its game designers into a tighter box.

But the original Switch fostered wild swings, too, mostly notably in 2018 with the release of Nintendo Labo, a series of build-it-yourself, cardboard-based peripherals that let players drive, fish, and experience lo-fi virtual reality. Two years later, there was Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, a real-world racing game that let Switch owners turn their console into a controller for an RC car — and terrorize their pets.

Thanks to the detachable Joy-Con controllers, game designers at Nintendo realized you could strap them to your thigh, giving us Ring Fit Adventure, an inventive fitness role-playing game. That idea was later applied to a Wii Sports sequel, albeit less successfully.

On the software front, Nintendo has been exploiting the detachable, motion-controlling Switch Joy-Cons to great (and weird) effect. Even many years into the system’s lifecycle, we got great experiments like Everybody 1-2-Switch, which integrated smartphones to let up to 100 people play that party game, and WarioWare: Move It!, a microgame collection that explored butt-wiggling as a game mechanic.

Nintendo also continued to innovate outside of the Switch’s boundaries during the handheld’s eight years on the market. In the off years, when it wasn’t pumping out Switch variants like the Lite and OLED model, it released interesting hardware: the Super NES Classic Edition retro console, Lego Super Mario sets, and Game & Watch handhelds featuring The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. Sure, those were less “weird” than they were shrewd business decisions, but those non-Switch hardware releases helped Nintendo’s Switch-era output be anything but stale.

Where Switch 2 can get weird

We’ve already seen one potential gameplay-changer from Switch 2: the Joy-Cons’ new mouse mode. Nintendo has a brief history with mouse controls dating back to the Super NES with Mario Paint, but I expect the company to go further with its new control scheme. While a mouse controller could certainly be additive for first-person shooters and DIY games like Super Mario Maker, but the potential for creativity is what excites me most:  Nintendo’s game designers are probably already making hundreds of WarioWare microgame prototypes using mouse movement.

Another rumored feature may be a longshot, but a recently published patent from Nintendo indicates that the console can be rotated, meaning the Joy-Cons can be attached in an upside-down position. While the main purpose of that patent seems to benefit players who might want the system’s ports to be on the opposite side, Nintendo could exploit this functionality for gameplay, à la WarioWare: Twisted! or Pokémon X and Y.

Switch 2 has other hardware features that set it apart from the original Switch, including a new “C” button that might be used for a new social space and a second USB-C port. The latter may be used for something as dull as charging the Switch 2 or for connecting a set of USB-C headphones, but it opens up opportunities for Nintendo to invent weird little attachments.

We can’t discount all the other uses that Nintendo might have for its detachable Joy-Cons. Those tiny controllers are packed with haptics, motion and IR sensors, bigger buttons, and (hopefully) more reliable joysticks. While I don’t expect Nintendo to release Labo 2, it’s barely scratched the surface when it comes to jamming Joy-Cons into other things to make funky controllers.

But yes, like Ana, I desperately want the conservative era of Nintendo to end in one regard: Switch 2 better have a silly little jingle or some catchy, endlessly looping tunes for its version of the eShop.