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A patent application reveals touchscreen and a VR headset for the Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo is gradually building up hype with small reveals of games and features for their upcoming Nintendo Switch console. However, the company has not released a lot of information regarding technical details, which has given gamers and industry experts alike a lot of room to speculate. A new patent application reveals some additional information about the console, hints the possibility of having its own VR headset.
The new patent 150-pages patent document was previously filed in June, but it only became public today. It was posted on the NeoGAF forums, from where the news about it spread like wildfire. However, it’s important to remember that just because certain features are present in a patent, it doesn’t mean that they will be implemented or confirmed.
Among various tidbits of information about the Nintendo Switch console, the biggest reveal found in the patent application is that the console will feature a capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch input. This has long been rumored but never revealed. If the Nintendo Switch will actually a touchscreen and it’s not only a scrapped idea, then the company could easily port Wii U games and enable a new area of gameplay for the console.
Another major feature reveal of the console is that the Nintendo Switch in its tablet form is shown to be used in VR headset. However, a lot of people are skeptical about this function since Nintendo has not shown any interest in VR, and rumored low-resolution 720 or 1080p screen resolution, means that up-close users will be able to notice the pixels, which isn’t a great thing to see in VR.
Other smaller but important reveals in the patent application consist in the fact that the Nintendo Switch’s controllers may include multiple shoulder buttons, as well as motion controls and IR position-tracking built-in the controllers. Additionally, the patent also reveals the existence of NFC technology and their capacity to vibrate.
However, it’s unlikely that we will actually see all these features implemented in the standard version of the console. Nonetheless, the patent also shows multiple versions of the Joy-Con controllers, in which the analog stick is replaced with a directional pad.
Finally, the only technical details revealed in the patent are that the Nintendo Switch will feature an SD card slot for expanded storage capacity, as well as that a USB-C will be used to connect to its dock.
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