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Ive seen all of them and the thing I keep coming back to is one worry.
For other companies what Nintendo does would be consider a gimmick, a trifle, the Xbox Kinect.
Former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata (L) and the company’s game creator Shigeru Miyamoto at a “Wii” press conference in December 2006.
When it comes to consoles, Nintendo literally changes the game.
The Wii introduced the Wii-mote and motion controls that were quickly copied by rivalsSonyand Xbox in their own ways.
While a failure, the Wii-U introduced the tablet controller and hinted at the future Switch.
Former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata (L) and the company’s game creator Shigeru Miyamoto at a “Wii” press conference in December 2006.
We may not recall but in 2017 there were no handheld consoles.
There were set top consoles and there were portable ones.
In turn, there are legions of handheld PC consoles now.
Renders of the new Nintendo Switch 2
But the Switch 2?
Nintendo Switch 2: Just a Bigger Switch?
An extra USB-C port?
Interesting, but allegedly just for charging.
Adding the Hall Effect to the Joy-Cons to prevent drift?
Awesome, and much needed but not exciting.
We can snarkily look at a Nintendo console and sneer, Wheres the gimmick?
It hints at a Nintendo gadget that could use an mmWave sensor to track movements or gesture controls.
Nintendo has played with both in its experimental cardboard Labo kits.
Those kits featured a VR display of sorts and live games like the Mario Kart Live system.
Why couldnt Nintendo innovate in the VR and AR space?
Especially since the Joy-Cons are essentially tiny Wiimotes that could be tracked with some sort of external sensor.
Its not a full console but its something.
And Mario will probably feature.
Gimmicks (the good kind) coupled with solid games are what they do best.
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