Nintendo just filed a patent for a new piece of kit. It’s a wireless communication device neatly tucked in a small box, nothing out of the ordinary for a brand that has historically made PokéWalkers, StreetPass tech, and now tracks sleep via smart watches. What’s interesting, though, is the communication range of the mmWave sensor, which hits up to 24Ghz in frequency – I think that it’s going to be used for virtual reality integration.
The obvious thing to note from the image is that it’s a box – not a controller, and definitely not a console. It’s a connectivity peripheral, we estimate. The ‘CLO-001’ features a 2.
4Ghz Wi-Fi antenna alongside the beefier mmWave sensor – the main focus here. The Verge postulates that this “could be a radar sensor to track movement,” drawing similarities to the Pixel 4 and home presence sensors. One of my colleagues theorised that this could be a pre-cursor to some type of Xbox Kinect tech, which I was horrified by, though perhaps also why I’m not convinced by that direction.
The Kinect’s disastrous launch should have instilled major gaming brands with the caution that consumers just aren’t persuaded by simple camera tracking in gaming. Is Nintendo about to go into the VR market? So why might Nintendo be developing hardware that might be used to track movement? Perhaps to better integrate VR into its ‘Switch 2’. The company has actually had a long history designing controllers that track movement; the Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch all feature tech that dynamically integrate hand tracking with gameplay.
It already has all of the foundational experience to push this forward into VR controllers. All it’s lacking is a headset, but let’s hope that the commercial failure of the Virtual Boy doesn’t stick a fork in plans. The device is powered by USB-C, and it’s possible that this covers data transfer too.
Since the most recent set of Switch 2 leaks suggest that Nintendo’s next console will have two USB-C ports – top and bottom – it’s possible that one of these is positioned with the wireless device in mind. The brand has also toyed around with Labo in the past, a cardboard VR kit that lets your Switch display double up as a VR headset. Though it saw very limited game compatibility, it was certainly a sign that Nintendo is at least interested in the virtual reality direction.
With the Switch 2’s hardware upgrades likely to assert itself as an aggressive competitor to handheld gaming PCs, compatibility with some kind of VR eco-system would give it that Nintendo je ne sais quoi that’s been ever present in its outside of the box console design philosophy. And I am all for it..
