The Nintendo Switch 2 is slated for release in June, so I have decided to wildly speculate about one of the upcoming new features coming to the sequel system: mouse movement. How useful could it be? How much value will it hold for the average gamer? Is it a silly little gimmick or a great innovation in gaming? Some of the questions might be given responses—not necessarily answers, but close!
Nintendo Switch 2 Mouse Controls: How Useful Could This Be?
If I were to guess I would say this is bound to be useful in menus, and no doubt will be featured heavily in the official Nintendo games as is tradition. Third-party titles on the other hand may be lacking in the mouse department, similar to how in previous generations the innovations companies have come up with end up never being used outside of first-party games.
With the lack of an accompanying keyboard (which may exist in the future to be fair), I worry that playing shooters might be unintuitive for most. Moving from software to hardware I have to wonder how well/long these controllers are gonna last with the constant rubbing and dragging, with the stick shift epidemic of the original Joy-cons I don’t have an excessive amount of faith in Nintendo’s concern for controller longevity.
How Much Value Will it Hold for the Average Gamer?
My suspicion is not that much overall. The two places you will find people playing Switch 2 games are on the couch and on the go. This feature seems most useful for desk users, which is a lot of PC players, but that isn’t Nintendo‘s target audience. Now, to be clear, those who have used the mouse control have said you can use it on other surfaces just fine, but with the narrow channel you move with, I worry it won’t do well with curved surfaces, like an armrest. We’ll have to wait and see how well it reacts to different environments and surfaces.
Silly Little Gimmick or Great Innovation?
For me, it lands pretty firmly in the gimmick category for the Nintendo Switch 2. I mean, it’s not innovative to take something that exists, complicate it by 12, then sell it like it’s a new thing. I doubt the average person will use this outside of the menus and first-party titles and I am worried using it will feel forced. Now, if you were an incredibly jaded and cynical person, you might have a thought here. You might think it’s odd how little Nintendo has talked about the joysticks with the Switch 2 announcement, after all stick drift is easily one of the Switch 1’s biggest problems.
You might wonder if this mouse movement feature exists to reduce the amount of time someone uses the joysticks, hereby reducing how prevalent the stick drift becomes, additionally, if stick drift were to occur you could still get substantial use out of your now bunked controller. Regardless I am excited for the Switch 2 to release, it’s got some killer games coming soon after and on release, then and only then will we have a definitive answer.
