The Nintendo Switch 2: you’ve got questions, and now that Tom P and Ian have returned from the Parisian reveal event, we’ve got answers.
Our full conversation was recorded for the Inside Eurogamer podcast, which you can listen to now if you’re a Supporter. That show is especially for Supporters and it’s where we elaborate on the work we do, and where we answer your questions. If you don’t know, supporting Eurogamer costs £3/€3/$3 a month or £30/€30/$30 a year, and it removes adverts from the site as well as gives you exclusive content like this. However, since Switch 2 is currently such a hot topic, I thought I’d share a few excerpts here.
Without doubt, one of the most questionable new features of Switch 2 is the mouse-like use of the new Joy-Con. Both Ian and Tom got a chance to try this, however neither particularly liked it.
“I found it really difficult to get on board with,” Tom told me, who used the mouse controls in the underwhelming Drag x Drive wheelchair basketball game. “And partly maybe that’s just me getting to use a control scheme I’ve never used before. But also for a fast-paced competitive game… You really have to get involved with the controls. You have to twist and turn, almost similar to being in a wheelchair and trying to do this movement yourself. I came out of it and my arms were aching. I remember saying to you Ian, ‘I’m exhausted after playing that.’ I only played it for five minutes.
“Yeah,” Ian added. “Most games that Tom played, I filmed first and I’d be like, ooh I can’t wait to have my go. But that one I was like, no, I think I’ll skip that one.”
One of the things that concerns me about the Joy-Con being used as a mouse is that it’s a thin, rectangular device when turned on its side, which is very different to the long-settled-on design of a computer mouse: wide and flat and round so as to hold the wait of your hand without tipping over. Does it feel as awkward to hold as it looks?
“I used it for two things,” Ian said, “for Metroid Prime 4 Beyond and for the demo [the Welcome Tour], and I found them fairly uncomfortable to hold. You have to create a new claw-like way to hold your hand to be able to touch the face buttons and things. There were often times where I’d have to look down to work out where my thumb was to find the face buttons I needed to press.
“I would struggle to think of any game that I would want to play using the mouse function, unless Nintendo launched a Mario Paint”
“If you’ve used a mouse before, which pretty much everyone has, you are used to holding a mouse in a certain way which is your hand out flat. Now, your hand is in this little kind of pincer way. Yeah, it was uncomfortable for me to hold. Maybe after I’ve trained my hands it’ll be fine.”
In use, though, the mouse functionality worked well. Ian said it was accurate and responsive and he didn’t encounter any tracking issues, though I should add that neither of them tried rubbing it on their legs. We hope to do that at a follow-up event in London this week, by the way. Ian also said the mouse functionality offered faster aiming in Metroid Prime 4 as opposed to using a controller.
“But as Tom said, who wants to play their console in front of a desk?” Ian said. “You’re going to want to relax on your sofa, sit back, and play Metroid that way. I would struggle to think of any game that I would want to play using the mouse function, unless Nintendo launched a Mario Paint.”
If Drag x Drive and its mouse controls were a low-point of the presentation, though, an undeniable high-point was Mario Kart World. Both Ian and Tom were bowled over by it, specifically by the new knockout tournament mode, which is a sort of racing take on Battle Royale. It apparently revitalises the fairly staid design of Nintendo’s long-running racing series, and in tandem with the open-world features of the game, makes Mario Kart World feel like the boldest entry in the series in years. To hear them talk about it makes me very excited indeed.
They were also both impressed by Donkey Kong Bananza, which closed the Nintendo Direct show to a relatively lukewarm response, perhaps because people expected a Mario game there instead. Regardless, in play, DK Bananza convinces – the gorilla-powered level destruction in particular. “This is something that definitely feels new and definitely feels like you need new hardware to play it,” Tom said. “The destruction stuff is really impressive. I’m surprisingly enthusiastic for it to be a pretty important title for Switch 2.”
This is but a snippet of a longer conversation, which takes in the Paris reveal event itself, Switch 2 pricing issues, what it’s like to hold and use the new hardware, and what the screen is like.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 will be released 5th June in the UK and pre-orders are scarce but open. Check out our Nintendo Switch 2 ‘everything we know’ article for everything you, um, need to know.
