During GameStop’s most recent financial conference call, the company’s executives had a lot of encouraging and optimistic things to say about Nintendo’s upcoming Switch. Citing polls of its Power-Up Rewards members, GameStop found that 27 percent of them were both aware of Nintendo’s new console and were also planning on picking one up at launch. As nice as it is to hear about solid consumer interest in Switch, a potentially more interesting piece of information came when it was CEO Paul Raines’ turn to speak about the system.
Here’s what he had to say about his hands-on time with Switch:
“The Switch is a very interesting device. […] Nintendo Switch has the potential to expand incrementally the audience. The reasons are: the IP is more compelling for family than the other types of IPs, so Mario and all those things, and movement-related games are more fun for kids, you know, taking those accessories off, what they call the wings and the master controller, you can really do a lot of interesting things with that in gameplay. And then the last thing I will say, they got a unique portability to it. […] I think it really got tremendous potential as a game changer. We’ll have to wait and see like everything else in this industry, the consumers will vote with their dollars.”
In a single breath, Raines mentions “movement-related games” and Switch’s removable controllers, which we now know as Joy-Con. There’s a chance that this statement doesn’t mean much; but to us, this sounds like a casual and perhaps unintentional mention of a Switch feature that Nintendo has yet to confirm themselves.
The return of gyroscopic controls in Switch, especially with two unique inputs could have massive potential for unique gameplay possibilities. The return of single and multiplayer Wii Sports at home or on the go, the pinpoint gyroscopic aiming in games like Zelda and Splatoon and countless other applications of motion controls that have made their way into Nintendo games in the past decade could develop even further on the new console.
Of course, we’ll have to wait for Switch’s official, full reveal in January to know for sure if we’re deciphering these statements correctly, but this is one feature we’d love to see forge onward.
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Written by Brittin Shauers
Brittin literally grew up with Link, Mario and Samus. These three characters and their worlds collectively capture everything that he loves about video games.
