While Nintendo might not be ready to divulge any more specific details about the Switch until next year, it seems at least willing to elaborate a little more on the concept. Speaking with Bloomberg in his first interview since the Switch was formally unveiled last week, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima opened up about the core design behind Switch, peripheral possibilities and the likelihood of virtual reality in the system’s future.
Kimishima first stressed that Switch’s reveal trailer barely scratched the surface of the system’s features. The trailer, which showcased the console’s dual-purpose design as both a home and portable system, was primarily focused on its most apparent uses and control possibilities.
“By no means was that everything.”
He went on to explain that the Switch, the tablet-like device at the center of the new console, will be host to a variety of peripheral hardware. Currently, we’ve only seen two standard control inputs – called JoyCon – that crib the screen and offer a traditional GamePad-like experience.
Speaking of these and other, yet-to-be-revealed add-ons:
“It may be appropriate to call them accessories. Or it might be better to call them add-on hardware. It’s probably more correct to call them accessories. You can assume that there will be a wider array.”
When asked whether Nintendo would consider allowing Switch to interface with hardware from other companies, Kimishima said that it’s not something Nintendo is currently exploring. He did, however, express interest in budding virtual reality tech. In contrast to comments made by NOA president Reggie Fils-Aimé as recently as this year’s E3 back in June, here’s what Kimishima had to say:
“VR offers new ways of playing, but that depends on what kind of software can be played. If you ask us whether there are possibilities, we can’t say no. It may be that we’ll build VR software titles, I think that opportunity is available to us.”
This almost makes it sound like Nintendo would consider developing software for use on existing VR hardware. Which, considering its lucrative first steps into the mobile market over the past seven months, perhaps shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.
We’ll likely see some details on more of these Switch peripherals at the system’s formal presentation in January.
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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.
