The Soapbox feature allows our individual writers and contributors to give their opinions on hot topics and various things they’ve been thinking about. Today, Francisco looks at a little Joy-Con addition that could help set the upcoming “Switch successor” apart…
Nintendo can’t resist compelling hardware innovations — think the Game & Watch’s D-pad, the SNES’s nifty shoulder buttons, or the Wii’s revolutionary motion controls — and Nintendo has only just scratched the surface of its long-standing legacy as a pioneer of video game controllers. Despite its efforts, one hardware feature has eluded Nintendo for decades.
This powerful tool can travel miles in the blink of an eye, or move from satellite imagery to the tiniest ant in an instant. Sakurai proposed this for the GameCube. Nintendo A patent was filed It’s due to be released in 2015. Your fingers may be within reach of it at this very moment, and I’m referring to a long-overlooked wonder: the scroll wheel on a computer mouse.
Today’s Creative Sandboxes, with their emphasis on inventory management and menu construction, strain existing UI inputs to their limits — a tool first widely seen on Microsoft’s IntelliMouse in 1996 that’s fitting to make its belated debut on the Switch 2.
Time to spin the wheel
My first argument is that it’s purely convenient. We’ve grown accustomed to the familiar compromises multiplatform games use to make up for the lack of a scroll wheel: directional or radial options let you switch between weapons and powers in a quick-select menu; shoulder buttons let you turn pages of your inventory or toggle camera zoom in Civilization VI rather than scrolling through one long list.
Despite its incredible potential, Tears of the Kingdom faces a whole host of limitations that existing controllers simply can’t accommodate.
That used to be enough, but now, with menu-crafting and inventory-packing permeating every genre, it often feels like you’re spending as much time in spreadsheets as in the world of games. Persona It has some very nice features, but as you become more and more bogged down in menus, you’ll want to alleviate the low-level load behind those never-ending grids and lists.
During the last Direct, we learned that the upcoming top-down Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will also feature sandbox elements. Unfortunately, what I’m not looking forward to about this game is its reuse of Tears of the Kingdom’s endless “quick” menu, which took an embarrassing 80 hours of game time to scroll through in search of the right chuchu jelly. This problem has been around for long enough, especially when it can be easily remedied with the precision of a scroll wheel.
In comparison, holding down the analog stick feels like spinning a roulette wheel: it’s random and offers little speed control; overdo it and you have to flip the stick 180 degrees to bring it back. Digging in the directional pad is an even less acceptable option, requiring even more effort to hold and input the exact sequence just to select the right Minecraft item.
Designer tools for the creative world
If you think about it, the bigger problem is that the 3D revolution happened on screens, not controllers.
Even with the analog stick, when Link emerged into the strange 3D Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, or Mario ventured into the magical Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario 64, we continued to move through 3D space with 2D inputs. Up or down, left or right. And all sorts of angles in between. Essentially, it’s no different to controlling a bubblegum catcher, where you interact with a third plane of movement with the press of a button.
In many cases, we manage to make do, but creative mode, which demands the ability to control the player character and any number of objects in the game, still doesn’t provide the precision required for manipulating 3D objects. There’s a reason the mouse wheel is an important tool for graphic and level designers: it adds a whole new dimension.
Tears of the Kingdom has incredible potential, but it faces limitations that existing controllers never anticipated: the Ultrahand will have you haphazardly spinning a plank of wood like a novice nunchuck fighter, destined to create a pile of useless rubble that’s a destructive hazard for you and everyone within a 20-meter radius, not a historic feat of engineering.
Add in a scroll wheel and these issues melt away, like Princess Zelda appearing in the distance over the Gerudo Desert. There’s no need to switch floating objects between three axes. Even better, the natural rotational input lets you rotate objects with a precision that neither Zonai’s adhesive nor Nintendo’s sophisticated physics-detection system could match.
Link isn’t the only one to benefit. Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox Nintendo chose mobile and PC over consoles, solving this problem and preparing the Switch 2 for an untapped market of creative players.
A (casual) date with your soulmate
The convenience and design trick is nice, but does that alone justify such a bold new feature? What else can a scroll wheel do?
To think of some obvious examples: In last year’s diving/restaurant simulation game Dave the Diver, it’s easy to imagine the wheel being used to adjust the angle of Dave’s harpoon underwater, or to precisely tilt the spout when serving green tea to Dave’s sushi customers. It could also be used to carefully adjust the tension on Link’s bowstring before firing a devastating bomb arrow.
For more ideas, just take a look at Panic’s Playdate, a small yellow handheld device with a rotating crank on the side that quickly attracted a dev community eager to explore its possibilities.
Though the cranks aren’t wheels, they do operate on the same axis, proving that with just a few tweaks to the hardware, the Switch 2 could establish itself as home to unique mechanical experiences you won’t find anywhere else (at least until Steam Deck v3 comes along).
The early release of Playdate will give you a sneak peek at these new ideas. A well-balanced brew Players take on the role of a unicycle-riding barista, risking their life on the wheel to deliver coffee orders. Crankin’s Time Travel AdventureKatamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi has opted for the fourth dimension over the third: in his game, you control a clockwork robot rushing to a steamy date, as Crank sends players back and forth in time, realigning themselves along the timeline to avoid obstacles that stand between Crankin and his one true love, Crankette.
Recently, Return of the Obra Dinn creator Lucas Pope was drawn to taking advantage of these hardware opportunities and recently launched Midnight Marsa Playdate exclusive, is a typically complex title that uses a variety of clever crank controls.
The Switch’s successor deserves a similarly unique title from this calibre of developer eager to explore these new possibilities. Plus, we know for sure what Nintendo’s world-class team of designers, who have worked wonders with motion and touch controls, will be up to. I’m especially excited to see what WarioWare comes up with.
There are legitimate concerns: Given the disappointing track record of Joy-Con drift, adding another potential mechanical failure to a successor might seem like a risk. Finding the right ergonomic placement might also be an even bigger challenge. Personally, I’m with Sakurai: shoulder buttons turned into clickable wheels add functionality without an extra button, and are certainly better than a back-located “Z” button-like on the Nintendo 64 controller.
I’m confident that Nintendo’s developers could make this happen if they put their minds to it. As the saying goes, “where the wheels are, there’s a way.”