Nintendo's president Tatsumi Kimishima said that it is going to happen soon. Kimishima confirmed that Nintendo is studying VR now and will add it eventually to Switch once they figure out how to allow gamers to play for plenty of hours on end without any problems. "If we are able to resolve the issues with playing [VR] comfortably for long hours, we will support it in one form or another."
Nintendo Will Add VR To Switch
The Nintendo Switch will soon support virtual reality "in one form or another," that is if the company can figure out how to make the technology comfortable to all users. According to IGN, VR on Nintendo Switch can suffer from a number of issues that are comfort-related, including simulated change illness, eye stresses, the weight of headsets and the like. Mario game creator Shigeru Miyamoto has recently revealed that Nintendo has already researched on VR and said that the company wants something that "can be played for long periods, carries value and is affordable."
Nintendo looks like slowly be coming around on VR, especially for its Switch console. Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, said that Nintendo believed that VR is needed for the users to have more fun and social in order to succeed. He also added that “based on what I’ve seen to date, it’s not fun, and it’s not social. It’s just tech.”
Last year, many happenings regarding VR opened to the public. It includes when Oculus VR launched the Rift in March, HTC and Valve unveiled the Vive in April and Sony became the first ever console manufacturer of VR for the PlayStation 4’s PlayStation VR headset. In February 2016, Nintendo’s insight on VR appeared to be growing a bit. During an earnings call, Kimishima described VR as an “interesting technology” and also said that Nintendo was doing further research regarding that matter. However, he also noted that Nintendo had no specific plans to launch a VR product.
How Does VR Will Work On Nintendo Switch?
According to Polygon, VR on the Nintendo Switch would work similarly to the way it works with the smartphone that supports VR headsets like the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream View. Nintendo revealed the Switch in October and 2 months later, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published Nintendo patents showing off the potential use cases for the Switch that includes virtual reality headset.
A diagram in the published patents showed that Nintendo Switch unit sliding into the top part of an accessory to form a head-mounted display. The user of the console would view the Switch screen through its lenses that are meant to expand the viewing angle as well as for the console to warp the showing image accordingly. The game console features acceleration and gyro sensors, which the system could use in this configuration to calculate the position and movement of a user’s head.
Since the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers can be used wirelessly, a player would be able to slot the display into this accessory, strap it to their head and then interact with a game using the controllers. Considering the Switch’s hardware, something like the aforementioned peripheral would likely be the only feasible VR solution for the system. The Switch features a custom system-on-a-chip based on Nvidia’s Tegra series of mobile processors, so the console would almost surely be incapable of powering a stand-alone headset like the PlayStation VR.
