It is no secret that the next Nintendo console, the Switch 2, is designed to be family-friendly than ever before.
The gaming giant is completely addressed to his multiplayer communication tool Gamechat, as well as a new camera that works together with titles that are suitable for younger age. We are talking about Mario Kart World and Super Mario Party Jamboree.
But perhaps the biggest change that makes this console more suitable for children than ever before, the adjustments to the Joy-Cons, something that I had to experience firsthand in Paris in the European launch of the Nintendo Switch 2.
The controllers on the original console slide into place via rails when you hold down a button on the back. Although it may seem intuitive in practice, it can be easy to ruin it, especially if you confirm every Joy-Con to a controller holder as it attached to the switch 2 below:
Hannah Cowton Barnes / Foundry
If you get them in the wrong direction, they can easily get stuck. Or it’s just sometimes picky to get them in. And let’s be honest, if it is a young, awkward child (and we were all once) who tries to confirm the joy consumption, there is a possibility that the beautiful console can be scratched if they try to do damage control.
The Nintendo Switch 2 solves that problem with a very simple solution: magnets.
The Joy-Cons can be released from the Switch 2 by pressing a trigger at the back and pulling them away. When they are close to the main display, they confirm again with a satisfactory snap – the console feels just as safe as the original. I tried this several times, and not once I found it shocking or difficult – it is a great upgrade. See a colleague journalist who tests it below.
Hannah Cowton Barnes / Foundry
The developers of Nintendo revealed that this build was actually eligible for the original switch, but was canceled when the weaker connection made the controllers Wiebel. In other words, this design has happened for a long time.
The same interview confirms that the company was aware of the larger size of the console and the impact it would have on people under the average adult height. As a senior director of entertainment planning and development at Nintendo, Takuhiro Dohta, explains: “Controllers can feel different, depending on the size of the player’s hands, so we searched with small handy developers within the company to keep the prototypes. We had to ask:” Do you know anyone with small hands? “
Although I have to confess, I am not an eight -year -old child, I am on the petite side, which means that I have small hands. Not once I felt that the buttons on the Joy cons are uncomfortable or a piece for my fingers. All buttons, triggers and joysticks have been changed for a comfortable fit.
If they are close to the main display, they are [the Joy-Cons] Remove again with a satisfactory snap – the console then feels just as safe as the original
But a question that can be in people’s heads is the care of Joy-Con Drift, something that was a major problem for the original switch controllers. IGN reports that Nintendo has not answered this question frontally, although Tetsuya Sasaki, general manager of the technology development division of Nintendo, and Senior Director in her technology development department, gave the following quote:
“As you may have seen and felt, the new Joy-Con 2 controllers for the Nintendo Switch 2 are really designed from the ground, all over again, and they are designed to have a larger movement and also smoother movement”.
That seems encouraging, but we will not know for sure whether this problem has been solved until the use of the Switch 2 for a longer period, and we will have to wait until the console on 5 June 2025 before that.
Nintendo organized my trip to Paris. I accepted it because there were no alternative ways to get hands-on time with the Switch 2 at the launch. There were no conditions about what I write or how I evaluate the device.
