Patent suits are nothing new in the tech world, certainly not in the gaming industry, and definitely not Nintendo's first rodeo on this front. What makes this suit different, or at least what seems to be getting it more attention than other suits is Gamevice's exact demands as far as restitution. Not only is the company seeking damages, but moving to have sales of the Switch halted altogether. Similar suits have led to the Classic Controller being discontinued and at least two other suits have sought to halt Wii sales in the United States. Nintendo was able to defend itself against some of these suits while settling with others.
After customer complaints of Nintendo underselling its NES Classic mini-console, its fluctuating Amiibo line, and similar grumblings of Switch console availability, it simply seems Nintendo fans can't catch a break when it comes to putting Nintendo hardware on their shelves. Overall it seems unlikely Gamevice will get its way and have the Switch stopped dead in its tracks, that part of their case most likely being a bargaining chip of sorts, something they can give up later as a gesture of good faith towards a more reasonable settlement (a bluff).
As of this writing, there's no real word on how much of a bluff said bluff actually is. For the sake of putting to rest any possible fears people may have of not being able to get a Switch, I'd like to offer a glimpse into a possible future, based on nothing more than informed speculation. Here's the informed part:
Let's face some cold hard facts about the Nintendo 3DS... the 3D gimmick was awful. It's practically Virtual Boy levels of awful. I know some people never had an issue with the 3D, but I did, and I know I'm not alone. I couldn't look at that thing for more than 30 seconds before my brain desperately tried to make a break for it through my nose. Between that and my Playstation Vita, I had little to no interest in what Nintendo's clamshell had to offer (also I'm not a big fan of the clamshell design). I did eventually get a DSi XL secondhand mostly for the sake of playing a handful of games I was interested in that weren't for the 3DS. I did, however, get a 2DS for my roommate. Apart from the screen being kinda small compared to the various XL models of DSi and 3DS, it pretty much fixed every issue I had with the 3DS. I think it was a good move on Nintendo's part to offer more options to their customers. It's easy to fall into the old Sega trap of too much hardware, but on the other end of the spectrum, I think Nintendo is more often than not far too stingy with hardware. Their so-called Wii "mini" was almost an insulting joke of a console, ironically being slightly bigger on some dimensions than the Wii proper, and with overall fewer capabilities like a lack of an SD card slot (so no WiiWare or Virtual Console games).
More recently, Nintendo has made a 2DS XL, finally giving the bigger screen the previous lacked, though going back to the clamshell design of the past. At this point, I'm okay with that. The price the 3D brought with it, along with the Amiibo feature that was equally uninteresting to me, were my biggest gripes against getting a 3DS.
It turns out there's actually a reason for this new handheld's existence, and it has to do with a patent lawsuit.
A Sony employee brought suit against Nintendo for a patent infringement involving a "glasses free" 3D effect for displays. The suit was settled out of court and while Nintendo does still produce the 3DS XL, the 2DS and new 2DS XL don't violate the original agreement. It's funny to imagine the various higher-ups at Nintendo looking over all the legal paperwork from Sony over the 3D, looking up at each other, one saying, "You know, the 3D really is kinda dumb." with another adding, "Why don't we just make a DS that doesn't do 3D?" and everyone nodding in uncontested agreement before going off to lunch.
Now comes the speculation. I don't have a Switch, and I haven't talked to many people who do. Earlier, I honestly praised Nintendo for turning their next-gen console, their Wii-U successor, into a handheld. It's frankly genius to leave the console market behind and instead double-down on handhelds, which have always been Nintendo's more lucrative endeavors, going all the way back to the Game & Watch. If the Gamevice suit is really over the detachable controllers, would it really hurt Nintendo to just pull a 2DS move? Are any Switch owners out there playing their games and thinking, "Man, this wouldn't be worth it if I didn't have these tiny little sticks of controllers I could slide off!"? After all, if the side controllers are too small or uncomfortable, more traditional controllers can be linked to it for multiplayer.
Imagine a Switch that keeps the dual analog sticks and buttons exactly where they are, but doesn't let you detach them. Suppose multiplayer were only minutely inconvenienced by requiring additional controllers or (in rare cases) another system to play through a link like every handheld before then can do. I mean, I'm no product designer and I certainly have no concept of what goes into developing a handheld, but how much R&D could truly go into effectively making a souped up original 2DS? One slab, buttons on the side, all framing a big, beautiful screen. It would basically be a Vita done right (and I'm saying that as someone who likes the Vita wholeheartedly).
This is where I'd have an image of some hastily-rendered mockup made in TinkerCAD or SketchUp or Blender or something, but as I said, I'm not a product designer, and I'd rather open it up to see what others might come up with given these criteria. Remember, Gamevice's beef isn't with having buttons on the side of a screen; Nintendo's Game & Watch beat their Wikipad to that decades ago. All we need is a system with all the Switch's insides, but with an interface that doesn't have detachable controllers.
Before writing this, I'd tossed around the idea of Nintendo making an entirely new console, but making it backwards compatible with Switch games. The more I thought about it, the less likely Nintendo would go that route. I simply hope they don't outright abandon the Switch the way they abandoned the Wii-U so hastily.
Of course, my ideal Nintendo would be one that foregoes hardware in favor of simply working with the platforms that are available. Hardware is ultimately a failure mechanism for games, as Moore's Law puts developers and publishers in a position of making the most of what's available to them while preparing for the future. As much as I don't like the idea of endless ports, re-releases, and remakes overshadowing new and original IPs, I absolutely hate the idea of a game being bound to hardware that's likely going to fall apart with time regardless of how meticulously I maintain it. I do not care how I get my games anymore. As long as developers are getting paid for their work and are able to carry on making more games, I do not care about the means of conveyance for their properties.
Goodnight, and game on.
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