With theSwitch 2coming, people are watchingNintendowith a very keen eye, and the company hasjust submitted a mysterious new deviceto the Federal Communications Commission for approval – but it’s not the Switch 2. The reports call it a “wireless device”, yet it appears to have no battery and only operates while plugged in. It also has a Wi-Fi radio and radar sensor, making it possible to track movement or motion.
It’s unclear what exactly this is. It could be a Switch 2 peripheral, allowing for gesture controls or something similar, or maybe it could be used to support augmented reality features. It could even be completely unrelated to the Switch. Considering we know very little about the successor to the Switch, it’s hard to say exactly what this is. But what I do know is that it has me yearning for the Xbox Kinect again.
I’m always surprised by how little people talk about the Kinect in hindsight. First released in late 2010, the Kinect completely changed the way I used my Xbox. In my house, the living room was dedicated to watching TV and movies – a second TV that my parents had received for free was set up in the basement specifically for my brother and I to play games without bothering them. The Xbox games I played growing up were largely single-player, which made playing games a lonely, sometimes claustrophobic experience.
But the Kinect changed things. It reminded me of Nintendo consoles in the sense that it was the thing I used when I had friends over. In the same way that my household now plays Jackbox with friends whenever we host a get-together, the Kinect transformed my basement into a hangout spot. When my parents threw parties, the adults sat upstairs, listened to music and drank copious amounts of wine. The kids gravitated to the basement, drawn to the Kinect and its promise of hours of fun.
The Kinect fuelled many basement dance parties in my childhood. There was no better feeling than absolutelyrippingthrough a rendition of Britney’s Toxic in Dance Central 2 and wiping the floor with all these tourists.
I’ll give the Wii some credit here – being able to play Guitar Hero World Tour on it was a major pull, and its versatility meant it was great for both single player games and party games. But there was something truly liberating about the Kinect and being able to use it without holding any slippery controllers that threatened to fly out of your hands if you got overly excited. Switching players out of a game when their allotted time to play was over was as easy as just stepping out of the Kinect’s view.
You don’t really see gestural controls in consoles anymore. The closest analogue is VR, where games that rely on hand tracking thrive, but that tech can be pretty costly and I hate how bulky VR headsets are. The Kinect offered the best of both worlds, giving you a fully controller- and headset-free experience that was great for parties. The Switch is already the reigning party game console, and though I don’t believe that Nintendo will be integrating gestural tracking into the Switch 2, I really hope it does.
