Nintendo Switch patents reveal touchscreen, Joy-Con controller details and more

Overnight patents filed in the US have revealed some previously unknown, but heavily rumoured information about the Nintendo Switch. These patents were filed back in June but only became public today. The full listing is here but we’ve highlighted some of the big ones below.

The patents go into a crazy amount of detail about how the system functions at a hardware level. How the Joy-Con controllers work and connect, how the internals of the system work and even what appears to be a VR accessory.

Among the new information in the patents is the fact that, as suspected the Nintendo Switch features a touch screen as shown in Fig. 30 below. It’s likely it’s also capacitive as well due to the lack of stylus.

The Joy-Con controllers are also dissected and also as suspected the right Joy-Con at least has an IR pointer in it, there’s an NFC contact point (for amiibo and such), motion sensors and there’s also a rumble motor in both controllers. The Joy-Con controllers are almost a Wiimote 3.0 at this stage.

Figure 37 also shows the controller being used in different ways and also the ability to sync up to four Joy-Con controllers to a single unit. This isn’t too much of a surprise thanks to the Dog controller having 4 ‘player’ lights like the Wii Remote. That same controller is also shown in patents, as suspected it acts as a charger for the Joy-Con controllers as well.

The patents also detail how the system will work in docked mode as opposed to portable. As suspected when docked the system will run at a higher level of performance and the fans will also spin faster. When running in portable mode the system will still run the fun but quieter so you can’t actually hear it, the resolution of the games will also be reduced compared to when playing on the TV.

Finally there’s also a look at a possible head mounted unit for the Switch, or you know VR. At this point it’s prudent to remind everyone that these patents just show things work, they’re not indicative of the final design of a product so there could be some changes – but hey maybe the Switch could support some sort of VR.

Source: NeoGAF