Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Francisco considers a little Joy-Con addition that could help set the upcoming "Switch successor" apart..
. Nintendo can’t resist an enticing hardware innovation. Think of the Game & Watch’s D-pad, the SNES’s nifty shoulder buttons, or the Wii’s revolutionary motion controls ; and we’ve barely scratched the surface of its long legacy of pioneering video game controllers.
Despite its efforts, one hardware feature has evaded Nintendo for decades. This powerful tool can travel miles in the blink of an eye, or take you from a satellite view down to the lowliest ant in an instant. Sakurai pitched it for the GameCube .
Nintendo filed a patent for it in 2015. Your finger may lay within reach of one at this very moment. What long-overlooked marvel am I referring to? The computer mouse’s scroll wheel.
As today’s creative sandboxes go hard on inventory management and crafting menus, straining our existing UI inputs to their utmost limits, this tool, first seen widely back in 1996 on Microsoft’s IntelliMouse, would be well placed to make its overdue debut on the 'Switch 2'. My first argument is sheer convenience. We’ve grown used to the familiar compromises multiplatform games use to compensate for the scroll wheel’s absence.
Directional or radial options can flick between weapons and powers on quick-select menus. Sho.
