With the official reveal of the mouse mode for the Switch 2’s controllers there is the potential for so many classic games to flood the console.
Imagine what it could do with graphical adventure games, RTS games, management sims, etc.
We already know CIV VII will use the mouse, and I just hope this is just the beginning for a whole range of traditionally non-console games to finally make it to the platform.
Eh?
Conceptually I like the idea.
But even if it isn’t uncomfortable to use and has decent DPI? It is going to have the same problem the OG steam controller or even the PS5 adaptive triggers have. If only one platform is going to use an input type then it is not going to be used by any third parties.
Yes, in this case it is two platforms: Switch and PC. But the number of developers who will say “I can make a switch port and only a switch port of my game” are few and far between. They’ll once again focus on how to make gamepad work because that gives them ALL the consoles, the Steam Deck, and even helps us olds with RSI.
First, if they already have a PC port your point is moot. They would still need to make a controller version for the Xbox and PS5, but the switch can use both.
Secondly, some games are simply not released on consoles because it simply doesn’t translate well without a mouse, like RTS games, for example.
You DO realize that a port is not just as simple as picking the dropdown in your editor to compile for switch versus xbox versus PC, right?
There is a substantial amount of effort to do any kind of port. And for one where the default experience is a 1080p handheld display? The kinds of games that only have M+KB support (because people are also forgetting the “KB” part…) are not the ones that run the best on tiny screens. And where the default use case is having both joycons still connected to the device.
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely corner cases. But we literally went through this with the Steam Controller a decade or so ago (15 years?). Consoles are a giant part of the market and targeting xinput gets you an interface that works on all of those AND improves the experience for a lot of users on PC. Versus finding a way to downscale your input to just a mouse and 8-10 buttons?
The number of third parties that meaningfully benefit from the switch-mouse are going to be very small. And most, if not all, of them will also have gamepad support for people who don’t want to have to sit at at a table with a surface that is compatible with said switch mouse.
OH! If studios were really going to specifically target switch ports for RTSes and Grand Strategy games, we would have seen a lot more that took advantage of the motion controls of the Switch 1. That shit was wild.