Switch 2 secret gimmick is a new image sensor camera for AR claim leaks-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

This is just a fan render but it doesn’t have a camera (Picture: Salvo Lo Cascio and Riccardo Cambò Breccia)

New rumours about the Switch 2 suggest one of its key selling points involve in-built cameras, although it’s unclear what they’re for.

Nintendo’s next console is in a very similar position to GTA 6 at the moment: everyone knows it exists but absolutely nothing official is known about it.

There have been plenty of rumours about the Switch 2, but knowing that it’s more powerful isn’t exactly a revelation and apart from having a LCD screen, to keep down costs, there haven’t really been any substantial clues as to what it will look like or if it will have any new features.

For Sony and Microsoft, a new console just means more power but with Nintendo there’s usually always something else and in the case of the Switch 2 it seems that involves new camera functions that sound like they’re to do with AR and/or VR.

One of the few times Nintendo publicly acknowledged that they’re working on a new console was when Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto said that the new hardware would allow him to ‘propose unique games that cannot be realised on existing hardware.’

That could just be a reference to more horsepower, but that’s the last thing Miyamoto is usually interested in. Any yet, until now, there’s been no hint as to what new gimmicks the Switch 2 might have.

However, a post on ResetEra suggests that the new console (Switch 2 is just a fan nickname) has a ‘new camera function’ which may be connected to VR. Although, as many in the thread point out, AR seems a more obvious application.

The rumour comes from a source that previously leaked details about Persona 3 Reload and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, suggesting that they have solid sources at multiple companies in Japan.

This all matches up with previous links from a Chinese manufacturing source, who talked about the console having one or more new image sensor.

Although many previous Nintendo consoles have had a camera the Switch does not, just an IR sensor in one of the Joy-Cons.

Nintendo experimented with AR a lot with the 3DS, when the concept was relatively new, but it never really took off in terms of the 3DS or smartphones, although it’s still a concept that seems to have a lot of potential.

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Despite the modest power of the current Switch, Nintendo has experimented with VR as well. Although it seems unlikely the Switch 2 could be used for that in any substantial manner, especially with LCD screens.

Given Nintendo are both famously unpredictably and fond of experimenting with unusual technology, it’s impossible to guess what they might really be up to but it does some unlikely that the Switch 2 will merely be a power increase and nothing more.

For now though, the biggest question remains when the new hardware will be announced. Given it’s not expected to launch until the second half of 2023, at the earliest, there’s relatively unlikely to happen this year.

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