The Switch 2’s Camera Is The Weird New Idea I Was Hoping For

Back in January, I lamented the idea that the Switch 2 would simply be an upgraded Switch. Not because I wouldn’t buy one—I’d be there day one regardless—but because what I’ve loved about Nintendo for so many decades is the company’s desire to just be strange. From the clamshell two-screen bizarreness of the DS to the out-of-nowhere stick-waving delight of the Wii, you could count on Nintendo to make things a bit odd. It didn’t look like that was happening at all this year…until the reveal of the camera.

OK, obviously cameras are not a new innovation in console gaming, and Nintendo themselves have experimented with them before with the DSi and various other devices. But the moment the Switch 2 Direct’s video started showing how it intended to use a camera, everything started getting that notorious Ninty weirdness. I smiled big.

It occurred during the reveal of what the new C button would be for, letting you create party chats while playing games and even share live gameplay among friends. The Direct reveals how you can natter away and share multiplayer gaming, and then, out of nowhere, drops in the existence of the Switch 2 Camera.

The footage shows some neat tech, albeit running extremely choppily. (I kind of love that Nintendo is delivering no bullshit here, just saying “Yeah, it’s janky, and that’s cool.”) Despite the cameras being placed a good distance from the people playing, it seems to be able to find their faces, and then cut them out from the backgrounds and project them over their streamed game footage. Sure, that’s normal on Twitch or what have you, but this is built right into the system! It also has a bunch of modes, letting you just see each other’s video feeds instead, and it all looks nice. But then…heads in bubbles!

The moment the footage switched to Mario Party Jamboree, it was a whole other thing. People’s faces, live, in bubbles next to their characters. Reaction cams, right in the game! That’s just daft, and great.

But the tech seems even smarter than that. According to the Direct, with one camera and four people in a room, it can detect everyone’s faces, and put each of them into a bubble on the game’s screen. Here they even emphasize the possibility of seeing your friends’ reactions, even when you’re all looking at the screen, with highlighted moments encouraging people to pull faces and goof around. (It’s not clear how the tech will match the face to the player, and whether it will require some pre-game Joy-Con matching.) But the moment I knew I was writing this article was when I saw all four players pop out of Mario pipes which singing and dancing with Bowser.

Come on! That’s awesome! That’s so splendidly dumb! What a silly, lovely thing to have figured out. And then they’re all punching blocks above their heads, suggesting this camera is also packing some Wii/Kinect abilities, without the need for the sensor bar.

Yes, it’s a gimmick. I’m not saying it’s anything other than a gimmick! But it’s the sort of daftness I was hoping for, offering imaginative developers the ability to do even sillier things.

I’m not expecting the lunatic joy of the first few months of the Nintendo DS, but I’m really hoping for some fun party games, some novel indies, and for Nintendo to find a way to include the new abilities in the strangest ways.

Also, I love that the camera has the look of an olde worlde telephone.

.