Gadgetory

- Last week at E3, one of the things I was most excited to get a hands-on impression with was HORI's new Split Pad Pro, mainly because it's doing something that no one's really done yet, which is offering an officially licensed, well-designed alternative to Nintendo's Joy Cons. This isn't to say there aren't any other Joy Cons that are out there on the market, you can find some and we've used them before, but it's a little scary sometimes. Because they're not things that Nintendo's really signed off on and they might work when you first buy them, and they might be really cheap, but there's no guarantee of how long they'll work or that they won't damage your system. So, getting a new option for what to attach to your Switch in handheld mode is really cool to me and I love the fact they went for something that was very different. And while it is a great first step, it also got me thinking about, well, what do I want in a Joy Con? What kind of, if Nintendo down the line did some kind of Pro Joy Con or there was some more expensive, awesome Joy Con option offered by third parties. What do I actually want out of an awesome new Joy Con option? Now I do have my own thoughts of what I would like to see, but before we get to that, I actually reached out to a few other YouTubers that I know to see what they were looking for. - This is my perfect controller. Well, almost perfect, it's the HORI D-Pad controller. It feels exactly like an official Nintendo Switch Joy Con. It's just missing the motion controls and the Rumble, which, honestly, is fine. I don't care much for that. 95% of the time, I'm playing in docked mode with a different controller anyway. Plus, cutting out the motion controls also cuts down on the cost. You can get this thing for only $20. It also only works when it's attached to the switch, because it doesn't have wireless. But to make it truly perfect, I want that D-Pad to swap places with the thumbstick, that's where my thumb naturally sits. I play a lot of 2-D side-scrollers, so having a D-Pad Joy Con that I can swap in when I'm gaming on the go, would be awesome. This would also be a great thing to have for Mario Maker when that comes out. If we're talkin' pie in the sky dreams for the perfect Joy Con, then yeah sure, throw the motion controls back in, make it as expensive as you want. Also, throw a fan in there for my sweaty hands, why not? Mario Maker exclusive? I'm gonna be sweatin' like a pig come June 28. - I'd like to add that on top of the fan for keeping your hands not sweaty, I'd also want to Joy Cons to be a little more shock absorptive, because Mario Maker 2? That's gonna make a Joy Con fly. - Hmm, what is my dream Joy Con? It would be so cool for appearance if it looked galaxy themed and the buttons lit up like stars. But, besides that, I think it would be even cooler if you can take the virtual world into the real world by having the Joy Cons become either really cold or really hot, or you could feel things, or, I don't know, maybe have it feel realistic. So, whatever's happening in the virtual world it's actually happening in real life. I don't know if that's way too far out there, but, yeah, how cool would that be? - The temperature idea is actually really interesting, because one of the only real ways we have feedback from games is Rumble and that's always been a big deal when that was first added and we've worked on refining it. But there's not any other way of adding reactivity to games. So, that's interesting. As for me, I actually really like the direction HORI started taking it in, in that it's kind of a more traditional controller grip design shape. It certainly makes the Switch larger, but I really like that comfort factor, and I think for being a sort of fairly priced alternate option, that's cool. But if I'm thinking something that's, like, a premium... - Premium! - ...amazing Pro controller, there are some cool things I think we could add to Joy Cons. First off, I would love for it to be something that does wirelessly connect to the Switch, along with being connected directly to it. Now with larger controllers like that, it's harder to use them individually in each hand and have that still feel really comfortable, it's just different physics, but it would be really cool if if it was a wireless Joy Con connection that also just came with a little connector piece so you can put them together to have a traditional controller. Sure, you could have these special Joy Cons, along with the Switch Pro controller, but I like the idea of having an all-in-one option. And as far as special features go, having a button on the back of the controller is great, I think that's basically just a standard thing now that most Pro or alternative controllers designs should have, it's just really handy. But something that I'm always a really huge fan of is the idea of modularity. Which is something I think the Switch already does really well with the idea that you can slot different things into the slides, but I also want controllers that embrace that concept as well. And there's some concepts of this that you've seen really come on a lot of controllers, like having swappable sticks, whether you want a longer stick length or domed versus concave kinda designs for the stick head. That's all cool, definitely want that, but I also want that approach with things like the D-Pad, and on a slightly wilder side, the buttons. And when we're talking about the idea of modularity, I also really enjoy the idea of being able to switch up the entire layout of the controller. If you've looked at the Split Pad Pro, you'll notice they swapped the stick and button placements for the right Joy Con, which it's supposed to give you a different design, that's a little more familiar maybe to PS4 controllers, and some people prefer that to the offset design that you see on regular Joy Cons. Something that Nintendo's history has showcased is that you don't always have to rely on the traditional four button front phasing set up, I mean, it makes sense for most controllers. If you're only going to have one button setup, that's a really good one size fits all approach, but there are a lot of other Nintendo controller designs that are amazing for specific games; a great example of this is the GameCube orientation, which people still prefer to use for games like Smash Brothers, or even doing things like the N64 setup, where you have more than four buttons on the front side, so you have more options to work with. This is something that really not a lot of Pro controllers have messed with yet and I think it's a really cool, interesting opportunity, because some games just benefit from alternative setups. Now, what's the likelihood that we're gonna see more crazy options like these actually show up? I don't know, HORI is the first actual, official option we're now seeing and I'm hoping it jump starts something where more companies start to jump on, and while I'm not super optimistic about Nintendo doing it themselves, it would be amazing to get some more first party options from that them just further explore making something bigger and better out of what the Joy Cons are currently doing. So, there's some crazy ideas for some dream Joy Cons. Let me know down below in the comments what you guys would love to see, and thanks again to the YouTubers that collaborated onto today's video. You can find their channels linked down below, in the description.