Switch 2’s magnetic Joy-Con was an idea Nintendo experimented with for the original Switch
There are certain things diehard Nintendo fans know about the company. First up, Nintendo always marches to the beat of their own drum. Second, Nintendo is always doomed according to the internet. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Nintendo never lets a good idea go unused.
Throughout Nintendo’s history, the company has had ideas for games or hardware that didn’t pan out at first, but they never throw them away completely. They might be reworked a few years later, or left on the shelf for decades until the right application comes along. Just look at how the Wii U failed, but some of its components and ideas were recycled into the Switch, and to great success. Nintendo is keenly aware that there’s no such things as bad ideas, just bad implementation.
One example you might not know of that thought process comes from the Switch, and now it’ll live on through Switch 2. In an old episode of Nintendo Minute, we learned that there was a time when Nintendo was considering using magnetic Joy-Con on the original Switch, but they kept running into a problem where the Joy-Con would disconnect while holding the device, dropping the Switch hardware to whatever fate awaits below.
While we don’t know the specifics of the magnetic tech Nintendo was experimenting with on the Switch, it’s clear they’ve found a solution in Switch 2. You can hear full details on the original idea for Switch from the Nintendo Minute snippet below, courtesy of the Kit and Krystal Podcast.