this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
268 points (94.1% liked)

Games

32394 readers
960 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Weekly Threads:

What Are You Playing?

The Weekly Discussion Topic

Rules:

  1. Submissions have to be related to games

  2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

  3. No excessive self-promotion

  4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

  5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

  6. No linking to piracy

More information about the community rules can be found here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
268
New Nintendo patent suggests Switch 2 may solve joycon drift (www.dexerto.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
71 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A patent filed by Nintendo suggests that they’re working on Hall Effect style joysticks for the Switch 2 that would eliminate stick drift almost entirely.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Glancing over the patent, I don't think Hall effect sensors are used here. Note especially the use of a fluid, and the presence of variable resistors (parts that can wear out in current-gen controllers) for each axis.

Instead, this looks like an analog stick force-feedback mechanism that could also be used for automatic re-centering:

Accordingly, in the first example, control of current to be applied to the MRF is performed in the way as described below, thus achieving both presentation of a feeling using the MRF and an initial position restoration operation.

This wouldn't keep the potentiometers from wearing out, but with the right software, I imagine it could automatically adjust the sticks to compensate for mild drift. (I don't know if this would work any better than plain old calibration; it's definitely more complicated.) Also, games could dynamically adjust stick resistance, like the DualSense can adjust trigger resistance, for interactivity/immersion.

I wonder how much this would affect battery life, how long the fluid mechanism would last with normal wear and tear, and how environmentally toxic it will be when it eventually becomes e-waste.

The PDF linked in the article seems to be a scanned image, so control+F doesn't work, but the text is searchable here: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20230280850

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Whoa, that force feedback mechanism sounds really cool! It might not be able to force movement but it would provide resistance to movement. I could imagine it as if your player character is walking into a wall and the joystick wont let you push forward.