Nintendo has filed a patent for what could be a makeshift VR attachment for the upcoming Switch 2.
As spotted by Road to VR, the new Nintendo patent outlines an attachment that turns a Switch into a 3D viewer system, feeding each of your eyes a different image.
This wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo has produced a product just like this. It released the Labo VR kit in 2019, a cardboard holder for the console that lets Switch players experience some basic, and very low-res, VR games and showcases.
The patent looks at least slightly better than that original design. Its body has more careful contours, and a clip system attaches to the Switch console more securely.
You still end up holding the Nintendo Switch console up to your face, though. This isn’t something we can picture using for hours at a time, like we’ve done recently with the Meta Quest 3S.
The patent documentation describes it as an “auxiliary device and stereoscopic image display system.” Catchy.
Could this be the return of Nintendo Labo? One factor against that idea: the original run was not exactly a roaring success.
“I thought maybe that was going to be the breakthrough, to help push it over the edge, but it didn’t work out that way,” former Nintendo America head Reggie Fils-Aimé told Cnet in 2022, referring to Labo VR pushing the Labo concept to the next level.
Nintendo Labo petered out quietly a couple of years after it first appeared. But even today you can buy unused Labo VR sets from Amazon, although these are the “expansion” sets, not the starter kits that include the requisite lenses.
As with any story about patents, it’s also important to note a Nintendo patent does not mean a real product based on it does, or will, exist. And, well, we mostly just want to see the Nintendo Switch 2 at this point. The out-there accessories can wait.
Nintendo’s current line is it will make a Switch 2 announcement by the end of March 2025.
And at the moment, Nintendo is flat-out teasing us with announcements of everything but the Switch 2, including the Alarmo alarm clock and Nintendo Music app. Both lovely, but just show us the new console already.
