If you play mobile games, at all, you likely know and loathe using a touchscreen as a controller. And in truth, touchscreens make for awful controllers. But Nintendo just filed a patent to try and fix that.
The answer? In typical wacky Nintendo style, they want to cut a hole in the screen and stick some buttons in there. The patent details a controller where the entire faceplate is a touchscreen with embedded physical controls; it features two thumbsticks coming out of the screen, but there are also button options. The sticks are set close to the screen so you can quickly poke at it if, say, you want to reload or perform an action while running.
In other words, it’s a refining of the GamePad, arguably the Wii U’s best and least-utilized feature, allowing programmers to, in theory, custom-configure controllers on the fly or put context sensitive actions like dialogue options on the faceplate. Like most of Nintendo’s ideas, it’s both brilliant and terrible, brilliant for the sheer innovation, terrible because once again third-party developers will have no earthly idea what to actually do with this thing. It’s just a patent, for now, but also a reminder that despite everything else, Nintendo isn’t going to stop experimenting.
(via Ars Technica)