As a child, I spent far too much time staring at not one but two screens. I, like millions of others absolutely fell in love with the Nintendo DS, and I see a lot of its DNA in the Nintendo Switch, but it seems that the Switch 2 could draw even further from it.
Spotted by the eagle-eyed folks at GameRant, Nintendo has filed a patent for a dual-screen device that resembles a 3DS, but that's not the only party trick it has. Much like the best folding phones, it also has an external display that works even with the device shut.
In addition, it can reportedly be split in half to offer local multiplayer wirelessly which reminds me of the "download play" feature on the DS that lets multiple people play together locally with just one copy of the game. Local multiplayer seems a bit twee these days but there is a whole generation of gamers who were born and raised on split screen and controller peeking.
Of course, this is just a patent at this stage. It's not a guarantee of when or even if we'll see such a console come to life. There have been plenty of rumours about the Switch's successor including that it may have some incredible graphical power.
If this dual-screen design comes to fruition, then fingers crossed that we see DS and 3DS backwards compatibility, games which have understandably been hard to port to the Switch. There's also talk that this patented design may be a handheld-only console, which would be a change from the hybrid nature of the Nintendo Switch. Perhaps this isn't the console itself but something similar to the PlayStation Portal, designed to stream games or even a budget alternative to the Switch 2 like the 2DS or Switch Lite.
Regardless it's great to see Nintendo refusing to sit still and continuing to try something new with its hardware.
