A patent for a new magnetic joystick design has been filed by Nintendo and the technology involved might just point towards a drift-free future (thanks, IGN).
The patent was actually filed back in May of this year, but it has now been published by the United States Patent Office so we can get a better look at the proposed designs. These show a joystick that utilises magnetism (much like the previously discussed Hall Effect technology) via a ‘magnetorheological fluid’ to register movement:
a resistance section using a magnetorheological fluid whose viscosity changes in accordance with an intensity of a magnetic field and which serves as a resistance when the operation element is displaced from the initial position and to the initial position
On paper (and in more simplified terms), the user would be able to move the analogue stick and the fluid will register this movement through a magnetic field before snapping the stick back into its starting position. There is even some suggestion that the viscosity of this fluid could be changed to let the user feel a greater resistance force in some instances — potentially in line with that achieved by the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller.
Unlike the current system which requires contact between a resistor and a terminal, this design would not be interrupted by the presence of any dust, debris or dirt (the main culprits of Joy-Con drift) and would therefore keep registering the user’s inputs regardless of what sneaky little substances had snuck into the system (within reason, of course).
You can check out the full patent here.
What this actually means for Nintendo’s joystick future remains to be seen — a lot of patents still come to nothing in the long run — but, naturally, our minds are moving towards the potential to see it implemented in the ‘Switch 2’. If the next console can boast a drift-free controller then that would certainly go a long way to encouraging users to upgrade.
The magnetic field path seems like the best way to go for the moment, so could this be Nintendo jumping on the bandwagon for future hardware? Only time will tell…
A patent for a new magnetic joystick design has been filed by Nintendo and the technology involved might just point towards a drift-free future (thanks, IGN).
The patent was actually filed back in May of this year, but it has now been published by the United States Patent Office so we can get a better look at the proposed designs. These show a joystick that utilises magnetism (much like the previously discussed Hall Effect technology) via a ‘magnetorheological fluid’ to register movement:
a resistance section using a magnetorheological fluid whose viscosity changes in accordance with an intensity of a magnetic field and which serves as a resistance when the operation element is displaced from the initial position and to the initial position
On paper (and in more simplified terms), the user would be able to move the analogue stick and the fluid will register this movement through a magnetic field before snapping the stick back into its starting position. There is even some suggestion that the viscosity of this fluid could be changed to let the user feel a greater resistance force in some instances — potentially in line with that achieved by the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller.
Unlike the current system which requires contact between a resistor and a terminal, this design would not be interrupted by the presence of any dust, debris or dirt (the main culprits of Joy-Con drift) and would therefore keep registering the user’s inputs regardless of what sneaky little substances had snuck into the system (within reason, of course).
You can check out the full patent here.
What this actually means for Nintendo’s joystick future remains to be seen — a lot of patents still come to nothing in the long run — but, naturally, our minds are moving towards the potential to see it implemented in the ‘Switch 2’. If the next console can boast a drift-free controller then that would certainly go a long way to encouraging users to upgrade.
The magnetic field path seems like the best way to go for the moment, so could this be Nintendo jumping on the bandwagon for future hardware? Only time will tell…
