Over the last couple of years Nintendo has been fairly aloof about the possibilities of working in virtual reality (VR) with company president Tatsumi Kimishima having previously said ‘we will support it in one form or another’ if certain issues are resolved. Now it’s surfaced that the Switch’s source code has references to a VR mode.
Discovered by Twitter user and security consultant Cody Brocious, the two lines of code do seem to indicate some sort of VR functionality, but whether it works or not is another matter.
Just found this while looking at IPC interfaces on the Switch. Iiiiinteresting! #reswitched http://pic.twitter.com/J3QoKrJWKN
— Cody Brocious (@daeken) August 27, 2017
Over on Reddit someone asked if it could be Android code to which Brocious responded: “This is not Android code in any way. This is part of the appletOE IPC interface, and it’s 100% Nintendo code. I can’t confirm whether or not this works as of yet, but I’m at about a 90% confidence that this is at least partial virtual reality support. I’ll know more in a day or two when I can actually test it properly.”
So does this mean a Nintendo VR headset like Samsung Gear VR is coming soon, probably not. While if would be foolish to think Nintendo hasn’t been experimenting with the possibilities of VR in some way, this code could just be part of that process being a ditched feature. Or just maybe it is there for future requirements.
If Nintendo eventually decides to enter the VR field again, VRFocus will let you know.
via Mint VR