Nintendo Patents Watch

This is a fun one. A newly published Mario Kart World patent reveals that the game enlarges distant opponents, characters, and items to enhance their visibility to the player. I think that it’s particularly helpful when playing handheld.

To prevent negatively affect any game logics such as collision detection, these objects are not physically resized. The enlargement is performed only in the rendering pipeline, through a vertex shader. So they aren’t actually bigger, only visually so.

For this to look natural (image 1 below), the ratio of magnification is determined by object distance and linear interpolation (image 2). Moreover, a moving object is magnified more aggressively than a stationary object (image 2 vs image 3), to amplify visibility of the former.

The reference point of a character or vehicle may need to be repositioned (images below), so that it doesn’t appear to be floating or sinking after magnification. The coordinate conversion is also performed by the vertex shader.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-12 Pacific Time]

The copyright preregistration for The Legend of Zelda movie is now on the USCO website. Nothing too interesting here, except that the “work began” (shooting) on 2025-11-13 and is “anticipated” to complete (final editing) on 2027-03-12.

Although it’s customary to denote these dates as “approximate”, the start date could still be real (this was registered on 02-06, about three months after). Ignore the “date of publication”, which is obviously a placeholder.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-11 Pacific Time]

The media and Nintendo themselves cultivate an image of creative genius for the company. While not unwarranted, it conceals the fact that the company is run by a shrewd business team.

When the Liberation Day hit, Sony was caught flatfooted and scrambling to build up inventory and diversify the supply chain. In contrast, Nintendo began assembling Switch consoles in Vietnam since 2019 (by Hosiden), and Cambodia since 2020 (by MinebeaMitsumi) in anticipation of trade wars. And since COVID, they have doubled their cash holdings, and amassed 8x-10x of raw materials (see last post).

Nintendo’s said no to NFT, metaverse, and so far gen-AI. These decisions weren’t made because they were insular (okay, maybe a little). The company is perennially among the most desirable employers for Japanese college graduates, and they have their picks of the top talents in the country, including the business minds.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-09 Pacific Time]

After reviewing Nintendo’s official English translation of Q3 Q&A, I’m convinced the carefully crafted languages indicate that a Switch 2 price hike in 2026 is exceedingly unlikely.

Sure, Furukawa mentioned memory’s impact on profitability multiple times, but that’s to prepare investors for a predictably depressed profit forecast for next fiscal year that he “will explain during the next financial announcement”.

However, regarding price change, Furukawa gave a pretty clear signal that “it is not an appropriate approach to be excessively influenced by short-term trends”. Nintendo will “[take] into consideration not only profitability, but also other factors like the platform’s installed base, sales trends, and the market environment.”

The key phrase here is “installed base”. The management is playing a long game, because “[the] second and third years for Nintendo Switch 2 are very important, and if we can expand the hardware installed base, we can use that as a basis to greatly expand software sales.”

But can they realistically hold the line in spite of the macro environment? Fear not, Furukawa said, “due to our inventory on hand, together with hardware currently in production, we do not anticipate an immediate impact in the next fiscal year.” To accentuate the point, he reiterated: “we do not anticipate constraints in our production plans due to insufficient supply in the next fiscal year and beyond.”

Furukawa’s confidence is buttressed by an incredibly strong balance sheet, particularly the stockpiles of raw materials and cash (see charts below). Barring something drastic, such as Liberation Day 2, the Switch 2 price should be set for at least another year.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-09 Pacific Time]

This seems to be the first bootleg GL/GR buttons from an unlicensed 3rd party? MystiForge just released a charging grip in China (imgs 1-3) with system-mappable back buttons (img 4; conventional 3rd party back buttons are not recognized by the Switch 2 system). It comes with 3 sets of swappable button faces that you can mix and match (img 3). Since there are sellers hawking MystiForge split grips on Amazon already, this new product possibly will be imported to the US as well.

For those keeping score, so far the Switch 2 dock connection, C button, 9-axis motion sensing, and now GL/GR buttons have been replicated by unlicensed 3rd parties. The only features not yet cracked are the mouse control and HD Rumble 2.

[Update] Although the NFC reader for NS1 was reverse-engineered long ago, it just occurred to me that NFC for NS2 doesn’t appear to be cracked either.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-07 Pacific Time]

PixArt Imaging (原相), supplier of mouse sensors and IR sensors for Switch, declined to discuss Nintendo’s order volume for 2026 during the Q4 investor conference. They did disclose that the company’s per-unit income and margin for NS1 (one IR sensor) and NS2 (two mouse sensors) are “roughly the same”. The revelation suggests that the mouse functionality didn’t contribute to the higher price point of Switch 2 over Switch 1’s.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-07 Pacific Time]

Joy-Con 2 Wheel’s international patent publication is out. Considerable efforts were put into ensuring good hand feel and usability, especially the magnetic alignment and mechanical linkage for the pusher buttons. It isn’t just a piece of cheap plastic.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-06 Pacific Time]

Another Alarmo patent has been published by EPO. This one focuses on the hardware design of light sensor, light emitter, and the control dial. I found the dial design rather nifty. Worth a read if you’re a hardware geek.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-05 Pacific Time]

As I mentioned before, Takashi Mochizuki is strangely inattentive to details for a business journalist. How is the PlayStation segment “robust” when:

• YoY operating income increase came completely from exchange rate gain
• YoY sales decrease would’ve doubled without exchange rate gain

Yes, PS5 sold more units than Switch 2 in Q3, but that’s a pyrrhic victory through discounts that caused an “increase in losses from hardware”, leading to an anemic 8.73% operating profit margin (in PS5’s year 5). And yet Mochizuki called that “surprisingly strong”, but Nintendo’s 19.2% margin (in NS2’s year 1) “concerns”.

This is also a reminder that Mochizuki remains the lone source reporting that PS5 achieved breakeven in Aug 2021, even though AFAIK Sony never made such claim. Since then, in fact, losses from hardware were mention in:

Oct ’21
Feb, May, Nov ’22
Apr, Nov ’23
Feb, May, Aug ’24
Feb, Nov ’25
and now in Feb ’26

[Originally posted on 2026-02-05 Pacific Time]

A couple interesting bits in the Q3 earnings Q&A:

When asked why Switch 2 sold better in Japan, Furukawa didn’t mention the local hardware price but credited Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Kirby Air Riders. It seems that those games are system sellers in Japan, but less so overseas.

When asked why the financial forecast isn’t revised despite a weaker yen, Furukawa partly attributed that to the proportion of 3rd party software sales being higher than previously forecasted. Remember when Chris Dring suggested that 3rd party sales were “below [the] lowest estimates”?

P.S.: I suspected from the start that the infamous quote came from Unity’s Survival Kids team (who built a game that no one expected, and likely had unrealistic sales estimates) to shift the blame to the platform, and Dring relayed it uncritically.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-04 Pacific Time]

The APU (annual playing users) churn has been ongoing since 2024 (img 1 below). Nintendo’s solution isn’t to double down on hardcore fans—which would further shrink the number—but to release updates for Switch 1 games, such as ACNH and Splatoon 3. See the latest Q&A #7 (img 2 below).

[Originally posted on 2026-02-04 Pacific Time]

[Grain of salt] In a Nikkei Shimbun article, UBS Securities analyst Zhai estimates that “the Switch 2 memory cost will rise 2.6 times from the initial $46 to $120.” It will turn NS2’s estimated gross profit of $23 (after tariffs) to a loss of $35-$50 per unit by the end of 2026.

Nikkei also reported that their unidentified sources (unclear whether singular or plural) “believe” that the Switch 2 is “already in the red” in Japan and the US.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-03 Pacific Time]

Mike Odyssey continues to bamboozle his followers. “Publication date” simply indicates the date on which a trademark will appear in the Trademark Official Gazette (TMOG). The trademark applicant such as Nintendo has no control over the date whatsoever.

[Originally posted on 2026-02-02 Pacific Time]

An Alarmo patent regarding its motion-based sound control has been published in the EU on 2026-01-21.

1. An mmWave sensor (#21 in img 1) detects distance, direction and speed of motions around the bed (img 2)
2. By calculating the amount of motions accumulated during a given time, a different sound is triggered and its volume modified (imgs 3-4)
3. The aims are to encourage user to get up, prevent them from going back to sleep, and reward fully waking up

[Originally posted on 2026-02-02 Pacific Time]