Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers.
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The DeanBeat: Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers are full of surprises

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

In its past two game consoles, Nintendo tried to pack most of its innovation in the controller. And with the Nintendo Switch, the company is pursuing the same strategy.

Nintendo got a lot of things wrong with the previous console, the Wii U, which had a tablet that came out long after the Apple iPad debuted. It was tethered with short-range wireless to the main machine, you couldn’t take it outside the house, and the processing power was in the console, not the tablet. In this case, the Switch is portable, and the processing is all in the tablet device.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.