Surprisingly enough, in spite of the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen and its similarity to the Wii U, it doesn’t come with a touch pen or a stylus (unless you count the one they sold with Super Mario Maker 2). However, it seems one might be in the works at Nintendo, and could be released as an attachment down the line.
This is as per a patent that was filed by Nintendo back in June 2019, but was just recently published (and discovered by Siliconera). The patent shows a Joy-Con strap very similar to the ones the Switch currently comes with, but with a touch pen slotted right into it- which means players can potentially use the buttons and touch screen controllers at the same time.
The patent also goes on to describe some interesting possible uses for the attachment in games- such as touching a box with the pen in a game and the game sending feedback to the controller through rumble; or drawing on the screen in a game using the pen, and immediately toggling the thickness of the drawn line by pressing buttons on the Joy-Con. Take a look at the illustrations from the patent below.
As is always the case with patents, there’s no guarantees that this will ever see the light of day- Nintendo might just have filed this to protect their idea. However, something like this wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary and would actually work pretty well, so here’s hoping Nintendo release it as an attachment down the line.
