Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-112.202.164.165-20180118065442

In the trailer for Nintendo LABO, there is a kit that has a steering wheel and accelerator pedal, as well as motorcycling handlebars, and suddenly it got me thinking: what if you can just make a cardboard steering wheel? Take the core conceit of Nintendo LABO and make a cardboard steering wheel and pedal box, with the Switch screen unit being the dashboard. Something as small as the DTM design is enough, with the Joy-Conspretty much the controls for gearshifting and either DRS or KERS, depending on the game.

This makes me think of what can be done if ever Real Racing 3 gets ported on Switch, or if they make Real Racing 4. Assuming they make a new Real Racing, then the LABO concept can definitely work for the game's favor, because each button can be used depending on what the car is (say, TC, ABS, DRS, KERS control), as well as paddle-shifting. Manual or sequential shifting might be a bit harder if it requires one Joy-Con to be in the shifter, but you get the gist.

Seriously, this opens up many opportunities to make a peripheral. With the IR sensor and the accelerometer you can have steering input that matches in-game steering if you're on mobile, and assuming you can dock the Switch screen, you can pretty much play with little more than a cardboard wheel and pedal box that you built yourself.

Granted, I still do not know exactly how LABO would work, but I think it's a unique and welcome stepping stone towards putting more serious racing games like RR3 on Switch. No, I'm not holding out for Assetto Corsa, but any dev who would want to have a simcade racer on the Switch need not to worry too much about peripherals--they can just come up with a buildable cardboard setup that comes with the wheel, a pedal box, and shifter. Motorcyling games have it easier--they already have their own kit and all a player needs is something to lean on, like a pillow. It's neat, and I hope devs can take advantage of the concept. 