A fan thinks they might have found some files on the Nintendo Switch that relate to possible VR functionality.
Twitter user Random tweeted out footage of what happened when he reverse engineered his Nintendo Switch and started poking around inside some of the files. What he found was a screen that read “Test VR mode.” When he tried to dive in a bit further, he encountered a screen that said (via user translation) “Please move the console away from your face and click the close button”.
It’s certainly not uncommon for a console to contain scraps of developer information that most users will never actually see. In this instance, though, there’s really no room for ambiguity. Something on that screen and in those files was clearly related to some kind of VR functionality for the Nintendo Switch. What that functionality actually is, from a developer’s perspective, is a much more confusing question.
Our best guess would be that this calibration screen was, at some point, used as part of the testing process for how a possible Switch VR device might function from a user perspective. It seems like the idea is that VR will either somehow function natively within the Switch or will otherwise require the use of a device in conjunction with the Switch (at least in the console’s handheld mode).
Of course, the text could also just be some meaningless digital scraps left over from the development process. All we really know is that Nintendo has talked about exploring VR in the past, and probably will do again in the future.
If you’re interested in doing a little reverse engineering of your own, you can use the source code that Random posted here. Just be sure to not mess around with this unless you’re confident in what you’re doing.