Versatility is one of the Nintendo Switch’s biggest selling points, and a peripheral on Kickstarter is poised to add even more to its bag of tricks. The Flip Grip was designed to allow the growing number of Switch titles that are best played on a vertical screen — space shooters like Ikaruga and re-makes of arcade games — to be played in handheld mode.
Until now, using the Switch in vertical mode required propping up the console sideways on a stand to use as a tabletop system. That’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t get to the heart of what Switch is all about: portability.
The Flip Grip makes portable vertical-mode gaming possible. Simply slide the Switch into the Flip Grip, then attach Joy-Cons, and voila — a handheld system capable of playing vertical-mode games without wasting a single pixel of real estate.
A collaboration between Jeremy Parish of the Retronauts podcast, industrial designer Mike Choi, and Fangamer, the Flip Grip is a simple plastic dock that holds the Switch vertically and includes slots for the Joy-Cons. You can read more about how the team is addressing problems like the grip obstructing ports and vents on the campaign’s Kickstarter page. The campaign runs until July 9, and you can reserve your own Flip Grip for a $12 pledge.
A committed indoor kid, Bryan moved from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles for a prettier landscape to ignore. They can be lured outside with promises of taco trucks and film festivals, and enjoy trawling through used book stores for works on the occult. Bryan has been gaming since the SNES era and is a sucker for good pixel art.
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