If you've ever owned a Nintendo Switch, you'll no doubt know what the system's menu looks like. However, a prototype Switch NAND that's been discovered shows that Nintendo had a much grander home menu for the Switch, in the early days of the system's development. The UI images are taken from a mockup that was found on the NAND of a prototype Nintendo Switch unit. The user who shared the images notes that they must be moderately early on in the Switch's planning cycle, as the final UI style was locked in around late 2016. The early menu images are dated 2015, though it's uncertain if the album date is correct.

In the images, you can see a large banner would have been displayed for each game, with the game icons shown at the bottom, as well as the battery for individual JoyCons, the Switch itself, and the internet connection all being shown in the bottom right corner of the screen, instead of the top. The mockups also show 3DS and Wii U titles being used as placeholder images.

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[AdenTheThird]

I hate when the final product is worse

Kind of reminds me of the Mario movie, when they had an amazing orchestral composition for the DK racing segment that got replaced with Take on Me.
Kind of frustrating, and definitely counter-intuitive.

 

[Marc_LFD]

What better sticks?

Pro Controller sticks

 

[HellGhast]

homebrew scene you know what you have to do.

@SciresM bruh, new home screen for Atmosphere hopefully ?!

 

[AdenTheThird]

Pro Controller sticks

No Hall Effect sticks, though! Just... really nice-looking low-quality plastic sticks.

 

[The Catboy]

The fact that Nintendo had intentions to make something this interesting makes the current UI even more disappointing.

 

[Ligeia]

I'm in the minority it seems but I like the final Switch menu. Only thing that bothers me is that you can't add custom folders on the front page.

 

[AdenTheThird]

I'm in the minority it seems but I like the final Switch menu. Only thing that bothers me is that you can't add custom folders on the front page.

It's simple and clean; that's about it. Some people like that. But I think most people (especially the kinds of people who gather on a modding forum) would appreciate a little more customization abilities.

 

[PopcornSweetie]

This looks wayyy better then the final version. Such a shame Nintendidn't used this.

 

[raxadian]

the banner image on the top is so cool, like the 3d models for 3ds titles
Instead of this, we have a shitty square on a black/white bg.

Probably to save system memory.

 

[Ondrashek06]

The Wii's codename was Revolution - and it did manage to make a revolution with these motion control Wiimotes. It sold quite a lot, even my relatives that have no other gaming consoles have a Wii.

The Switch's OS codename is HorizonOS - most probably means that better things were on the Horizon but got scrapped afterwards.

First it was that eShop soundtrack, and now a GUI that is one of the very rare ones that managed to be minimalistic without looking boring and corporate.

 

[LightyKD]

It's a LOT better than the shit we have now.

 

[Lazyt]

So beautiful and creative it was the time when nintendo was not so strict corporate. I am so sure it also had its switch theme ready

 

[Marc_LFD]

The fact that Nintendo had intentions to make something this interesting makes the current UI even more disappointing.

They never added folders did they?

 

[Goofy_Bay2]

This gives me windows 8 vibes for some reason

 

[The Catboy]

They never added folders did they?

They kind of did but I am pretty sure everyone forgot about the groups

 

[plasma]

This is so nice. I'm hoping this is what they plan to use for the Switch 2 because Horizon at the moment is so bland.

 

[Marc_LFD]

This is so nice. I'm hoping this is what they plan to use for the Switch 2 because Horizon at the moment is so bland.

I'd not mind a Wii U-like menu with folders and etc. That was pretty cool.

 

[plasma]

I'd not mind a Wii U-like menu with folders and etc. That was pretty cool.

Just anything but current Horizon

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

I'm sure the current UI situation with the Switch could have been handled better, and while this prototype design looks nice, this would have eaten a lot of memory. I've been studying image formats and such for a long while now, this would have impacted system performance negatively at some point, having that much image data loaded in memory just so navigation is smooth just wouldn't have given enough legroom to work with when having larger game collections and such.

You guys and gals have to keep in mind that while banners were a thing on the Nintendo 3DS, they were much smaller in size, though true them being 3D models has its own demands, it wasn't enough to cause a negative impact with memory handling. These banners on the prototype Switch firmware quite literally expands across the entire display horizontally and a good chunk vertically, considering the system is 720p in handheld and 1080p in docked, that would have been quite a bit of information to shoehorn dynamically for all your games. I think they were just experimenting here to see how well the system would have performed. Also keep in mind loading things like the eShop, a game, etc. would have required that a lot of data be unloaded in memory to make more room for the software you launched, which means going back to the home menu would be its own challenge since the data was unloaded, loading and unloading data on the fly takes more time, more time means slower performance.

As for what we got in retail, they maybe could have gotten away with a similar banner concept to what the 3DS had, but thinking about even that, there would have been a lot of empty space horizontally, it probably wouldn't have looked very good like that. Could be why they just simplified it down to something basic, maybe the icons we see are basically a hybrid between a game icon and a banner, a means of both worlds without being too demanding.

 

[Purple_Heart]

good i am not the only one who have loved this one instead what we got lmao......

Post automatically merged: Jan 22, 2024

would be cool if this would be doable on hacked. but nah i would say not possible for a long period.