Some Nintendo Switch Games Don't Support TV Mode

When the Nintendo Switch launches this week it will support three different play modes: TV Mode, Handheld Mode, and Tabletop Mode. I expected Nintendo to demand all games released for Switch at least support TV Mode for playing on the big screen alongside the mandatory Handheld Mode, but it turns out that's not the case.

Voez is a launch title for the Switch in Japan, and it's a port of a popular mobile game that requires touch screen input to play. According to Kotaku, rather than updating the controls to fully support Switch's physical buttons, developer Rayark instead decided to simply not support TV Mode (or Tabletop Mode). If you watch the gameplay video below, you can understand why they decided against that. Essentially, Voez is a handheld-only Switch game, and Nintendo seems to be fine with that.

By allowing this to happen, Nintendo is clearly going to encourage a lot of Android and iOS game ports. Whether that turns out to be a good move depends on how strict it is with which games are allowed on to the system. There are a lot of poor mobile games out there I think we can all agree and this raises a concern over the Nintendo eShop potentially being flooded with them.

How common Handheld Mode-only games will be is unclear. I suspect any game launching in cartridge form will need to support all modes. However, if Nintendo finds we aren't really using the Switch in TV Mode very often, that could certainly change. It also gives a further hint that Nintendo could eventually phase out the 3DS and move forward with Switch as the only hardware platform.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.