The Nintendo Switch 2 camera was one of the more surprising announcements that came in April, and soon after, Hori announced an extremely cute Piranha Plant camera (alongside a more minimal black one with the same specs) that took the internet by storm, but that quickly faded as it was revealed that the resolution was far below that of the Nintendo Switch 2.
I was eager to put all three Nintendo Switch 2 cameras to the test as whilst the official Nintendo Switch 2 camera has served me well in GameShare so far, it’s not very versatile given the fact that it sits on a stand (and can’t be removed) and it’s quite large too.
The design of the two Hori cameras are far superior to that of the official camera. Not only are they a lot smaller (especially the black model), but they can also be used in three different ways that match the different play styles of the Switch 2.
They can stand on their base just like the official camera can, but both of these cameras also pop out of their shell to connect directly to the Nintendo Switch 2 in handheld mode or whilst using tabletop mode, and their base also has a latch that can be pulled out to sit on top of your TV, where the official camera can only be used on a stand (which has often been too low for my seating arrangement).
Just like the official Nintendo Switch 2 camera, they both have shutters as well, with the Piranha Plant closing its mouth to stop the feed and the black one having a simple slider that you flick up.
Unfortunately, it’s the resolution of the two Hori cameras that will turn most people away. Both of these cameras run at 480p in comparison to 1080p with the official camera, and the viewing angle of the official camera is much, much greater too.
Whilst there is a huge quality difference in full-screen mode, with the way that GameShare works, it was actually much less of an issue than I expected it to be with full light. Because of the way the camera crops in and tracks your face (which is great on all three cameras) paired with the resolution of GameShare, there’s actually not a huge difference between them.
Where this might become an issue later on is where games start using the camera for gameplay purposes, such as Mario Party Jamboree + Jamboree TV, which will incorporate much larger images of characters for gameplay purposes, although EyeToy on the PS2 did this with an even lower resolution than 480p, so I expect it’ll be okay.
Really, it all comes down to whether you want the best possible picture quality, whether you want an extremely cute Piranha Plant webcam, or whether you want the most minimal and smallest webcam, or you can just try and existing webcam and see if you’re happy with that, but I’m really surprised that the Hori cameras match the versatile feature set of the Switch 2 much better than the official camera, which provides great quality, but is really only good for a TV type situation.