Handheld PC manufacturers, if there’s one feature to avoid copying from the Switch 2, it’s the awkwardly placed cameras.

Jokes aside, you’d have to be a pretty big dork to think that the world isn’t wide enough for both handheld PCs and traditional consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2 (even if the latter is hogging a new FromSoft game). Partly because they are, to an extent, ingrained in each other, via the classic hardware marketplace of borrowed ideas: there’s probably no Steam Deck without the original Switch, and I’d bet my own mousing hand that the Switch 2’s optical sensor-packing Joy Cons are inspired by the Lenovo Legion Go.

No doubt the manufacturers behind portable PCs watched the Switch 2’s Nintendo Direct showcase and began furiously scribbling notes on what they could crib, be it the magnetic clip-on peripherals, the fan-equipped dock, or whatever internal wizardry that seemingly lets it run Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at 1080p. Fine by me. Just please don’t, whatever you do, follow Nintendo’s lead of trying to plaster over games with the gurning, disembodied heads of our friends and families.

This is GameChat, the Switch 2’s otherwise quite reasonable attempt at baking in a Discord-like chat app. With microphones alone, it’s just a standard (if highly integrated) tool for exchanging mocking laughter with yer mates, like the absolute Immanuel Bants you all are. Add a USB-C camera, though, and some games will slap on a constant, zoomed-in feed of your most furrowed concentration face, right there next to your character.

I hate this, and would be scared to sit near people that don’t. Firstly, it infers some kind of inadequacy on the player’s part, that they can’t perceive an in-game character as being the avatar of a given pal unless they’re annotated with a giant face. Secondly, it smacks a little of Nintendo once again taking something that already exists – in this case streaming and reaction video culture – and presenting it as a Nintendo thing that Nintendo made, like how the Wii U attempted to replace the phone or tablet we always keep close when playing games on the sofa.

Thirdly, and most importantly, GameChat’s stated goal – to make your partners’/enemies’ reactions more visual – clashes with the reason why their anguished wails are so entertaining in the first place. Namely, that you literally can’t see them coming. I’ve played games with my friends in person and I’ve played games with my friends over sightless VoIP, and every time, it’s far funnier to hear a yelp or groan when it’s not signposted by a mouth movement or arm flail. The performative rageflopping of influencers is clearly entertaining for some, but it’s hard to get on board with GameChat’s assumption that everyone is keen to both watch it and replicate it themselves.

Or, maybe I just don’t want multiplayer games to become Zoom chats, a wall of off-centred eyes where silences feel fifty times longer because someone, somewhere in the eyewall might be watching with the express point of seeing you do something. Or perhaps this all resembles an extension of those ‘put yourself in the game’ features, where you could upload a photo of yourself (or of a presumably non-consenting acquaintance) and your visage would be awkwardly stretched over the head model of a footballer or wrestler. These haven’t worked or been fun since Old Man Murray enslaved Noam Chomsky as an ice hockey goalie, and if anything, the fact that it would be a live, more-or-less HD rendition of my mug makes the concept seem even creepier.

To be fair to GameChat, it doesn’t entirely trade in floating skull-o-vision; it can do more of a body view as well, enabling some EyeToy/Kinect-esque physical party games without so much of a Covid-era planning meeting vibe. Nonetheless, the only thing here I’d like to see on a handheld PC is making regular voice chat apps more controller-optimised. Camera stuff? Resist the urge, Valve/Acer/Lenovo etc. We might be relatively safe from the facecams just because it would ultimately be up to developers, not hardware manufacturers, to put this kind of prying weirdness into PC games to begin with. The only big org with fingers in both pies is Valve, and although the Steam Deck 2 will be with us one day, that particular feature doesn’t seem like their style.

Still, who knows might be crazy enough to try it. The Zotac Zone already has a camera built in, which I’ve never understood. Did they not clock how unflattering the angle is when you’re holding it in a standard just-above-the-lap position? I become, like, forty percent nostril. Just copy the magnets or something. End this madness.