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The NX controller could utilize 1:1 motion tracking or haptic thumb sticks, but no matter the design of their controllers, it is highly likely that the NX will feature the tech displayed above in the patent that Nintendo filed May 2014, showing a player wearing glasses and experiencing a 3D effect on a 2D display.

At first glance, one my say, “We’ve seen games using 3D glasses,” but there is more than meets the eye in the patent content.  The tech combines eye-tracking and head-tracking to create a 3D effect on a 2D display.  The headtracking would work exactly like the video below by youtuber Johnny Lee.

 

The gaze tracking would be accomplished with two, small cameras built into the glasses.  Tracking the movement and the dialation of the pupil would solidify the 3D illusion and remove any glitches.  Upcoming VR visors like Vive, Oculus Rift, and PS VR will not feature gaze tracking.

The glasses in the illustration could also utilize LCD shutters to combine the head and gaze tracking with stereo video, essentially, turning your television into a hologram box (below). 

It would not be the first time that Nintendo has released a pair of shutter glasses.  Nintendo launched the Famicon 3D System in 1987 for the NES in Japan only (below).  If the glasses do utilize a shutter, then NX games will have to run at 60fps in order to display a proper 30fps to each eye or developers will have to opt to deactivate the shutters.

The advantage of this technology is that it presents a 3D experience at a relatively low cost, it does not require a heavy VR visor; and most importantly to Nintendo, it does not isolate the user from their surroundings and friends the way that head mounted displays do.  In an interview with TIME, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto talked about Nintendo’s mission statement to bring people together in the living room and his skepticism of virtual reality:

“We want… a game system that brings video gamers into the living room.…When you think about what virtual reality is, which is one person putting on some goggles and playing by themselves kind of over in a corner, or maybe they go into a separate room and they spend all their time alone playing in that virtual reality, that’s in direct contrast with what it is we’re trying to achieve”

 

Nintendo could bring Augmented Reality to market for as little as $100-150 while Virtual Reality visors cost between $400-900.  Sony's new PS VR visor will cost $400 and that price doesn't include the two wands or the $50 stereoscopic 720p camera used for head and wand tracking.  Nintendo's AR design would only require a similar camera to Sony's and a pair of glasses which could range in price from $50-100 (dependent upon if LCD shutters are implemented).  Nintendo's AR design makes use of the HD television the user already owns and that is the key to all of the success the game industry has found to date-- in that it has piggybacked on the proliferation of televisions.