Just as Switch 2 news was starting to quieten down, pictures have emerged appearing to show the Joy-Con controllers for Nintendo’s next console.
While it seems like we won’t hear anything official about Nintendo’s next console until next year, that just means there’s more time for leaks and rumours to circulate online.
Nintendo has only confirmed its next console, unofficially dubbed the Switch 2, will be backwards compatible, but rumours suggest it will also have magnetic Joy-Con controllers and specs roughly in line with an Xbox Series S.
A new leak from Chinese video sharing site Bilibili has now seemingly revealed the new controllers, which appear to include a mysterious new trigger on the back.
As reported by NintendoSoup, it’s unclear where these images have originated from exactly, but the Bilibili video blurs out key parts (including what appears to be the console itself) to protect the original source.
The short glimpses we do see show two IR sensors on the bottom, larger SL and SR buttons, and some kind of extra pedal or trigger on the back. It’s unclear whether this is a button or a mechanism to remove it from the console itself.
The Joy-Cons being magnetic – a minor detail in the scale of things – is one of the few things about the Switch 2 that has been mentioned by multiple sources, but while images of the console and its controllers have appeared online before there’s been no confirmation that they’re real.
The photos supposedly came from a factory worker in China, which is exactly where you’d expect a leak to originate from, as the Switch 2 enters full production and Nintendo starts to stockpile them for launch.
That certainly doesn’t guarantee they’re real though and while many fans expect the Switch 2 to be physically quite similar to the current model there’s no real evidence for that and Nintendo certainly hasn’t said one way or another.
In these circumstances it’s always sensible to assume the least interesting explanation, which in this case would be that it’s fake or that if it’s not the thing at the back is just to disconnect the Joy-Con from the main console.
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On the current models that’s achieved via a small button at the top though, so it’s not clear why this would need to change to something bigger.
One possibility could be that it’s an analogue trigger meant for driving games. Unlike the Xbox and PlayStation, the shoulder buttons on the Switch 2 are not analogue, which doesn’t allow for much nuance in racing games.
It would be nice to change that with the Switch 2 but if Nintendo is worried about backwards compatibility they may have decided to add a whole new button rather than replace the current ones.
Although there’s a very slim chance of some kind of Nintendo Switch 2 news at The Game Awards next week the most likely scenario at the moment is that the new console won’t be unveiled properly until January or February – so we won’t know for sure until then.
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