Nintendo Switch 2 Allegedly Leaks Revealing Interesting New Joy-Con Controllers
There are three certainties in life—death, taxes, and rumors surrounding Nintendo's next game console. We want no part of the first too, but regarding the latter, the latest leak purportedly offers up a first glimpse of Nintendo's upcoming Switch 2 console (or whatever it ends up being called), and in particular the console's Joy-Con controllers.
A couple of caveats are in order. First and foremost, you should treat all leaks with the proper level of skepticism, no matter how reliable they may seem. Secondly (and related), this one is a blurry mess, which can be argued is intentional to conceal the root source of the leaked hardware. However, it could just as easily be blurry in order to more easily facilitate a fake look.
Disclaimers out of the way, here's the money shot in question...
The above is a screen grab from a video posted on Bilibili purporting to show "major changes in the design of the world's first Switch 2." There are other angles to view in the full video, including the inside sections of the controllers. If this is indeed real, then it appears gamers will be able to pull the Joy-Con controllers right off the console using a magnetic or suction-type system, rather than sliding them on and off.
That would be a welcome upgrade. When I reviewed the original Switch for HotHardware, one mistake I made during my hands-on was sliding one of the wrist strap attachments in the wrong direction, which gets it stuck. It's a pain in the backside to remove if you make that mistake, and Nintendo even has an official support article on the topic, which suggests that it's not all that uncommon.
A couple of other supposed changes in the design appear to include larger shoulder buttons and triggers on the back. Otherwise, they look a lot like the current Joy-Con.
Nintendo still has not yet announced a concrete release date, but has confirmed that there will be a Switch successor in 2025. It also confirmed that there will be some level of backwards compatibility with the current-gen Switch, which is a wise move, considering that the install-base is quite large at this point.
