Do these high-quality leaked photos show the Nintendo NX controller?

[Shawn Knight]

A new series of photos purportedly showcasing a Nintendo NX controller have hit the web. While their authenticity hasn't been confirmed, they were at least shot with a decent camera and appear to lend some credibility to an earlier leaked image of lesser quality.

Unfortunately, the new images are of the controller with the integrated display not active.

The leaker, a Reddit user by the name of perkele37, claims this is the controller unit from a dev kit. As such, it may not represent the final design Nintendo ends up shipping to consumers.

The mysterious Redditor also notes that only the upper "nubs" of the thumbsticks move. The bottom part is described as static but that it moves along the bottom "sphere." We are also told that the rollers on the top of the controller (they're kind of hard to see in the photos) feel and look pretty much identical to a scroll wheel found on a mouse. The controller is said to have haptic feedback that's more akin to Apple's taptic engine than, say, a rumble pack.

Reddit members quickly got to work dissecting the photos. The keyboard layout from the computer in one of the pictures is said to be Swedish. Oh, and see that reflection of a tree on the base of the monitor / TV? Yeah, some people are convinced it's a tree in front of Massive Entertainment.

So, what do you think? Is this the real deal or a very clever fake?

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/64212-do-high-quality-leaked-photos-show-nintendo-nx.html

 

[yRaz]

I sure as hell hope not

 

[umbala]

Man, I used to love Nintendo when I was a kid, but now they're making it extremely hard for me not to hate them. Every new generation console they put out comes with some half baked, ridiculous gimmick. Just give us a normal controller that feels good in the hand and everyone is used to. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel already.

 

[psycros]

Man, I used to love Nintendo when I was a kid, but now they're making it extremely hard for me not to hate them. Every new generation console they put out comes with some half baked, ridiculous gimmick. Just give us a normal controller that feels good in the hand and everyone is used to. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel already.

Actually, the wheel could use a little tweaking. For example, why can't we rotate the d-pads and/or joysticks to align with our thumbs? To my knowledge only Razer and Hitori have done this on a couple of niche models, and I'm not sure the latter was even released outside Japan. Ergonomics seems to have fallen completely by the wayside in the last few years along with sensible UI design. But yes, this controller seems to be trying a little too hard. Its clearly an early concept - that shape is very odd and looks like you have to hold it like you're eating a sandwich (although, in its defense, it seems like your thumbs *would* be aligned 0 degrees with the joysticks). Clearly its meant to force you hold it in a way that you'll be able to see the display easily, but it probably would be uncomfortable for extended periods. The lack of physical buttons is also a complete deal-breaker for 99% of console gamers. A controller that can adapt to the user makes ten times more sense than a touchscreen that's all but worthless in real time gaming. Give us the rotating directional controls, customizable display, etc. - THAT would be innovation. Microsoft moved in this direction with its high-end XB1 controller which brought a lot of competition "modding" capability to a first-party device. I don't see why Nintendo couldn't go beyond that. Sure, a display on your controller is nice in some instances, but let's be honest..nobody wants to be constantly looking away from the screen for important info. The 3DS was really a dual monitor setup and it didn't translate to the Wii U at all.