The Nintendo Switch 2 photos are fake – here's why
You may have seen photos of the Nintendo Switch 2 circulating online, but predictably, they're fake
We’re bound to see countless Nintendo Switch 2 leaks ahead of the console’s rumored release date of holiday 2024, including some rather convincing mockups of what we might expect to see.
Our first “official” photos of the Nintendo Switch 2 have arrived and quickly circulated on Twitter. The console looks extremely similar to the Switch we all know and love, but there are a few key changes. Firstly, the Joy-Con controllers are wider, with a different connection mechanism to attach to the system. The Nintendo Switch 2’s screen is also now visible when docked.
But obviously, as nice as this mock-up is, these photos are fake. And it doesn’t take an expert to figure out why. Nintendo’s hardware rarely ever leaks ahead of an official announcement, that’s the first thing to mention. However, there are more than a few clues that easily debunk these Nintendo Switch 2 photos.
Why the Nintendo Switch 2 photos are fake
The box art shows current Nintendo games on the homescreen, instead of new titles. Every Switch retail box to date has shown a pattern or plain gradient, and not an actual game.
The Joy-Con controllers are missing the + and - buttons, as well as the Home and Capture buttons.
We see a gray Joy-Con controller version, which is extremely unlikely. Nintendo eventually stopped selling the gray Joy-Con bundle as the Neon Red and Neon Blue Joy-Con bundle was so much more popular.
Look closely, and the game art for Super Mario RPG is used, which was only recently announced and doesn’t have an official box art yet. The Splatoon 3 game art also features the Inkling flipped the wrong way around.
Nintendo Switch 2 might not even be the console’s name, and if anything, it’s extremely unlikely. Nintendo has never released a numbered successor to a previous console.
To make the leak look more convincing, shots of the Nintendo Switch 2 user manual were also shared, which you can see below. But again, it’s easy to pick apart.
In the image, we can see that the three lines in diagram 3 overlap the circle, which is sloppy, and that the Joy-Con 2 is compared to the original Joy-Con with its rail attached. The Home button is also illegible and doesn’t look like anything official, and Joy-Con has a lower case ‘C’ in the first heading. I’m sure there are more typos and grammar mistakes in the actual text, too.
Obviously, if either of these photos were real, Nintendo’s legal team would have been on it in a flash, but unsurprisingly they haven’t been pulled or caused Nintendo to make any moves.
We do know that a Nintendo Switch 2 is inevitable at this point, and it might even include a replaceable battery. However, with a 2024 release date still a ways off, be wary of these types of incredible rumors and leaks.