Nintendo enthusiasts, hold on to your hats because this one is wild. The recent leak gives a first-ever look into the new potential Switch 2 home menu. And apparently, they are giving mouse controls to… Joy-Cons. Yes. MOUSE. CONTROLS.
The clip popped up on the Nintendo Today app (you never know from where leaks will originate), and it showed someone smoothly escaping laptop mouse controls on the new Switch 2 home menu using a Joy-Con of some sort. Pointer on screen, clicking random icons, the whole shebang. It was smooth; it was odd; and while I hesitate to say it, it could have stood to make some sort of sense.
Now, before everybody completely loses their mind, let’s take this apart, shall we? The Switch has gyro-controls already, a fact well known to any player of Splatoon or Zelda. But turning a single Joy-Con into some real mouse? That’s… well, you can’t imagine going through the eShop without tapping through old-school menus like it’s 2005. Or maybe bestow those RTS games with a little Love on the Switch, kinda nightmare currently with just the controller.
But the definition of the question is: WHY? Is Nintendo promoting productivity? Hidden web browsers? Or is it just some freak experiment feature that will never see the light of day? Knowing Nintendo, it could go either way.
And before anyone tries to say it—no, this leak doesn’t confirm that the Switch 2 is launching tomorrow. Or next week. Or even this year. But, it does seem to give some coal to that fire that Nintendo might do their next console as much bigger than just a beefed-up Switch. Maybe they’ll finally start taking hybrid seriously.
All right, before the comments go crazy: if you doubt the leak, then keep a 50/50 chance in your mind for it being either real or some random Photoshop project. But with it looking so polished and the fact that Nintendo Today is not just a random Twitter account? The weight lies with the former.
If Joy-Cons can, indeed, double as a mouse, what else can they do? Full keyboard support? Touchpad gestures? Voice commands where the Joy-Con just yells back at you? Okay, maybe not that last one. But still — this is the kind of weird, unexpected twist that makes Nintendo… well, Nintendo.
Now, for the moment, all we can do is just wait. And maybe practice flicking those Joy-Cons just in case.
