Simplified is one thing, but I am not sure what I am looking at exactly. Nintendo usually has a number of controller options and I will be curious how this would be implemented. This originates as a leak from reddit so it should be treated with a healthy amount of skepticism. Nintendo has suggested their design of NX controller wouldn't have face buttons so that part of it seems to match up. I predict that they will maintain Wii U gamepad and gamecube controller support too. What do you guys think?

From the leak:

• Only the upper ‘nubs’ of the sticks move. The bottom part is static (kind of like the circle pad, but it moves along the bottom ‘sphere’.
• The rollers on the top feel and look pretty much identical to a mouse scroll-wheel. Though I do don’t believe this will be the final design.
• Haptic feedback is feels like Apples ‘taptic’ engine. Not like regular rumble.
• 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom

Source

It's a fake, don't trust crap floating from 4chan's depths. Pictures like this have been appearing since last year at the earliest, with each version looking slightly less photoshopped than the last. Sometimes it's a white controller sometimes black, ALWAYS with the same confidential property with text at an angle that doesn't look right.

Yeah, it's the confidential property sticker that is the most suspicious about it to me. Unless whoever is leaking the pictures intentionally added that to be silly.

@subliminalkitteh: I'll take your word for it. However, it DOES look a lot like the design shown in the patent filing.

For comparisons sake, did the original Wii U gamepad design end up look anything like the shipping product? Or, is it just typically a simple mockup?

How could anybody believe this?

No. Not even Nintendo would be that stupid.

Wii U dev kit:

Wii U patent:

Regardless of whether this is fake or not I think it'd be pretty neat for emulation as you could theoretically emulate older controller layouts on that screen in addition to emulating games. Now it wouldn't compare to having the controller, but cool none the less.

I don't doubt that the actual controller will look similar to the patent, but the pic from reddit is a fake from 4chan.

Finally, the makers of the NGage are getting into the console business!

If that is the controller they end up going for, they will never get cross-platform games. So it would become another Nintendo Exclusive box.

But yeah, this is clearly some bored Nintendo fan with a 3D printer and Photoshop.

The Wii U gamepad on the edge of the screen is so lazily staged.

There are too many factors telling me this isn't real.

The size of the controller, how it looks EXACTLY like refuted other "leaks" as well as the patent. The label maker stickers. The lack of any Micro-USB plugs. The lack of any additional information.

Don't believe everything you see, ask questions, don't just react.

Nobody's said it here yet, so wow! Someone leaked something with a real camera, not a potato!

I'm gonna go ahead and assume there will be a pro controller for the NX as well. Don't like the idea of playing old games from the eShop without a D-pad

Kind of a side note but I wonder if cross-platform is something that Nintendo is really going to push with their next system. They pushed it a bit when announcing the WiiU initially but I'm not sure if it really amounted to anything in particular. I don't have any sales numbers in mind but I have this impression in my mind that most of the WiiU's game sales successes were their first party titles designed specifically for the system.

I could be completely wrong on all of this though.

Doesn't that look exactly like the patent design floating around last year? So I would say it has a good chance of being legit. But at the same time, it looks like an oval PSVita. So...

I don't know, if I were leaking something like this, I'd make sure to not have anything in the pictures but the device itself, preferably against a white blanket. Either the person doing this is incredibly careless (some clueless intern?), or it's a sign that it is fake.

Well it matches the patents so maybe not fake? We are very close to e3 and the reveal by now

If it's real Nintendo are doomed. :(

@gunflame88:

I went to the actual reddit post and some people were saying the same thing, others (for some reason) were trying to be internet sleuths and find out where the leaker worked. I just thought this was interesting enough to post, a little bit of healthy speculation can be fun at times. I'm sure we will have a much more definitive idea on the NX seeing how E3 is fast approaching. It looks bulky enough to be a prototype that's for sure. This may all shake out into nothing or could be an early look at nintendos plans for the future. I'm struggling to see how something like this is adaptable to modern gaming, but I am willing and hoping to be surprised.

Oh god, does Nintendo think that part of the popularity of cell phone games has something to do with not having buttons?
Please someone tell them this is not the case.
Lost in translation.
Wait a second, this photo can't be real, that WiiU gamepad isn't even covered in dust. (ba-doom-boom pssshhh)

@mooseymcman said:

Actually "confidential" property stickers are par for the course with Nintendo dev kits, so I wouldn't take that to mean anything other than: a) this is legit, or b) the faker knows his stuff:

You can see button faces on the right hand side. If this is fake, kudos to the person who spent the time doing it.

If that's real I guess I'll skip a generation.

Welp. If it's real, this is going to be the most expensive (standard) controller for a console yet. On the other hand... Nintendo never did start selling Wii U gamepads, right?

@captain_felafel: I didn't mean that there was a sticker so much as a sticker that looked hella fake. The one on the pic you posted looks like an official Nintendo thing. The other looks like a sticker someone printed for funsies.

Kyoto's hottest club faked controller picture is: NX

Description: Nine-year-old Tokyo pimp Nintendo is back with an all new hotSHOT that answers the question, “WHAT?!”

This picture has everything: Trance, coffee-cup stains on wooden desks, dogs on stilts, Wii U controller laying against a Dell monitor, and albino earbuds

@monkeyking1969: Amazing.

I wouldn't trust it. That patent's been out in the wild for the best part of six months. Plenty of time to do a mock-up.

@sterling: I was sorta on board until you posted that with the screen on. It's not too difficult to fake an image like that and even if it wasn't fake it would be a terrible idea to have the nubs block important real estate on a screen you're looking at because your hands would further block more of the screen like using face buttons on said screen. The major issue this whole thing hinges on is the quality of the haptic feedback to not make you miss not having buttons.

@colourful_hippie: I bet holding it would also be uncomfortable. Its narrow and long. It just looks like a pain to hold for an extended period of time.

That looks stupid.

Now that you mention it, it does look a bit like someone just printed that off a label gun, huh? Haha

@oldenglishc: he doesnt have the nx controller in his hand! Stop it with these false flags!!!

Looks like the least ergonomic controller design I've seen since the 90s.

Christ, the Internet at large is going crazy over this. If this is indeed a fake, the guy who made it has probably already died from laughter.

Err, I find it far easier to believe that this is real than two separate people in two different countries mocked up two different, identical-except-colour mock ups of a Nintendo patent that was only released in December (a lead time within which Wii U patents looked exactly like the final product).

Either this is the most elaborate and realistic hoax ever in gaming, or this is real.

I mean, the only reason I would even entertain the idea of this being fake is the argument "that design is too dumb to be real". Sadly, after the Wii U, I find even that argument hard to get behind.

Why would a dev kit come in two separate colours? First image is all black whilst the second has white trim.

Assuming it's real, let's actually discuss the implications of such a controller. Apart from the two analog sticks, Nintendo wants to replace traditional inputs with touchscreen buttons, the idea seemingly being to allow a developers to create to their own input interface for their games, much like how mobile games do, and how the Wii U did to a degree. It's an interesting concept, and I'd have to imagine they have some technology in place to allow pressing a touch-screen button feel analogous to pressing a physical button. If not, well, they may have some problems.

@sanj: I think it'd be a terrible idea to give developers their own choice of input interfaces. Controllers having basically the same layout of four face buttons, a dpad, some analogue sticks and left trigger, right triggers allows for commonality between games and makes it easy for people to pick up and play without having to look at the controller every other action to remember "where's that button again?".

Giving developers a screen and saying "go ham on this and make your own interface" will, I think, lead to the same problems that plagued early FPS and RTS games on the PC, when games used to have to provide you with a keyboard insert that would explain to you the location of all the different functions.

We've moved past that now, we don't need to go back.

@sanj: Your last point is one I was thinking about. I haven't used the Steam controller but the haptic feedback in that was supposed to feel like a button press so perhaps they have worked out something similar.

But the idea of playing a Mario game without a physical button to jump with is going to be a weird weird moment if it happens

Swedish keyboard on the Mac... Maybe from Massive? Ubi said that they are working on NX-titles right?

I don't even care about the lack of buttons but man that thing looks hard to hold and then twist you thumbs for button presses. Those sticks look way to close to where the palm of your hands would sit.

This is what I was going to say. It's the same design exactly.

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/nintendo-nx/

I think it might be real. Lets not act like Nintendo haven't done some dumbass designs but it's been a while.

Don't forget though that at some stage Sony actually showed this thing off as the official PS3 controller, presumably before the drugs wore off. The NX controller shown could be a controller, but just like the WiiU and Wii I wouldn't be surprised if they let you use or intended you to primarily use a different one.

@oldenglishc: I haven't laughed at a post like I did at yours in a long time.

I really hope they're changing their mind about this design. Who knows if this is real or not. I doubt it is. Too on the nose.

@jesus_phish: The difference would be that the boomerang design was never integral to the software that was designed for it's console, this supposed controller however (and the past two nintendo controllers) would be integral to the how games developed for the platform would communicate with the player. (though I still think this is a hoax.)

@katpottz: Kind of integral.

The Wii U gamepad more so, but you could play plenty of games on the Wii with the gamecube controller or the pro controller. With the exception of the Wii Sports games how many Wii games absolutely required/got designed around the gamepad it had? Red Steel?

And really the only game on the Wii U that makes proper use of the gamepad is Mario Maker for designing levels and Zombie U. Both of those you could've just made an application for tablets. Mario Maker could've used something like what Media Molecule did for Tearaway Unfolded for creating levels, or just let you use a regular controller. While creating with a regular controller probably wouldn't be as nice as the touchscreen is, it'd be perfectly serviceable. And a bunch of other games did allow you to use your phone or tablet as a second screen for maps or inventory.

So Nintendo have shown twice now that even when they go out of their way to design unconventional controllers, there's nothing holding developers to having to use all those bells and whistles and for the most part they don't. So I don't know how much I'd bet the farm that either a) this is the real controller or b) even if it is that it's integral to the system.