Behold This Leaked Nintendo NX Controller, Try to Hold Back Your Laughter
For Microsoft and Sony, the controller is easily the most uninteresting parts of their consoles. They have simply chosen over the years to improve and build upon their initial controller designs, ultimately getting to the current controllers they have now. Both are pretty fantastic, and though they have their little quirks (like the big Night Light Touch button on the PS4, or the rumble function in the triggers that developers DEFINITELY don't use enough), they feature pretty standard interfaces -- four faces button, two analog sticks, four directional buttons, a couple of buttons around the center, two triggers, and two bumpers. This system is tried and true, and if it ain't broke, you don't have to fix it. But don't tell that to Nintendo!
Yes, the third system seller has always had a weird relationship with controllers, always choosing to heavily adjust their gamepad with seemingly every new console release. From the vertical weirdness of the Wii Remote to the giant block of screen known as the Wii U Gamepad, Nintendo is certainly willing to change up how players play their games with reckless abandon. And with their newest controller, codenamed the Nintendo NX, they seem to be doing that yet again, if this newly leaked, unconfirmed image of the controller is to be believed.
And before we show it to you, we once again have to stress just how big a grain of salt you have to take believing this to be the real deal -- leaks like this are far from guaranteed in accuracy, and there's a lot of reasons why this could be a complete and total fake. But judge away with the two posted pictures (first leaked through Dual Pixels):
The controller shown in the pictures matches the patented design that Nintendo released sometime ago, although that doesn't necessarily mean it's 100% legit (in fact, the very idea it's nearly identical to the original design could be construed as the biggest proof for why it's fake.) But working off the assumption this is indeed the real deal, it's hard not to question Nintendo's reasoning for the big controller change.
One of the driving factors of the Wii U's failure was the fact that it was too different, and that its hardware could not match that of the Xbox One or Playstation 4, not just in technical capabilities but in controller interface as well. After all, it's simple to transpose the control scheme of a game for the Xbox One onto the Playstation 4; they are very similar in design, as we previously ruminate on. But both the Wii and Wii U struggled to gain real third party support due to the massive hurdles of adapting the game to fit Nintendo's gamepad decisions (i.e. the big old screen in the middle)-- and though the Wii was enough of a phenomenon to circumvent that, we simply live in an age where you HAVE to be able to play the biggest of multiplatform games, the Call of Duty's and The Division's of the world.
And if the process of adapting that game to the console is too complex (and the install base isn't there to warrant such effort), most developers just won't bother. They sure didn't for the Wii U, after all. You would think that, after that, Nintendo would have learned it's less about being too revolutionary and followed up that console with something a bit more streamlined and standard. But a nearly button less, completely touch screen based controller is pretty much the exact opposite of that.
But once again, let's not freak out about this until we know for sure this is the decision that Nintendo will be going into. Hopefully we'll know more about this strange new console come E3 time.
