The Nintendo community has been gradually losing its mind over the torrent of Switch 2 leaks over the holiday break. Because Nintendo is quiet about its next console – even as photos supposedly final hardware and internal components are emerging and more and more questions are being answered – the community is doing things like getting into heated debates about the merits 8nm vs. 5nm microchip production processes (a topic that was dealt with by everyone involved definitely expert for).
In fact, there is enough support for this theory that it is not worth dismissing it outright. The latest and most compelling evidence is a pair of up-to-date photos that surfaced over the weekend showing a supposedly finalized, production Joy-Con Switch 2. The photos certainly look convincing and line up with what’s already known about the increased sizes of Joy-Cons and their up-to-date magnetic connection method (no rail clamp evident). And there, on the edge of the Joy-Con, between the connector and the enlarged SL button, there is something that looks like Exactly like the optical sensor on the bottom of the mouse.
This “laser” sensor was previously reported by leaker NextHandheld – the same one that confirmed the Switch 2 name and provided up-to-date details about the Joy-Con and dock in December, then tortured the Nintendo community with convincing but apparently AI-altered photos of itself Switch 2 during the holidays. (It’s a long story.) NextHandheld speculated that the sensor could be used in a similar way to the Lenovo Legion Go PC handheld, which allows the detached controller to be used as a mouse (though in less elegant upright position).
If you want to go full-on Charlie Day conspiracy meme, you can tie this theory to (never verified) reports from a few months ago that the Switch 2’s shoulder buttons they would also function as scroll wheelsOr some shipping details unearthed a few months ago which mentions the ingredients of “mouse sole”.
That’s a lot. At this point, this is just dot-connecting speculation and not source-based reporting, so please proceed with caution. It’s a bit surprising that Nintendo added additional complications to the Joy-Con; in their current form, they are sophisticated, miniaturized and complex to repair, so it seemed more likely that features such as the infrared sensor would be cut rather than up-to-date ones added.
But…if it’s not an optical mouse sensor…what is it?
