Remember those leaked pictures of the alleged Nintendo NX controllers that had the whole community talking? All of them were fake, every last one of them - which may be a good thing for some, considering how odd they looked.
"So, uh, it's fake," said Frank Sandqvist, the man behind the hoax, as he broke the news in a video where he showed exactly how he fooled a willing fanbase. It turns out the original was Photoshop work and the second was the work of a 3-D printer.
As you may remember, the first Nintendo NX controller leak was clearly modeled after a Nintendo patent that displayed a device with two analog sticks and an elliptical touchscreen used to cover its front. The photos were from a Redditor named Idriss2Dev, who then "leaked" them to the site Dual Pixels.
In the video below we can see how Photoshop was used to make the image look convincing:
The second set of photos, which surfaced Wednesday, look identical to the first but with a black schematic that made it eerily similar in design to a PlayStation Vita. It turns out they were based on the first leaked photo - apparently learning from the last mistake of people pegging that one as fake due to the "image" in the screen.
In the video below, Sandqvist shows us how he made the video look convincing, this time through the use of a 3-D printer.
Now that these controllers have been proven fake, where does that leave us? In a pretty good spot actually. When the photos first first emerged, there were plenty of naysayers who were quick to dismiss them as fake - as is the case with all leaks. However, in this case, there were plenty of people who were dissatisfied with the design and actually hoped it was fake for that reason alone. So for them, the controllers being fake is a blessing.
With that said, the original patent still holds up, so while these photos are definitively fake there's always the chance that the design is real.
At this point, the sooner Nintendo reveals official information about the NX the better, however we'll likely have to wait before or during E3 this June before the company actually does.
