Earlier this month, an anonymous Reddit user popped up with claims of having seen a Switch 2 model firsthand. The Verge and others found him to be a potentially credible source, but fans eager for morsels of information about Nintendo’s long-awaited next console had to settle for mere written descriptions. Now that same user is back with actual photos that have quickly found themselves at the center of a big debate about whether they’re legit or just AI-generated fakes.
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The Reddit user, posting under the handle NextHandheld, had previously said that sharing actual images of the console would be too risky. On December 25, however, they returned to X (formerly know as Twitter) to do exactly that. “This holiday season, I couldn’t resist sharing this gift with you all,” they posted. “Some might call it an early reveal… but I call it the best-kept secret of the year.” The message was accompanied by a photo showing a hand holding an alleged Switch 2 sideways in what looked like a hardware testing workroom.
The ravenous Switch 2 leak community immediately honed in on weird artifacting and mismatching in the image to accuse it of being an AI-generated fake. NextHandheld later followed up with a second post sharing an alleged image of the Switch 2 dock, cheekily writing, “It’s all just AI generated.” There were once again weird anomalies in the background and the outline of the console. Looking more closely at the images shared, believers speculated that the breaks were too clean to be AI-generated and instead indicated that, likely to protect their identity and the location where the photos were taken, NextHandheld had simply used AI to replace everything in the images but the hardware itself.
One user on the Switch 2 subreddit, DoctorHoneywell, compared various contours and dimensions from a previous alleged Joy-Con leak and found the photos from NextHandheld were a very close match, possibly indicating that both were in fact from a production unit approximating the final build design and shape. “It could be a really high quality resin 3D print with a well done finish, and then custom stickers on it. It could be really good photoshop job over an AI image,” DoctorHoneywell concluded. “But that would mean that I was still right with what I have said every single time I’ve been asked about this before they came out: It’s either real, or a high quality fake.”
The debate waged throughout Christmas Day, and NextHandheld’s own poll shared on X had 60 percent of roughly 4,000 respondents believing the leaks were legit and the rest thinking they were elaborate fakes. The mysterious leaker is also promising to reveal new details in the days ahead. Other once-prominent Nintendo leakers like Pyoro, who previously confessed to having a source with access to Nintendo’s website backend, have also tried to get in on the action, but without sharing anything definitive. For some, the entire thing is reminiscent of the notorious 2018 “Grinch leak” about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s roster. That one turned out to be a carefully crafted scam. Is NextHandheld pulling a similar trick?
The stakes around these leaks remain quite low. Unless everything that has so far trickled out has been completely made-up and off-base, all available rumors and reporting point to Nintendo’s next console likely being pretty similar to the existing Switch, just with upgraded specs. Every time it feels like speculation around the Switch 2 might be dying down again, a new data point arises for fans to argue about, and it seems likely that will keep happening until Nintendo finally reveals official information. The company’s promised to do so by April 2025, and the time for its big traditional February Direct is quickly approaching.
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