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Nintendo has revealed the Switch 2: On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, company officials announced Nintendo would release the Switch 2 on June 5, 2025 at a cost of $449. Read the minute-by-minute live blog for the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement presentation.
There's still a lot we don't know about the Switch 2, which will be revealed on Wednesday morning.
Among those questions: Price, performance, a list of new titles, and the official release date all remain unknown.
But sandwiched in all of those more obvious questions we still have is something even stranger.
We're talking about the mysterious new "C" button.
Let me backtrack; if you've been paying attention to Switch drips, you might have caught wind of a new button on the console's revamped Joy-Cons with a "C" emblazoned on it
And even with a recent leak of the button, we still don't know what it does.
While we may ultimately be disappointed, it could be more interesting than you think.
The mystery machine
On the surface, a new button might not be groundbreaking, but I'm betting it might be more interesting than you think, and there are a few reasons for my optimism.
One reason is that I have a reasonable guess about what the button is not.
Even though the Switch 2's new button has a "C" on it, I don't think the most obvious guess makes sense — a capture button.
I'm skeptical about this option because there's already a preexisting capture button on Nintendo's Joy-Con that is still there in the renders we've seen of the Switch 2.
I don't think Nintendo will dedicate two whole buttons to capturing screenshots or videos, much less give them different signage.
So, ruling out a redundancy, what other options do we have left? A chat button has also been kicked around, and as plausible as that sounds on the surface, it's also incredibly un-Nintendo-like.
Nintendo, unlike Xbox and PlayStation, tends to be the more buttoned-up, family-friendly brand, and introducing a chat feature feels like an easy way to ruin that reputation.
So that option is almost as implausible as the capture one. Where does that leave us? A recent rumor offers the most exciting possibility I've seen yet.
Connecting the dots
By far the most exciting option of what the Switch 2's mysterious "C" button might entail comes courtesy of a recent rumor out of YouTuber eXstas1s, who released a video over this past weekend suggesting the "C" in this case stands for "connect."
Connect in this case would mean something pretty unexpected. eXstas1s ponders that the connect button would allow you to link your Switch 2 and your original Switch to use the first-gen console as a separate controller and screen.
That might sound a little wild, but that functionality isn't unprecedented in the Nintendo world. The Wii U, notably, has a gamepad-like functionality.
What's next
The benefits to bringing a connect functionality like that to the Switch 2 are many — for one, you could theoretically emulate games for the Wii U and 3DS properly.
Admittedly, this option still sounds a little far-fetched, but in some ways, it makes more sense than other scenarios, given Nintendo's past hardware endeavors.
And if you were looking for a way to continue to make buying an original Switch worthwhile, this theoretically wouldn't be a bad way to do it.
It's all still firmly in the rumor stage, but luckily, we'll have an answer for sure soon. Nintendo is holding its Direct event on April 2 at 9 a.m. Eastern, and we can expect to get a full rundown of all the Switch 2 hardware and maybe even upcoming games.
Stay tuned to Laptop Mag for more.
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