Earlier this month two photos of Nintendo's upcoming NX console controller found their way to the internet. The first photo had all the markings of a stolen product photo. It looked like it was taken using an inferior phone camera in suboptimal lighting conditions. It was of a relatively low resolution, looked grainy and light glare distorted a good part of the controller's screen. The photo also had a big black square, obviously meant to hide something that would've revealed the identity of the person behind the leak.
Not long afterwards, a couple more photos of the same controller were posted on Reddit. This time, it looked like the leaker had the controller in his possession and was able to take high resolution snaps of it from the comfort of his desk. The controller in the new photos looked exactly like the older one but with a black finish instead of white. Both photo sets had no evidence of being photoshoped and they resembled closely a controller patent that was filed by Nintendo shortly before. All in all, there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the leak which Nintendo preferred to ignore.
But now we know that both leaks were faked independently by two different pranksters.
Reddit user, Idriss2Dev, posted the video below as a proof that he was the one who created the first NX Controller photo using V-Ray 3D modelling software. He didn't give any reason for the prank beyond "internet lolz."
The pong to Idriss2Dev's pong came from Frank Sandqvist, co-founder of CNC Design in Finland, who used Autodesk's 3D modeling tool Fusion 360 to design a 3D model of the controller before he 3D-printed it in black resin and acrylic. Sandqvist too posted a YouTube video demonstrating how he created a real life model of the controller to fool Nintendo fans.
