After last week’s hype and hysteria over the Switch 2 demo Genki brought to CES, the game accessory maker has come to Twitter to make some seemingly final clarifications.
They started their statement by debunking some misconceptions, so we’ll quote them directly here:
“So there’s been a lot of Genki in the news recently, and I thought it’d be a good time to address some rumors and set the record straight.
1/ We do not own or possess a black market console, as some outlets have suggested.
2/ The white catalog of generic-looking controllers and accessories circulating at CES? Not ours.
3/ Rumors of us disappearing is silly. We were given 3 booths to showcase different projects.”
After reviewing our own reporting, we verified we also reported that Genki had a black market console. Because Genki had a convincing physical mockup and 3D presentation, and they talked about Switch 2 consoles circulating in the black market, we also made this assumption.
We apologize for the error, but also question Genki’s communication in all of this. As Genki joined in the hype cycle for Switch 2’s prerelease, it would serve them, like it did Dbrand and others, to deliberately withhold information on what they actually knew about the Switch 2, including if they had the console at all.
Genki corroborated Nintendo’s claim that they were never given a Switch 2 by Nintendo. So between these two statements, we can conclude that they never had a Switch 2 from any source.
So that very convincing demo that spread at the start of last week? Those were also based on other people’s rumors, and maybe we should have more seriously considered our own argument that they could quickly prepare such mockups from even the latest rumors quickly enough.
Genki goes on to remind gamers of how they made their name. Indeed, if you didn’t buy one of Genki’s USB-C Bluetooth speaker adapters for the Switch, you probably saw it in a game store, or saw it being talked about by Nintendo fans and content creators on forums, Nintendo websites, YouTube and streamer media, etc. To Genki’s credit, their ingenuity eventually compelled Nintendo to unlock Bluetooth audio on the Switch themselves.
Genki claims they were real fans of Nintendo, but you will be hardpressed to find any gamer above 30 who would say they were not. We suspect they’re still not completely forthcoming even in this statement, because this is about more than trying to touch base with their customers who may feel Genki misled them.
We think Genki is disclosing all of this now because Nintendo approached them at CES about all the suspicious activity surrounding their demo. Many gamers may be convinced that Nintendo doesn’t want Genki to reveal the Switch 2. But Nintendo is just as likely to want to stop them, because they are spreading misinformation about Nintendo’s next console that they haven’t seen and don’t know about.
And yes, here we once again bring back flopflation. Sony didn’t ask or want their own fans to spread misinformation about the PlayStation 5 Pro. Debunking it meant something as drastic as getting the console’s designer, Mark Cerny, to hold a 30 minute lecture and scold their own fans.
While some Nintendo fans could find it amusing, we don’t really want to see Nintendo wheel out Takashi Tezuka and Yoshiaki Koizumi to make that kind of lecture about what the Switch 2 is and is not. Suffice to say that, in the end, we are still waiting for Nintendo to make that official announcement and reveal.
