Nintendo Switch Fans are Baffled by New Joy-Con Charging Stand

Update: Nintendo has confirmed that the Joy-Con Charging Stand will be released in North America on October 17th, as well. Original story follows below. 

Nintendo Switch has been available in stores since 2017. After more than seven years on the market, Nintendo has announced a new peripheral for the console and it’s one that probably should have existed since year one. The peripheral in question is an official Joy-Con Charging Stand, which is coming to Japan and Europe on October 17th, though North America has yet to be confirmed. The stand allows users to charge a pair of Joy-Cons when not in use (or a pair of retro NES controllers), and it can be detached to use as a controller when it’s charging. While it’s a practical peripheral, the timing is bizarre to say the least! 

An image of the Joy-Con Charging Stand can be found below. 

Nintendo’s posts about the peripheral on X/Twitter have been met with a collective response of “why now?” It’s a valid question. Third-party Joy-Con Charging Stands have been sold for years, and it’s very weird that Nintendo is making these now, when a successor to the Switch is set to be revealed sometime within the next eight months. Naturally, this announcement has led to further questions about whether the new console will support the current Joy-Cons, or if there might be a redesign. If the so-called “Switch 2” does have a different Joy-Con design (as rumors have suggested), but still supports the use of the current Joy-Cons, maybe Nintendo users will need a way to separately charge the old ones. That wouldn’t be unheard of, as Wii Remotes were still supported in the Wii U era, and that would make this peripheral more practical in the long run! 

Of course, trying to figure out why Nintendo does the things that it does is often easier said than done. At the end of the day, Nintendo might just be releasing the Joy-Con Charging Stand simply because the company thinks that there’s still a lot of life left in the current console. The fact is, Switch systems and software continue to sell incredibly well after all this time, and not everyone is going to go buy the Switch 2 immediately at launch; some people are going to wait a bit before upgrading. For those Switch users, a Joy-Con Charging Stand might be a worthwhile purchase, especially for homes that have multiple pairs of the controllers. 

Whatever the case might be, we’ll have to wait and see if this peripheral makes its way to North America, or if it remains exclusive to the UK and Japan. 

How do you feel about this new Nintendo Switch peripheral? Why do you think this is just coming out in 2024? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!