Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Gets New Colour, Battery Pack; Arms, Minecraft, Splatoon 2 Get Release Dates

A ton of Nintendo Switch news has come our way – thanks to a new Nintendo Direct broadcast – with a new accessory and colour for the Joy-Con controllers, and release dates for multiple anticipated titles.

The accessory in question is the Joy-Con AA battery pack, which are essentially a pair of detachable grips that attach onto your Joy-Con controllers, and extend their battery life. By default, the Joy-Con last 20 hours, so if you need even more playing time, and don’t want to spend $30 (about Rs. 1,900) on the optional charging grip, this might interest you.

Nintendo has also made a Neon Yellow variant of the Joy-Con, to add to the existing options of Grey, Blue, and Red. The controllers should cost $80 (about Rs. 5,000) for a pair as usual, but there’s no word on the pricing of the battery pack. Both launch on June 16.

The three big games that now have fixed release dates include Arms, Minecraft, and Splatoon 2. Arms is an original Nintendo title, which features cartoonish characters with a variety of weapons on their, well, extendable arms. It’s a 1-v-1 fighting game, and it’s coming out June 16, the same day as above.

Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition, meanwhile, will arrive in less than a month, on May 11. It’ll have support for eight players online, four over local split-screen, and the Pro controller.

That leaves the third and final one – Splatoon 2. After a beta event last month, the game will be available to everyone worldwide on July 21, which is indicative of the ‘summer’ date Nintendo had hinted at. It’ll have a single-player mode that we don’t know anything about, a new PvE multiplayer arena, and support for three new Amiibo figures.

Nintendo also provided release dates on other titles, such as Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers (May 26), Disgaea 5 Complete (May 23), and Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star (July 25).