There were rumours floating around last month that Nintendo may be adding a second Circle Pad to the Nintendo 3DS, allowing for dual-stick gaming.

At Pocket Gamer, we steered clear of these rumours, given that we had no idea how adding an extra Circle Pad could possibly be pulled off. "Where would it go?" we pondered.

Imagine our surprise, then, when pictures begin to appear from the latest Famitsu magazine that supposedly show a rather ugly-looking cradle for the 3DS, boasting an extra Circle Pad to the right of the main console.

Fo' real

We hoped that it wouldn't be real, or at least wouldn't be produced by Nintendo itself. Alas, an official statement has come from Nintendo via Nintendo Life:

"We can confirm that Nintendo does plan to release the attachment but that any further announcements on the attachment will be made at some later time by Nintendo."

Wow.

According to Famitsu, the cradle will also come with extra shoulder buttons that turn the regular L and R into a PlayStation-like L1, R1, and R2 (no L2, however).

No word on when it will be released yet, but we can safely say that is a rather ugly piece of kit.