This story was first published on passthecontroller’s newsletter, Switchboard, providing the latest Switch 2 news, reports and rumors directly to your inbox. Sign up here to get it every week.
One of the big new features that Nintendo clearly promoted last week in Switch 2 was GameChat, a built-in communications system that allows you to communicate via voice and video chat and share streams of gameplay as long as you pay for the Nintendo Switch online.
People who play online games seriously have done this for many years through services such as Discord, Ventrilo, Steam and more. Nintendo’s own voice and video chat solutions have been covered and experimental for the past 20 years, and GameChat’s arrival is a sign that the company is ultimately taking voice and video chat seriously.
It’s not to try it out. Nintendo brought voice chat to some of the games as early as 2006 through Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection Service. However, unlike GameChat, Nintendo often approaches audio and video chats on a per-game basis. Or, chats to external apps have been offloaded.
However, Nintendo’s Sumikazu Ono, who was in charge of overseeing the development of the built-in features of the Switch 2, said in an interview with the Nintendo website that GameChat’s goal is “no setup required.”
“Audio or video chat for games often involves a bit of extra work in setting up the equipment,” explains Nintendo’s Yoshitaka Tamura in the same interview with Nintendo. “However, the Switch 2 has a built-in microphone, making voice chat easy. Additionally, although the Nintendo Switch 2 cameras are sold separately, they are easy to use with less complicated setups.”
That’s a far cry from how Nintendo handled voice chats first. When Nintendo implements chat in games Metroid Prime Hunter, Pokemon Diamond and Pearland Pre-war: Abandoned of Dayplayers had to enter a 12-digit friend code to add another player to their friend list and chat. Voice chat in these Nintendo DS games was limited to certain modes, clumsy and poor quality.
Nintendo later developed a unique Wii microphone called the Wii Speak. Animal Crossing: People in the City and Monster Hunter Try. Nintendo created a dedicated Wii speech channel for the console, but the chat feature was limited to users who shared their friend’s code with each other.
Nintendo tried to chat again on the Wii U using the Wii U Chat. This includes video with a gamepad in a system with a built-in camera and microphone. Wii U chat was limited, but included fun features. Users can draw on the screen and share the message with anyone on the other side of the call. (Wii U Chat was shut down in 2017 along with Miiverse.)
For the Switch, Nintendo has decided to let the smartphone app handle voice chat. Again, it was only supported on certain games, and Nintendo’s solution was incomplete. Many users chose not to use Nintendo’s apps and worked on real-time chats with existing communications apps like Discord.
Voice chat via the Nintendo Switch Online app was the latest example of Nintendo’s prudence when it comes to online interactions. Nintendo has also released the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls app. This allows parents to control game time and control whether their children can use features such as voice chat. The Parental Controls app allows parents to grant their parents who can use GameChat on a per-user basis.
Considering that Nintendo uses Switch 2 to implement them more widely at the system level, it finally seems a little more comfortable with online interactions. This could potentially reflect that Zoom has become a friend and business for communication, especially since GameChat was developed in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Thanks to existing Nintendo accounts that have been used for years by tens of millions of players, it’s easier than ever to connect to audio and video chat on Nintendo consoles. There is an entire button that specializes in it.
For Switch 2 owners as cautious as Nintendo, Takashima Dota, senior director of the programming management group at Nintendo EPD, said last week in a New York City Q&A in a New York City Q&A, “You’re cleaning up so you can cleanse yourself, in terms of surveillance with strangers, so you can cleanse yourself, and you’re in a good looking situation, because users), there are people who like chatting, and there are people who don’t want to chat.”
So, while the growing pains of Nintendo voice chat can be very noticeable (and often frustrating) for multiple console generations, much of its awkwardness appears to be eliminated by Switch 2. However, GameChat is free for a limited amount of time. If you don’t want to pay to chat with friends, we recommend that you have the Nintendo Switch Online app installed on your phone.
