The official reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2 last week came with a flurry of announcements about launch games, third-party titles, and of course, information about what new technologies the follow-up to the wildly successful Nintendo Switch would be bringing to the table.
One big reveal, that many of us surmised from the initial announcement trailer, was that you can now use your Joy-Con as a mouse. Another was that Nintendo had basically reinvented Discord, allowing you to video chat with your friends through a microphone on your console and attach a separate camera so you can share your screen and see your friends’ faces at the same time. It’s called GameChat.
This was also the purpose of the mysterious ‘C’ button on the right Joy-Con. Surprise!
GameChat Sucks, Fight Me
If you’re like me, you largely saw these new features as novelties. Really, as a whole, the Switch 2 isn’t revolutionary – apart from its new ability to upscale graphics and play at higher frame rates/resolutions, as well as run triple-As we never would have imagined on an original Switch, it’s pretty much just more of the same.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say the camera functions are pointless and ugly. Firstly, you have to pay for an NSO subscription to even use GameChat, which is stupid. Why would I do that? Discord already exists and is free. Other consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have native Discord integration, but Nintendo expects you to pay a tax for the same functionality, except it’s worse. Come on.
I also find the way GameChat functions to be more broadly useless. In the trailer for the feature, we see how people can basically green screen zoomed in, projecting grainy versions of themselves into screen shares of their games, which is something I really cannot imagine wanting to see while I’m playing something. It feels like a Zoom call. It feels like I’m watching a bunch of streamers all yelling at each other, except their streams are also running at a miserable frame rate.
And then there’s the way GameChat is integrated into games themselves, putting bubbles with players’ faces next to the characters they’re controlling. It’s distracting, it looks bad, and it doesn’t add to the experience or make me feel like I’m closer to my friends. Nintendo positions this as a way to feel more connected with the people you’re playing with, but… how? Really, the only thing that strikes me as useful about the camera is that it can function a little like an Xbox Kinect, which was something I actually did want from it.
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This Isn’t Going To Stop At Switch 2, Folks
The price of the Switch 2 is just a sign of things to come – gaming is only going to get even more expensive.
GameChat Is A Worse Way Of Playing Together
I’ve always liked the Switch because of the way it enables co-op play. I never got much utility outside of mine, apart from when I played party games with my friends when they came over. It was – and still is – the perfect console for couch co-op. It was lacking as a handheld, especially since I have a Steam Deck as an alternative, but as a party console, it shone.
The Switch 2’s camera flies in the face of that a little bit. Sure, you can still use it the way you always have, but it feels like GameChat is a reaction to the pandemic, a way to replace socialising in person. When we were all locked away in our houses, tech like Discord flourished as a way to keep us in contact with our friends and family, and tech like the Switch flourished as a means of bonding (Animal Crossing, anyone?).
I can’t help but wonder if GameChat was born out of that constraint, and if its implementation is a way of future-proofing in case it happens again. Vaccine rates are dropping, after all. But popping in this feature at a premium and having it still be a step behind free tech that already exists just feels insulting.
- Brand
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Nintendo
- Operating System
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Proprietary
- Storage
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256GB internal / MicroSD
- Resolution
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1080p (handheld) / 4K (docked)
- App Store
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Nintendo eShop
- Wi-Fi
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Yes