GameChat opens new doors for players, but the feature is haunted by the past and future
The Switch 2 is a social machine. For the console’s second iteration, Nintendo prioritized processing power capable of large-scale multiplayer. The Joy-Cons’ new C button lets you instantly join a group chat with shared-screen play options. Extensions in the Nintendo Switch Online app will add dimension to old titles, including autobuild-sharing in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As producer Kouichi Kawamoto put it in Nintendo’s post-reveal Ask the Developer update, development of the Switch 2 was inspired by memories of “playing games together as children at a friend’s house or in a student lounge, where everyone brought their own consoles.” The clear goal is to bring frictionless community play to Switch 2 that will be safe for all ages.
The pitch is harmonious on paper and, based on footage in the Switch 2 Direct, existentially terrifying as a practice. Inspired by one of the defining experiences of the early 2020s, in which many of us were sequestered inside our homes playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo has, intentionally or not, optimized Switch 2 for the next global shutdown.
Work on the Switch 2 began in earnest in 2019, according to Kawamoto, and the early focus was on improving software performance through tech upgrades. But development soon became entangled with the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown protocols forced Nintendo’s teams, among millions and millions of others, to work from home. The frustrations the team experienced while making the setup work led to one of Switch 2’s major features: GameChat.
“Back then, we were using a video conferencing system to check the software we were developing with our team, but the screen-sharing function built into the video conferencing system only allowed us to share one gameplay screen at a time,” Kawamoto says in the Ask the Developer interview. “So, we had each person place their game screen in front of their camera instead of their faces. When we did that, it felt like we were all in the same place, each bringing our own console to play the game together, which was a lot of fun. Based on this experience, we proposed adding a feature to Switch 2 where people can share their gameplay screen with other players.”
As demonstrated in a video Nintendo released on Thursday, GameChat looks and feels exactly like a Discord or Zoom call. After receiving a notification for a GameChat invite from a friend, a player simply hits the C button to open a multi-window grid that allows for the seamless continuation of play while peeking in on whatever their friends are playing and chatting back and forth.
