{"id":1172669,"date":"2026-02-13T08:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=557758"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:48:08","slug":"switch-2-will-end-two-decades-of-nintendos-awkward-voice-chat-attempts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/switch-2-will-end-two-decades-of-nintendos-awkward-voice-chat-attempts\/","title":{"rendered":"Switch 2 will end two decades of Nintendo\u2019s awkward voice chat attempts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story was first published in Switchboard, a newsletter from Polygon that delivers all the latest Switch 2 news, reporting, and rumors directly to your inbox. Sign up here<\/a> to get it weekly.<\/em><\/p>\n

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One of the big new features that Nintendo touted at last week\u2019s Switch 2 reveal<\/a> was GameChat<\/a>, a built-in communication system that \u2014 as long as you pay for Nintendo Switch Online<\/a> \u2014 will let players communicate via voice and video chat, and share streams of gameplay with each other.<\/p>\n

People who play online games seriously have been doing this for many years, through services like Discord, Ventrilo, and Steam. Nintendo\u2019s own solutions for voice and video chat have been underbaked and experimental over the past two decades, and the arrival of GameChat is a sign that the company is finally taking voice and video chat seriously.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not for lack of trying. Nintendo brought voice chat to some of its games as early as 2006, through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. But unlike with GameChat, Nintendo has often approached voice and video chat on a game-by-game basis, or it has offloaded chat to external apps.<\/p>\n

But as Nintendo\u2019s Sumikazu Ono, who was in charge of overseeing development of the Switch 2\u2019s built-in features, says in an interview on Nintendo\u2019s website<\/a>, the goal for GameChat was \u201cno setup required.\u201d<\/p>\n

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