Nintendo Switch Online app’s voice chat is already turning people off

The Nintendo Switch Online app isn’t fully functional yet, but the explanation alone of how its voice chat functionality works has already ticked off Switch owners.

The app is the only way to voice chat with friends while playing Switch games — namely Splatoon 2, the only game currently set to support the mobile platform — so for anyone big into multiplayer online games, it’s a crucial download. But as is the Nintendo way, there are limitations to how voice chat works with the app.

Voice chat is only active as long as the app is open. The smartphone in use also has to be unlocked and its screen on in order for voice chat to work. If you accidentally shut your phone’s screen off? Your conversation is over. Want to glance at a walkthrough really quickly? If you do, that means no more voice chat.

This is par for the course with Nintendo’s other mobile apps, Miitomo, Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes. But each one of those have a more obvious reason why they don’t work when the user is in a different window — they’re highly visual and far more interactive than the online app’s voice chat feature is.

It’s bad enough that voice chat is only available with a smartphone app, according to Switch fans who are used to playing games online with other consoles. But not being able to stay chatting when your screen’s off is a serious concern.

The responses from users on the Nintendo Switch subreddit are resoundingly negative.

“This is terrible,” wrote on user in a thread about how the app handles voice chat. “Huge difference if I can't even exit the app to do other things. The backlash is about to be immense.”

“Personally I'm not annoyed by the fact that I have to use my phone for voice chat, since I usually have it by me while I'm playing games anyway,” another said. “What confuses me however is how you can't engage in voice chat when outside of the app, making it tough to do anything when chatting with your friends.”

In reply, someone theorized that Nintendo just doesn’t “value voice chat.”

“[Nintendo] wants its games to speak for themselves and be intuitive enough to not require voice interaction,” they wrote. “It also wants to limit the advantage to people who are using VC over those who aren't (hence 'the friends only, but not random team' approach). If using it is an advantage there is an incentive for everyone to do so, and a lesser experience for those who don't.”

There’s also the issue of staying family-friendly, which has long been one of Nintendo’s core values. Multiplayer online games are archetypically places where untoward language and sentiments roam free.

So, too, is the Nintendo Switch subreddit right now:

Reddit

All of this is compounded by the fact that players won’t be able to get any game audio from their headsets if they’re plugged into their phones. Hori has come up with a garish workaround for this — you plug a dongle into your phone and your Switch to get both audio at once — but that setup isn’t convincing Switch owners to hop onto the Online app train.

The Nintendo Switch Online app isn’t properly live yet, though, so maybe this system won’t be as frustrating as it seems. We’ll find out when Splatoon 2 launches on July 21.