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Nintendo Switch 2 GameChat Feels Better Than It Looks
md5
a7db87605e24bc84a4e6334d5972a61b
link
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-switch-2-gamechat-feels-better-than-it-looks/1100-6532016/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f
image
https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/screen_medium/1585/15855271/4505422-4471897-gamechat_hero_rounded.jpeg
description
It's fair to say that GameChat, one of Nintendo's purported marquee features for the upcoming Switch 2, did not show well when it was first revealed. The introduction to the feature in the Switch reveal trailer looked choppy and poor quality. While I and others gave them credit for showing the feature in a "warts and all" state, it was a confusing choice to center so much of the presentation around a video-sharing function that looked, well, bad. Having now spent some time with GameChat at an extensive hands-on preview, I can't say I'm confident that the final quality will be any better than we saw--but I am sure that the ease of use and system integration make it a nicer prospect than it first appeared.
Unlike our first hands-on with the Switch 2, GameChat was fully enabled for this session, which meant I was free to poke around the options and see how it all worked. GameChat is a main-menu option right alongside others like the Nintendo eShop and controller settings, so it's easy to find even without the dedicated button. But the C button does call up the menu quickly, which is nice for toggling its various options on and off.
Those options include voice, video, and game sharing--the latter being the less-than-stellar game feed from your friends. You can turn on any combination of these options, and as promised, you can bring up your friend's game screen to watch them. It came up after a short delay and ran more smoothly than the choppy video shown in the Direct, when it was the main video feed. I should say, though, that the game being showcased for this feature was Zelda: Four Swords Adventures running through the GBA Classics app, so it wasn't exactly a game that was taxing system resources like Mario Kart World. The connection was also running via LAN rather than Wi-Fi, so that could have also conceivably improved my experience.
We played a short tutorial of Four Swords Adventures across multiple consoles with GameChat on, and we were allowed to toggle whichever features we liked, as well as explore some of the various options. If you just want to chat and don't care about sharing video, you can go full-screen and still see your friends' voices lighting up in the corner when they speak. You can turn on voice-to-text and see a text box offering what is at least a close approximation (with some understandable typos) of what they've said, identified with their usernames. That feature is offered as an accessibility option but could also be useful for those of us who play with the volume low when family members are asleep. The system also does a decent job automatically raising and lowering the game volume to accommodate voices, if you have that option selected.
It also seems smartly targeted at ease of use and families, which you'd expect from Nintendo, and the company commented on it when it first debuted the feature. You can quickly turn off individual shared screens--for example, if a friend is playing an M-rated game and your young children enter the room. Nintendo has also detailed some of the kid-safe features to make sure your children are only interacting with whitelisted contacts. And if you see your friend playing a game you don't recognize, it's easy to hop into its game page for more information.
None of these features are exactly revolutionary, and in many ways GameChat and GameShare represent Nintendo catching up to the norms of online play on other platforms. But it is smartly implemented and user-friendly in a way that feels characteristic for Nintendo's general sense of ease, if not its history with online connectivity. I'm still not convinced GameChat is a marquee feature for the Nintendo Switch 2. But after eight years of playing on the first Switch, it's a solid nice-to-have that makes the successor that much more appealing.
content_html
It's fair to say that GameChat, one of Nintendo's purported marquee features for the upcoming Switch 2, did not show well when it was first revealed. The introduction to the feature in the Switch reveal trailer looked choppy and poor quality. While I and others gave them credit for showing the feature in a "warts and all" state, it was a confusing choice to center so much of the presentation around a video-sharing function that looked, well, bad. Having now spent some time with GameChat at an extensive hands-on preview, I can't say I'm confident that the final quality will be any better than we saw--but I am sure that the ease of use and system integration make it a nicer prospect than it first appeared.
Unlike our first hands-on with the Switch 2, GameChat was fully enabled for this session, which meant I was free to poke around the options and see how it all worked. GameChat is a main-menu option right alongside others like the Nintendo eShop and controller settings, so it's easy to find even without the dedicated button. But the C button does call up the menu quickly, which is nice for toggling its various options on and off.
Those options include voice, video, and game sharing--the latter being the less-than-stellar game feed from your friends. You can turn on any combination of these options, and as promised, you can bring up your friend's game screen to watch them. It came up after a short delay and ran more smoothly than the choppy video shown in the Direct, when it was the main video feed. I should say, though, that the game being showcased for this feature was Zelda: Four Swords Adventures running through the GBA Classics app, so it wasn't exactly a game that was taxing system resources like Mario Kart World. The connection was also running via LAN rather than Wi-Fi, so that could have also conceivably improved my experience.
We played a short tutorial of Four Swords Adventures across multiple consoles with GameChat on, and we were allowed to toggle whichever features we liked, as well as explore some of the various options. If you just want to chat and don't care about sharing video, you can go full-screen and still see your friends' voices lighting up in the corner when they speak. You can turn on voice-to-text and see a text box offering what is at least a close approximation (with some understandable typos) of what they've said, identified with their usernames. That feature is offered as an accessibility option but could also be useful for those of us who play with the volume low when family members are asleep. The system also does a decent job automatically raising and lowering the game volume to accommodate voices, if you have that option selected.
It also seems smartly targeted at ease of use and families, which you'd expect from Nintendo, and the company commented on it when it first debuted the feature. You can quickly turn off individual shared screens--for example, if a friend is playing an M-rated game and your young children enter the room. Nintendo has also detailed some of the kid-safe features to make sure your children are only interacting with whitelisted contacts. And if you see your friend playing a game you don't recognize, it's easy to hop into its game page for more information.
None of these features are exactly revolutionary, and in many ways GameChat and GameShare represent Nintendo catching up to the norms of online play on other platforms. But it is smartly implemented and user-friendly in a way that feels characteristic for Nintendo's general sense of ease, if not its history with online connectivity. I'm still not convinced GameChat is a marquee feature for the Nintendo Switch 2. But after eight years of playing on the first Switch, it's a solid nice-to-have that makes the successor that much more appealing.
content_text
It's fair to say that GameChat, one of Nintendo's purported marquee features for the upcoming Switch 2, did not show well when it was first revealed. The introduction to the feature in the Switch reveal trailer looked choppy and poor quality. While I and others gave them credit for showing the feature in a "warts and all" state, it was a confusing choice to center so much of the presentation around a video-sharing function that looked, well, bad. Having now spent some time with GameChat at an extensive hands-on preview, I can't say I'm confident that the final quality will be any better than we saw--but I am sure that the ease of use and system integration make it a nicer prospect than it first appeared.Unlike our first hands-on with the Switch 2, GameChat was fully enabled for this session, which meant I was free to poke around the options and see how it all worked. GameChat is a main-menu option right alongside others like the Nintendo eShop and controller settings, so it's easy to find even without the dedicated button. But the C button does call up the menu quickly, which is nice for toggling its various options on and off.Those options include voice, video, and game sharing--the latter being the less-than-stellar game feed from your friends. You can turn on any combination of these options, and as promised, you can bring up your friend's game screen to watch them. It came up after a short delay and ran more smoothly than the choppy video shown in the Direct, when it was the main video feed. I should say, though, that the game being showcased for this feature was Zelda: Four Swords Adventures running through the GBA Classics app, so it wasn't exactly a game that was taxing system resources like Mario Kart World. The connection was also running via LAN rather than Wi-Fi, so that could have also conceivably improved my experience.We played a short tutorial of Four Swords Adventures across multiple consoles with GameChat on, and we were allowed to toggle whichever features we liked, as well as explore some of the various options. If you just want to chat and don't care about sharing video, you can go full-screen and still see your friends' voices lighting up in the corner when they speak. You can turn on voice-to-text and see a text box offering what is at least a close approximation (with some understandable typos) of what they've said, identified with their usernames. That feature is offered as an accessibility option but could also be useful for those of us who play with the volume low when family members are asleep. The system also does a decent job automatically raising and lowering the game volume to accommodate voices, if you have that option selected.It also seems smartly targeted at ease of use and families, which you'd expect from Nintendo, and the company commented on it when it first debuted the feature. You can quickly turn off individual shared screens--for example, if a friend is playing an M-rated game and your young children enter the room. Nintendo has also detailed some of the kid-safe features to make sure your children are only interacting with whitelisted contacts. And if you see your friend playing a game you don't recognize, it's easy to hop into its game page for more information.None of these features are exactly revolutionary, and in many ways GameChat and GameShare represent Nintendo catching up to the norms of online play on other platforms. But it is smartly implemented and user-friendly in a way that feels characteristic for Nintendo's general sense of ease, if not its history with online connectivity. I'm still not convinced GameChat is a marquee feature for the Nintendo Switch 2. But after eight years of playing on the first Switch, it's a solid nice-to-have that makes the successor that much more appealing.
pub_date
3 June 2025, 3:00 pm
guid
1100-6532016
creator
Steve Watts
processed
TRUE
id: 78070
uid: SP7cb
insdate: 2025-06-03 15:20:05
title: Nintendo Switch 2 GameChat Feels Better Than It Looks
additional:
category: Game Spot
md5: a7db87605e24bc84a4e6334d5972a61b
link: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-switch-2-gamechat-feels-better-than-it-looks/1100-6532016/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f
image: https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/screen_medium/1585/15855271/4505422-4471897-gamechat_hero_rounded.jpeg
image_imgur:
description:
It's fair to say that GameChat, one of Nintendo's purported marquee features for the upcoming Switch 2, did not show well when it was first revealed. The introduction to the feature in the Switch reveal trailer looked choppy and poor quality. While I and others gave them credit for showing the feature in a "warts and all" state, it was a confusing choice to center so much of the presentation around a video-sharing function that looked, well, bad. Having now spent some time with GameChat at an extensive hands-on preview, I can't say I'm confident that the final quality will be any better than we saw--but I am sure that the ease of use and system integration make it a nicer prospect than it first appeared.
Unlike our first hands-on with the Switch 2, GameChat was fully enabled for this session, which meant I was free to poke around the options and see how it all worked. GameChat is a main-menu option right alongside others like the Nintendo eShop and controller settings, so it's easy to find even without the dedicated button. But the C button does call up the menu quickly, which is nice for toggling its various options on and off.
Those options include voice, video, and game sharing--the latter being the less-than-stellar game feed from your friends. You can turn on any combination of these options, and as promised, you can bring up your friend's game screen to watch them. It came up after a short delay and ran more smoothly than the choppy video shown in the Direct, when it was the main video feed. I should say, though, that the game being showcased for this feature was Zelda: Four Swords Adventures running through the GBA Classics app, so it wasn't exactly a game that was taxing system resources like Mario Kart World. The connection was also running via LAN rather than Wi-Fi, so that could have also conceivably improved my experience.
We played a short tutorial of Four Swords Adventures across multiple consoles with GameChat on, and we were allowed to toggle whichever features we liked, as well as explore some of the various options. If you just want to chat and don't care about sharing video, you can go full-screen and still see your friends' voices lighting up in the corner when they speak. You can turn on voice-to-text and see a text box offering what is at least a close approximation (with some understandable typos) of what they've said, identified with their usernames. That feature is offered as an accessibility option but could also be useful for those of us who play with the volume low when family members are asleep. The system also does a decent job automatically raising and lowering the game volume to accommodate voices, if you have that option selected.
It also seems smartly targeted at ease of use and families, which you'd expect from Nintendo, and the company commented on it when it first debuted the feature. You can quickly turn off individual shared screens--for example, if a friend is playing an M-rated game and your young children enter the room. Nintendo has also detailed some of the kid-safe features to make sure your children are only interacting with whitelisted contacts. And if you see your friend playing a game you don't recognize, it's easy to hop into its game page for more information.
None of these features are exactly revolutionary, and in many ways GameChat and GameShare represent Nintendo catching up to the norms of online play on other platforms. But it is smartly implemented and user-friendly in a way that feels characteristic for Nintendo's general sense of ease, if not its history with online connectivity. I'm still not convinced GameChat is a marquee feature for the Nintendo Switch 2. But after eight years of playing on the first Switch, it's a solid nice-to-have that makes the successor that much more appealing.
content_html:
It's fair to say that GameChat, one of Nintendo's purported marquee features for the upcoming Switch 2, did not show well when it was first revealed. The introduction to the feature in the Switch reveal trailer looked choppy and poor quality. While I and others gave them credit for showing the feature in a "warts and all" state, it was a confusing choice to center so much of the presentation around a video-sharing function that looked, well, bad. Having now spent some time with GameChat at an extensive hands-on preview, I can't say I'm confident that the final quality will be any better than we saw--but I am sure that the ease of use and system integration make it a nicer prospect than it first appeared.
Unlike our first hands-on with the Switch 2, GameChat was fully enabled for this session, which meant I was free to poke around the options and see how it all worked. GameChat is a main-menu option right alongside others like the Nintendo eShop and controller settings, so it's easy to find even without the dedicated button. But the C button does call up the menu quickly, which is nice for toggling its various options on and off.
Those options include voice, video, and game sharing--the latter being the less-than-stellar game feed from your friends. You can turn on any combination of these options, and as promised, you can bring up your friend's game screen to watch them. It came up after a short delay and ran more smoothly than the choppy video shown in the Direct, when it was the main video feed. I should say, though, that the game being showcased for this feature was Zelda: Four Swords Adventures running through the GBA Classics app, so it wasn't exactly a game that was taxing system resources like Mario Kart World. The connection was also running via LAN rather than Wi-Fi, so that could have also conceivably improved my experience.
We played a short tutorial of Four Swords Adventures across multiple consoles with GameChat on, and we were allowed to toggle whichever features we liked, as well as explore some of the various options. If you just want to chat and don't care about sharing video, you can go full-screen and still see your friends' voices lighting up in the corner when they speak. You can turn on voice-to-text and see a text box offering what is at least a close approximation (with some understandable typos) of what they've said, identified with their usernames. That feature is offered as an accessibility option but could also be useful for those of us who play with the volume low when family members are asleep. The system also does a decent job automatically raising and lowering the game volume to accommodate voices, if you have that option selected.
It also seems smartly targeted at ease of use and families, which you'd expect from Nintendo, and the company commented on it when it first debuted the feature. You can quickly turn off individual shared screens--for example, if a friend is playing an M-rated game and your young children enter the room. Nintendo has also detailed some of the kid-safe features to make sure your children are only interacting with whitelisted contacts. And if you see your friend playing a game you don't recognize, it's easy to hop into its game page for more information.
None of these features are exactly revolutionary, and in many ways GameChat and GameShare represent Nintendo catching up to the norms of online play on other platforms. But it is smartly implemented and user-friendly in a way that feels characteristic for Nintendo's general sense of ease, if not its history with online connectivity. I'm still not convinced GameChat is a marquee feature for the Nintendo Switch 2. But after eight years of playing on the first Switch, it's a solid nice-to-have that makes the successor that much more appealing.
content_text: It's fair to say that GameChat, one of Nintendo's purported marquee features for the upcoming Switch 2, did not show well when it was first revealed. The introduction to the feature in the Switch reveal trailer looked choppy and poor quality. While I and others gave them credit for showing the feature in a "warts and all" state, it was a confusing choice to center so much of the presentation around a video-sharing function that looked, well, bad. Having now spent some time with GameChat at an extensive hands-on preview, I can't say I'm confident that the final quality will be any better than we saw--but I am sure that the ease of use and system integration make it a nicer prospect than it first appeared.Unlike our first hands-on with the Switch 2, GameChat was fully enabled for this session, which meant I was free to poke around the options and see how it all worked. GameChat is a main-menu option right alongside others like the Nintendo eShop and controller settings, so it's easy to find even without the dedicated button. But the C button does call up the menu quickly, which is nice for toggling its various options on and off.Those options include voice, video, and game sharing--the latter being the less-than-stellar game feed from your friends. You can turn on any combination of these options, and as promised, you can bring up your friend's game screen to watch them. It came up after a short delay and ran more smoothly than the choppy video shown in the Direct, when it was the main video feed. I should say, though, that the game being showcased for this feature was Zelda: Four Swords Adventures running through the GBA Classics app, so it wasn't exactly a game that was taxing system resources like Mario Kart World. The connection was also running via LAN rather than Wi-Fi, so that could have also conceivably improved my experience.We played a short tutorial of Four Swords Adventures across multiple consoles with GameChat on, and we were allowed to toggle whichever features we liked, as well as explore some of the various options. If you just want to chat and don't care about sharing video, you can go full-screen and still see your friends' voices lighting up in the corner when they speak. You can turn on voice-to-text and see a text box offering what is at least a close approximation (with some understandable typos) of what they've said, identified with their usernames. That feature is offered as an accessibility option but could also be useful for those of us who play with the volume low when family members are asleep. The system also does a decent job automatically raising and lowering the game volume to accommodate voices, if you have that option selected.It also seems smartly targeted at ease of use and families, which you'd expect from Nintendo, and the company commented on it when it first debuted the feature. You can quickly turn off individual shared screens--for example, if a friend is playing an M-rated game and your young children enter the room. Nintendo has also detailed some of the kid-safe features to make sure your children are only interacting with whitelisted contacts. And if you see your friend playing a game you don't recognize, it's easy to hop into its game page for more information.None of these features are exactly revolutionary, and in many ways GameChat and GameShare represent Nintendo catching up to the norms of online play on other platforms. But it is smartly implemented and user-friendly in a way that feels characteristic for Nintendo's general sense of ease, if not its history with online connectivity. I'm still not convinced GameChat is a marquee feature for the Nintendo Switch 2. But after eight years of playing on the first Switch, it's a solid nice-to-have that makes the successor that much more appealing.
pub_date: 3 June 2025, 3:00 pm
guid: 1100-6532016
creator: Steve Watts
related_games:
processed: TRUE