The Switch Online chat app is now available, and it is worse than our worsts fears. The lingering thought is why? Not why is it awful, that is fairly obvious, but why are Switch’s online features, especially chat, set up the way they are? Why rely on such a convoluted method. I think these are Nintendo’s main reasons:

- Ideal of Sociability. Remember WiiSpeak? The Idea behind it was that everyone in the room could chat through it concurrently. It was an attempt to make voice chat more “open”, against the more confined and physically isolating standard. Nintendo wants everyone to use the chat app like WiiSpeak.

- Obsession with being unique. Maybe is something they can't help since they need to compete with much bigger and wealthy corporations. But if Nintendo finds a way to differentiate itself, they are going to take it more often than not.

- Ingenuous love for an idea. They probably thought they had an amazing Idea. One that fixes everything they consider “wrong” with online play. Maybe they thought it was practical and simple, even forward thinking. Add the last few reasons into the mix and you have an Idea that will be approved with very little challenge.

- Concerns with the Child-Safe perception of their company. If a child molester succeeds in contacting children while playing Switch, is not because of the Switch itself but because of Smartphones inherent dangers. Probably the less likely reason, but could be a factor.

I do not want to claim that these are the real factual reasons, after all Nintendo's reasoning is oftentimes hard to understand. This just the way I made sense of all this. But what do you think? What is your theory on the matter? Do you think this app could still be a legit solution?

On paper, it prob sounded like an ingenious design to them. To the rest of us, nah. I really can't believe they've taken a backstep from a previous gen with their idea. And man, I can't believe I thought it including a mic jack on the Wii U pro controller was stupid (back then I thought, hmmm maybe they'll learn from that mistake and fix it with their next console, Nope lol).

I don't get the app. Did Nintendo think that if the Switch doesn't have internet it would be better to put the online on a phone? But that doesn't make sense because voice chat would be useless if your switch is offline.

Well you can always use your phone as a hotspot for your Switch. Nintendo seems to forget that this exist.

Lol! To be fair I was thinking about the hotspot earlier today...and I already forgot xD!

The real question is, how much will this hold back the Switch?

Frankly, this is so ridiculous that I think Nintendo would be better off to just say "To protect the community from toxic douchebags, the Nintendo Switch will not offer online chat capabilities".

At first I thought, maybe they just forgot to put in a mic thing for the headphone jack port.

Then I realized, they have a usb-C which they could easily make it so that u could either buy an adapter or use a usb-C headset on it.

So yea, Nintendo just wants to show how they want to continue to be nonsense when it comes to online. Say what you like about the wiiU and it's online but there are some aspects which I really loved about it like miiverse. So far, there is nothing I like about the switch's online apart from, at least it works... Kinda like the wiiU's online except at least that was free.

Not at all, imo. Voice chat is dramatically overrated.

Not by much. Nintendo games have never sold based on online functionality and I'm sure people will manage via discord, using nothing, or using the app. These aren't the kinds of things that ruin a console. It's having no games, too high of a price, no exclusives, etc. Sure, there are some people who will get pissed off by the incompetence but most will just find a way that suits them or don't use it at all. 

I highly doubt games like Pokemon Switch, Mario Odysssey, etc. will sell based off of online functionality and those games are the ones that will really sell the switch to consumers. Nintendo really just doesn't fully understand online because they've focused on local multiplayer and mostly single player experiences for a while and it has done very well for them and continues to do so. An elegant solution for voice chat is desired, it is a plus, but in the long run won't effect overall sales for Switch hardware and software. 

I think Nintendo wanted to put this option out just to say they have a family friendly, and safer...maybe...way to do online voice chat and online functions. From what I'm seeing the online functionalities work fine as a service but the voice chat thing just sucks ass. So in short, yes it sucks that the app is sort of incompetent but I doubt it'll effect the sales of the system.

They should migrate miverse to html. Make it the spot for ninty fans to get together on the net.