bdbdbd said:
Umm... yeah, but don't they have just as much options, only that Nintendo is doing it better? |
Competition offers both native and app based chat. The issue is Nintendo is offering only the app based solution and making you pay for access to it. This is the cutting corners and cheaper solution than having a robust online infrastructure. Not everyone has large or unlimited data plans on their smartphones so they either need to use it exclusively on wifi or pay for better data plans. And speaking of wifi something like 20% of Americans with broadband internet still do not have Wifi connections. That number is even lower in some other countries in the world and the Switch's dock does not come with an ethernet port. Meaning a LAN adapter is also necessary for those people.
Also the issue of how Nintendo intends, if at all, to deal with getting both game audio and voice chat audio into the same headset. And to deal with the issue of how much background noise a smartphones mic picks up. Overall hard to see how offering less options behind a paywall, and one that is still out of the question for a lot of people's internet and mobile options in the world.
