The official launch of Switch 2, gaming’s most anticipated release of the year, is quickly approaching and some new details have come to light regarding a potential major upgrade to its voice chat system.
Is Nintendo finally going to fix voice chat on Switch 2?
The Nintendo Switch 2 Direct showcase is now exactly three weeks away and, while official new details on the highly-anticipated next-gen console have all but dried up completely, some interesting new bits and bobs of information on the machine have surfaced. From a magnetic modular smartphone system that could support multi-display action and 3D images of the upgraded dock to an official FCC filling all but confirming the return of NFC-based amiibo action, early details on the machine are still surfacing and the latest is directly related to an upgrade on one of the current console’s major paint points, voice chat.
The Switch is a beloved console, and a very successful one at that. It has some of the best original IP in all of gaming courtesy of Nintendo’s deep roster of world-famous characters, and is one of the best portable gaming machines anywhere because of them, but it does not handle voice chat very well.
Its capabilities on chatting with friends online during play are limited at best and super annoying at worst. As you likely already know, Xbox and PlayStation gamers have been enjoying fully-integrated voice chat with friends for generations now, the Switch…not so much – it all runs through the Nintendo Switch Online app that requires you to have a relatively modern smartphone by your side to some degree as well as an active Switch Online membership.
It’s not elegant, it’s not easy, and it’s not particularly reliable in many cases either. It needs to be upgraded and a recent patent filing uncovered by the folks at Wccftech suggests that’s exactly what might be happening on Switch 2.
This recently surfaced patent filing points towards proximity chat on Switch 2 that would be available directly from the machine. that doesn’t sound like the full-on party chat many of us are hoping for, but it is something. This sounds more like the ability to chat with fellow gamers when they are near by in-game, as opposed to wider open chat setup where you can talk amongst your Switch buddies in party mode. At least it does appear as though this is a console side setup as opposed to something running on an external app?
The details in this patent have also spurred rumors regarding that still very mysterious “C” button that made headlines even before Switch 2 was official revealed back in January. There is a new, as of now, unmarked button on the right Joy-Con. What does it do? What is it for? Does the “C” stand for cast? Or does it stand for chat? You know walkie-talkie-style.
Well, we are clearly not sure just yet, heck we aren’t even sure if the “C” button is even called the “C” button, or something else entirely. But it is a good guess, entirely possible, and, at the very least, this patent shows that Nintendo was potentially considering an upgrade one of the worst features of the current-generation Switch.
Worry not, there’s only three weeks left until Nintendo blows this whole thing out of the water and dishes up the goods on the next-generation of Switch gaming.
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