The Nintendo Switch smartphone companion app will handle all matchmaking and online lobbies for online Switch games.
What do you call having to boot up an app on your smartphone just to use matchmaking, online lobbies, and voice chat on your console? Annoying? Frustrating? Battlelog? Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Amie likes to think of it as an “elegant solution.” In an interview with GameSpot, Fils-Amie explains why Nintendo decided to tie all of the online features of the Switch to a separate smartphone app.
“The smart phone app that we’re creating, that will be part of our online service, we believe is going to be a very compelling part of the overall proposition because that’s how you’ll voice chat, that’s how you’ll do your matchmaking, and create your lobby,” he explained.
“We also think it’s a very elegant solution because if you’ve taken your Switch on the go, you’ve put yourself in a hotspot, you’re looking at get a quick match of Mario Kart in, to whip out some sort of bulky, gamer headset is a bit of a challenge.”
Yep, you heard right. Reggie wants to save us from “bulky gamer headsets” by having us shout into our phones (presumably balanced in our lap) while playing games.
You can check out the full interview in the video above, in which Fils-Amie sheds some additional light on Switch features to look forward to.
Source: GameSpot
