Nintendo has revealed more details about one of the major new features of the Switch 2 – GameChat. In a recent Ask the Developer Q&A, Nintendo’s Sumikazu Ono and Eiji Tokunaga shed some light on the development on GameChat, including revealing that its gameplay streaming capability is considered to be one of the defining features of the upcoming console.
“When we were developing GameChat, we had in mind that it would be a defining feature of Switch 2,” said Ono. “During development, we had the opportunity for Nintendo executives to experience GameChat. Seeing them try out the feature for the first time and be able to video chat and share game screens smoothly gave us a certain confidence that this works.”
Tokunaga said that watching Nintendo executives talk about the development of games on older consoles like the SNES and the Nintendo 64, and how they had to share their screens to show each other how development was moving along, helped the Switch 2 team realise that it was on the right track with GameChat.
“The executives were happily reminiscing about the development of the Super NES and Nintendo 64 games they were playing as they shared their screens,” said Tokuga. “Seeing that made me realize this feature’s potential.”
“But we felt we needed to dig deeper and fully explore the potential of game screen sharing by playing before we could feel confident of it truly becoming a defining feature of Switch 2,” continued Ono. “So, we spent about two hours every day playing various games while sharing screens via GameChat, and continued researching the kinds of situations in which it would be fun to use this feature.”
Ono and Tokunaga also spoke about the discoveries that were made during the development of GameChat and its game streaming features. This led to the team discovering games like Baba Is You – a critically acclaimed indie puzzle game – thanks to one player sharing their screen.
“One day, one of our team members was playing a puzzle game called Baba Is You, and the rest of us were curious to know what kind of game it was,” recounted Ono. “The person who was playing the game shared their screen and said, ‘It’s a game played with these rules.'”
“And we were all like, ‘Wow, we didn’t know such an interesting puzzle game existed!’ Fast forward a day and the whole team was playing it. That was a moment where game screen sharing really shone.”
Tokunaga, on the other hand, recounted how playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made him feel like he was playing an online game, despite the title being a single-player one. This largely came about from him discussing solutions for various puzzles with friends watching him play thanks to GameChat’s streaming option.
“For example, suppose two friends are playing the game at their own pace, separately from one another,” said Tokunaga. “When one of them says, ‘I don’t know how to solve this puzzle,’ the other could say, ‘I’m on my way there, wait for me,’ go to the same location in their own game and share their screen to demonstrate how to solve the puzzle. A phrase like, “I’m on my way there, wait for me” is something you don’t hear when playing offline games. That’s when I felt strongly that this feature could bring additional value to existing games.”
GameChat, along with the new C button on the Switch 2’s new controllers, were showcased during the recent Direct. For more details, check out our coverage. The Nintendo Switch 2 is slated for launch on June 5.