Nintendo is so proud of the feature that it even included a little C button right on your Joy-Con (which was a point of excited speculation before the reveal) so you can jump into Game Chat whenever you like.
Unfortunately, it also tried to bury the fact that this Game Chat feature will actually require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription once the free trial period ends on March 31, 2026.
Now, you may be wondering what the button does if you don’t have a subscription? Thankfully, Nintendo’s vice president of player and product experience, Bill Trinen, was interviewed by Polygon on that very same topic. Trinen explains that the button will let you “find out about the NSO subscription there and get a sense of some of the functionality.” It’s basically a button that asks you to pay up.
It’s basically a button that asks you to pay up
We’ve gotten to the point where button functions are microtransactions…
This is why I emulate games and just use Linux
But, like, you do understand why it’s annoying to literally include a nag button on your controller?
Just don’t use it? My PS5 controller has a media share button I’ve never used. If they suddenly made that feature pay-to-use it still wouldn’t affect me
My personal irritation would be fully proportional to how often I accidentally hit the button.
It looks like one of those flat buttons flush with the surface of the controller. And it’s under the home button, so I feel like you’d have to be pretty deliberate to trigger it