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

  • mlem@startrek.websiteEnglish
    5·
    6 hours ago

    It was surprising to me to learn that exactly zero of the profits they rake in from their player base goes towards providing any server architecture whatsoever for developers on the platforms to use.

    To me this was always the most insane part. Like I would pay for e.g. Xbox Live if it is stable, free of cheaters, etc. but they will not get me to pay for peer-to-peer how it’s with Nintendo’s own games. :O