A recent patent filed by Nintendo of America has suggested that the upcoming Switch 2 will include OS-integrated voice chat and even proximity voice chat in certain games. While you can no longer view the patent (which was likely scrubbed from the internet because of stories such as this), WCCFTech spotted it when it showed up and quickly made note of its contents. With an OS-level feature for chat integrated into the system, the Switch 2 would address one of the biggest complaints that the current Switch has had for online multiplayer. It’s still ludicrous that you need to go through an app on your smartphone just to chat with other players in a game.
The more interesting wrinkle, however, is proximity voice chat. While some have wrongfully assumed this means chatting within proximity to people in real life, it actually refers to your character’s location in a multiplayer game. To give an example, the online mode of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory back in 2005 revolved around two spies taking on two mercenaries. If either were within the proximity of one another, players could actually hear their enemies talking through their speakers. It created a tactical element to your communications with a teammate, which is something that private chat has essentially destroyed in recent years. Nintendo bringing that back for the Switch 2 could mean some good things for voice chat.
Until Nintendo lets the cat out of the bag in a couple of weeks, little morsels of information such as this are all we really have to get a better idea of how the next console is evolving over the first. I’m not sure voice chat is as revolutionary as people are making it out to be, but it’s still nice that Nintendo is actually joining the 21st century here.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
