In an interview with Polygon over the weekend, Nintendo’s Bill Trinen confirmed that the Switch 2 will still be utilizing friend codes, though they are optional… sort of.
As owners of the Switch will likely know, Nintendo still utilizes friend codes to a degree. They aren’t as archaic as on the Wii or Wii U, but each Nintendo Account has a string of numbers after it that signifies what the account is. If you currently own a Switch, you can easily transfer your friends list to Switch 2 without any fuss. Nintendo Switch 2 will be adding a new option that bypasses this, though.
As Trinen laid out for Polygon, you can now scan QR codes with the Nintendo Switch phone app to quickly add people to your friends list. This doesn’t eliminate friend codes, and you can’t do it directly from the console, but it does let you skip the process of punching in random numbers or searching through linked social media platforms. Trinen mentioned that this decision was made because GameChat, the Switch 2’s big social feature, only works with friends. They wanted people to experience this firsthand, and getting it up and running while trying to input numbers to add friends is kind of a hassle.
If you don’t remember friend codes, here is a quick explanation of how they came to be. Starting with the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo introduced global online play to its console, and with online connectivity comes online multiplayer gaming. While Microsoft had pretty much figured out how to do friend lists on the original Xbox and Sony followed that example for the PlayStation 3, Nintendo went with a different approach for the Wii: friend codes.
To play with your friends in different games, you needed to add them to your friends list with a long string of numbers called the “Friend Code.” It was archaic, but as Nintendo’s first real attempt at online play (disregarding the GameCube’s handful of online titles), it felt like a safeguard to prevent kids from randomly adding whomever they met in a game. It also became something of a bonding moment for players as everyone remembers how bizarre the process was.
It’s kind of hilarious that the Switch 2 still won’t be moving away from this system entirely, but at least the process is getting better with each iteration.
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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.
