As you might have heard, Nintendo has recently released the Nintendo Switch Online app for mobile devices. For those unfamiliar, this app is Nintendo’s way of offering voice communication for players as well as access to certain online services and features for its games. However it seems that the app will prove to be a massive battery drain for users.
According to a report from Eurogamer, it seems that one of the requirements for users to use its mobile app for voice communication is that their phone’s display has to be on all the time. This is versus other apps that offer voice chat, such as WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, and etc., where users are not required to have their displays on.
This means that having your display on all the time will quickly drain your phone’s battery. It also seems that voice chat will end when you swap between apps, so if you receive a message or email and want to tend to it while you’re chatting, no such luck, unfortunately. However we should point out that the app is still pretty damn brand new, which means that hopefully based on this feedback, Nintendo will do something about it, otherwise it seems unlikely that players will want to pay the company money to use its online services come 2018.
Nintendo made a rather interesting and controversial decision by launching the app as opposed to baking voice chat into the Switch’s operating system. The company tried to justify this by saying that since we have our phones on us all the time, it makes sense. Whether or not this will work out in the long-run remains to be seen, but for now it doesn’t look that way.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, Nintendo and Nintendo Switch.