Nintendo Switch Online App's Voice Chat Feature Comes With Plenty Of Limitations

Nintendo just released the Switch Online app for iOS and Android devices yesterday, but it looks like a lot of players are unhappy about it. The Nintendo Switch Online app features a voice chat service for gamers, but it appears to only work when the phone’s display is on.

“The voice chat will disconnect while you're talking on the phone or using another application, but your voice chat will restart in the same room once you open the Nintendo Switch Online application again as long as the game session is still ongoing,” the company said on the app’s official FAQ page.

In simpler terms, the voice chat feature on the Nintendo Switch Online app will only work when the app is active. Voice chat would get cutoff if the user’s phone goes to sleep or when the display turns off.

READ: Nintendo Switch Online App Is Now Available, Will Only Work For 'Splatoon 2'

Similarly, the voice chat will also deactivate if users started switching apps. This means that the app doesn’t support full multitasking. If gamers want to use the voice chat feature continuously on the Nintendo Switch Online app, users will have to make sure their phones are always active and that the app is the only one that they’re using.

Another limitation with the voice chat feature is that players are only able to join chat rooms with friends if they are all playing the same game that supports the feature. To top it all off, if users want to hear the game’s audio and the voice chat on the same headset, users will need an audio jack splitter.

This impractical approach on voice chat is exactly opposite of what Sony and Microsoft is doing with the PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Both companies have been offering voice chat through the console itself without required a iOS/Android app for years.

Even Nintendo’s Wii U supported in-game voice chat without a smartphone app, as pointed out Ars Technica. Granted, the Wii U’s voice chat did only work for select games and users were required to plug in supported headsets.

If we compare Nintendo’s app with other phone-based chatting apps, like Skype for example, they don’t have seemingly ridiculous limitations. Users are still able to have voice chat while multitasking or even when their phone’s displays are off.

These limitations to the voice chat feature on the Nintendo Switch Online app have been heavily criticized by gamers online. The Nintendo Switch subreddit is now filled with overwhelmingly negative responses from Switch gamers.

READ: ‘Kingdom Hearts 3’ Coming To Nintendo Switch? Release Date, New Characters & Gameplay Teased​

It’s being speculated that Nintendo might not actually be prioritizing voice chat features for Nintendo Switch. Another thing is that Nintendo has always wanted to be a family-friendly company, as pointed out by Polygon.

Online multiplayer gameplay can become quite an aggressive and even abusive place where gamers would use foul language. Nintendo might simply be trying to avoid any of that by setting these impractical limitations.

Right now, the Nintendo Switch Online app’s voice chat feature only currently works for “Splatoon 2,” which is scheduled to be released tomorrow. Nintendo did promise that more games will support the app and its features in the near future.