Nintendo have been getting a ton of criticism for their busted voice chat. Every podcast I listen to has been critical of it, every community I visit has been critical of it. Countless gaming websites have posted articles criticising them. Literally everyone is talking about how broken the system is. If anything, when you consider how few people actually use voice chat on consoles, you could consider this response disproportionately harsh on Nintendo.

Here's how it goes with Nintendo:

1. They do something poorly or not all.

2. People complain and make fun of them non-stop

3. Nintendo announces new products or service that's implemented poorly

4. People open their wallets and proclaim undying love to Nintendo. They cite how innovative and original they are.

5. Start back at step 1.

Like other people have said, if you are required to go outside of the hardware you have to use the system best then it is garbage. This is different on PC where people use Discord for team chat or something as it is another option. All this does is ensure I will never a multiplayer game seriously on the Nintendo Switch and I will 100% never get a 3rd game with multiplayer on it either. Saying "just use discord" for a console game is losing the entire plot of why its on a console in general.

@hippie_genocide People who want to party up with their friends and play an online game?

@sammo21: I was just being cheeky, saying the thing he knew people were going to say anyway.

@bigsocrates: I love how you ended this, and immediately someone raised their hand.

It feels they are getting tons of flack, but I do also appreciate the strong "I don't care" sentiment people have. Personally, using console-side voice chat is something I have never really done. Always been phone, skype or discord now. It almost would have been better to just NOT provide any solution frankly, and leave it entirely to 3rd parties. I feel it's unnecassary for game consoles / platforms to really need to take care of this anyways, though there are some benefits to a whollistic approach.

I honestly dont care about the voicechat in any of those games, and id rather use stuff like discord anyway.

And this topic reads to me as "why are you guys not as angry as me, lets be angry instead"

If Nintendo would release a car with no wheels on it, people would still praise that car for being different cause Nintendo made it.

@odinsmana said:

Yeah its definitely time to stop giving them a pass on boneheaded decisions, particularly in regards to online infrastructure. I don't really care about voice chat personally, but come on Nintendo, Microsoft had this shit figured out in 2002. Everytime it seems like Nintendo does something to take a step forward they do something else to take a few steps back.

I'm not sure what's the worst part about this chat debacle, Nintendo or the people that make lame excuses for them and for some reason don't care about communicating with anyone regardless of the game.
I do know that myself and two cousins I play games with most that bought the Switch have no intention on buying Splatoon 2 because of it. So there's that I guess.

We knew this is how it would be, and low & behold that is how it is in reality.

This is not a make or break feature for the fan base nor the typically Switch purchaser. It not like it wouldn't be nice or convenient to have a party chat system that was robust; but that just was not going to happen.

We can just find our zen state by chanting the Giant Bomb Psalms

"Big Jeffy in the sky... grant me the serenity to accept the Nintendo choices I cannot change, the courage to by-pass with other tech the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

@franstone: I would say it's equally/more baffling that someone wouldn't buy a fun looking game solely because the voice chat solution is sub-par.

Didn't Big Jeffy here on earth savage Nintendo about this on the latest Bombcast?

@bigsocrates: I agree with you that it's incredibly dumb that they didn't include an on system voice chat option. Equally as dumb are people hand waving it away as not an issue because we have things like discord, skype and smartphones. Or that they don't use voice chat so it doesn't affect them.

You absolutely should not need a third party software or a second device to communicate with people while playing games online. That should just be a standard feature by now.

Fallout 3-era? People did plenty of that even on this site's GOTY discussion for Fallout 4...

With Bethesda at least you can make the argument that the jank in those games are unavoidable considering how they are really complex clockwork games. So that the get those games at all the jank is part of the deal. That does not mean the jank is not bad, but it can be considered a price you must pay for those kinds of games. Wether or not you buy that argument is up to you, but you can not make the same argument for Nintedo at all.

Once again, imagine this was a car with no solution for plugging your iPhone in

I don't have an iPhone, and I don't play online... so no