Nintendo says Switch 2's GameChat lesser framerate was a conscious decision to prioritize horsepower for gameplay (2025)

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08 April 2025

by rawmeatcowboy

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Nintendo says Switch 2's GameChat lesser framerate was a conscious decision to prioritize horsepower for gameplay (1)

Nintendo says Switch 2's GameChat lesser framerate was a conscious decision to prioritize horsepower for gameplay (2)

One of the many features Nintendo showed off for the Switch 2 last week was GameChat, with allows people to play games and talk like everyone is in the same room, even if they are miles apart. Whether sharing a victory or just waving hello, GameChat makes it feel like online friends around the world are on the same couch.

Once GameChat is up, players can start a chat with friends anytime by pressing the C Button on the right Joy-Con 2 controller. The system’s built-in mic can be used to voice chat while playing games with up to 12 people in different locations. Up to four friends can share their screen, and if they connect a compatible USB-C camera, such as the Nintendo Switch 2 camera (sold separately), they can also video chat, seeing each other’s faces as they cheer, shout, or laugh while playing.

When GameChat was showcased, some people were quick to point out that the video chat feature seemed to have a rather limited framerate. While you continue to see your own gameplay just fine, the windowed versions of your friends’ screens is presented much less smoothly. While some may have believed this to be an indication of an issue, this approach is actually by design.

GameSpot had the chance to talk to Switch 2 hardware director Takuhiro Dohta and technical director Tetsuya Sasaki about the choppy GameChat appearance, and the duo confirmed this was a limitation implemented on purpose. While Nintendo wanted to offer video chat on Switch 2, they also didn’t want to hamper the player during gameplay. In other words, Nintendo felt it best to limit the framerate of GameChat’s video feeds in order to prioritize horsepower for gameplay itself.

“In order to explain this well, I think it might first help to explain about the resources the system has. So obviously, chat is meant to run and work simultaneously and coincide with the game you’re playing. But we also think it’s critical that it doesn’t get in the way of the game that’s running right now. And so we wanted to definitely make sure we do was to make sure that running game chat alongside the game doesn’t result in the game experience or quality being reduced at all in any way.

So from a system resource perspective, obviously even the Nintendo Switch had a set of system resources that it needed to tap into to run the system. And now that we have Nintendo Switch 2, there is bigger, more, basically resource budget to use. However, even with that enhanced and larger budget, we try to use as little of that as possible. And they made it happen somehow. And within that small slice of the resource budget, there’s other things to take into consideration, like network systems, all that kind of stuff, and all of that taking into account is where we landed in terms of quality of the video that you saw in the footage.”

[Switch 2 hardware director Takuhiro Dohta]

As Nintendo, one thing we really put emphasis on is making sure that everyone experiences a very even experience when it comes to the quality of service that they’re experiencing. And based on this emphasis that we prioritize–obviously if somebody is in a better environment, they’re going to get better results in terms of their experience–but we really wanted to make sure that more than anything people had an equal or even playing field, or even experience, rather. And I think that was our priority as an entertainment company.

And the other aspect of this is that we want to make sure that there is enough power reserved for the games themselves. And so we have a smaller area to play around in within to make sure that all these varying aspects to fit into, things like network environment connectivity. And so we landed on within this margin that we have to work within, this is a good even experience that we can provide.

Another important thing is that with the Nintendo Switch 2 we’re going to see more and more titles come out. And again, we really want to make sure that reservation of space is going to them. And so that’s another factor here for us.”

[Technical director Tetsuya Sasaki ]

Nintendo says Switch 2's GameChat lesser framerate was a conscious decision to prioritize horsepower for gameplay (2025)

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