Soapbox: Fortnite Is Coming So Nintendo Really Needs To Sort Out Its Voice Chat Problem

Discord.

For added effect:

"While the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has chosen to avoid Nintendo Switch (a decision I still can't fathom,"

Annnnnnnnnnd skipped to comment section to write this and laugh at Dom and leave.

Honestly I don't voice chat with my friends a lot when playing with them. Sometimes, we FaceTime and then end up not actually playing and just talking. But that's the extent of my "voice chat" endeavors. So I don't really mind.

But, there's a lot of people out there who do mind, and to that I would like to direct you to @NaviAndMii 's comment, which sums it up quite excellently.

@JTMnM That picture still baffles me...

The only thing I hate about switch, well.. other than no local backups, hacking was an excuse there were not any save file hacks until the system was blown wide open or you needed to install them via another entry point.

@MrMac Because it's a list of your friends.

I might be completely out of the loop here, but don't most Fortnite players on mobile devices entirely opt out of voice chat in the first place?

@MrMac I hope not. I really hope they just fix their bluetooth like every other device over the last decade and allow you to use whatever headphones, mic, etc... we want via bluetooth.

Heh, I'm so glad I don't care about or use social features on consoles. This stuff seems to drive a lot of people up a wall, but I couldn't care less.

I completely agree that the Switch should have proper voice chat. But I do understand why they don't. Nintendo is being (in my opinion understandably) cowardly. There isn't exactly a shortage of nightmare fuel stories of things going wrong with voice chat in online games. From rampant vulgarity, racism, death threats and cyber bullying, to people using game voice chats to organize criminal activities in ways more difficult for police to track. From kids getting tricked into visiting the local pedophile, to people sending NAUGHTY CONTENT to each other via swapnote on 3DS before that service was cancelled.

I want proper voice chat. I think most gamers do. But I understand Nintendo's fear.

Isnt' Fortnite a battle royale game, meaning every person for themselves? (I avoid BR games like I avoid MOBA and DOTA)

Seems to me a team based game like Spaltoon 2 would need voice chat a lot more than a game like this.

Again, I dont' play anything online w/ anyone, but if I did I'd feel like voice chat would be much more important for smaller squad based games, even 2 player co-op like Animal Crossing, than this. Sure it would be nice to have I suppose, but it's not a deal breaker for this game on Switch, and it's not the game that really needs Ntinedo to get it's act together for Voice Chat when people start spending $20 per year for online.

Nintendo has innovated so much, isn't it time they took at least a few ideas from the other companies. Completely agree that voice chat is a mess on Switch and would be happy to see some improvement in this and every other area of the Nintendo Online service.

@Ralizah it's worthwhile if you have friends.

haha. Nintendo.

N doesn't care about voice, internet, remote multiplayer, etc..

we're lucky it actually even connects to the internet. if N had their druthers they'd still be rocking the OG gameboy.

True... I would imagine the "every one for him/herself" mode will be the focus on Switch, considering the lack of voice chat for team modes.

Those who are serious about competitive team play will either 1) figure out a workaround like Discord, or 2) play on a more powerful platform.

I have no interest in this game, but coming to Switch is great since it will sell more consoles and a higher install base means more support from third parties.

@MrMac No, you're right, that's not a good definition of a friend. That's why I only put people that I know in real life in my Friend List.

I'm just saying, it's called a "Friend List" because it's a list of people you've decided to call "friend" for whatever reason.

Tbh, I don't t like chatting with strangers every game, too much experience of idiots and whiney kids swearing.. Now, I just sit with my phone next to me chatting on discord... 😊

I play Fortnite quite a bit across XBO, PS4, and PC. Rarely ever run into people using voice chat, and when I do theyre just playing music or screaming at people so they get muted.

It's essentially for those looking to get into eSports.

@roadrunner343 Not happening considering their wireless chip already has difficulties just handling WiFi and wireless local play

@Mathias_Wolfbrok I've not had any of the wireless issues you mention, but that's a completely separate, unrelated topic altogether. Despite operating on the same frequency, it is not at all related to the Bluetooth chip/antenna used. I agree it's likely not happening. I just think it's incredibly stupid that it isn't.

@Savino Oh, thank you very much. That obviously changes things then, teams should have voice chat.

I've never understood the big hype of "BR" having already gone through something similar 20 years ago w/ Quake and UT. Anybody under 30 should probably read this and see where it all began.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/07/the-history-of-online-shooters

@SilverFoxMcCloud Reggie is smarter than that. But Nintendo has investors to answer to, and investors are, almost without question, angry old conservative men. All they can think of is the possibility of a scandal costing them money and sullying their precious family friendly image.

@roadrunner343 Except it's the same Broadcomm chip handling both the WiFi and Bluetooth communications. It's a good chip, but the power it can pull from the Switch is hard capped, inherently causing a lot of WiFi related issues. I'm not defending Nintendo on that one though, since now they have that issue on top of just not being able to write a competent netcode that would take into consideration the frequent packet losses such a weak WiFi can cause.

I'd imagine that pulling audio from the same chip would just make the WiFi signal that much worse due to the higher bandwidth used.

Im pretty sure Nintendo offloaded the voice chat to a mobile app because its one less thing the Switch has to deal with.
I only ever spoke to a couple of people on my wiiu and wii using voice chat, and tbh, I don't really miss it.

I honestly don't give a crap about the whole voice chat thing. I agree that at this state, it's bad. But I've got my Discord which I'm happy with. Aside from that, my friends don't have a Switch or the same games as me.

not much a Voice Chat person, so, i'll keep it off.

Honestly - will only try Fornite on Switch if I do not need to hear other players. Voice chat is a hard no fro me.

@Savino "they are praising it like it's the new wheel!"

Five years from now these online multiplayer games are going to start to add single player stories and everyone is going to be so impressed w/ the idea.

I agree it's good for Switch to be getting them. I'm happy for any well known game Switch gets. I'll take 1 Fortnite over those 3 eShop games that were reviewed yesterday, never heard of them, will never see anything about them ever again. I'm ok w/ ports, and new AAA Switch games will be coming in a few days.

I've been playing online with my friend for almost 15 years over various platforms.

We both own a Switch and when we see each other playing Mario Kart / Splatoon we DON'T play together.

It baffles me that Nintendo shows you that your friends are online, and you can see what their playing, but you can't even send a simple text message to say 'hi'.

@MH4: My kids have been playing Fortnite on the XBox One. They are usually the only ones on their teams chatting, though when others chat (1) they are so annoying teams tend not to revive them, or (2) the bullying/bad language breaks out, begging the question of whether they should be listening at all.....

I find it kinda ironic that the much maligned WiiU had an actual baked in video-chat functionality. It was a poor replacement for a proper voice-group-chat, but still, even the WiiU had this on-board in some form, and that thing was supposedly the Fisher Price experience of gaming

Then again, as was mentioned here several times before, the Switch does not even allow for communicating with folks who are already on your friendlist. To say this is counterintuitive is a helluva an understatement.

@bluedogrulez Nobody is suggesting that voice chat should be mandatory or that there should be no way to mute other player - to the contrary, that is kinda essential imho. To me the crux here is that it's nice to have the option to have a bunch of firends, or acquaintances together in one chat room, doing stuff. Stuff might refer to playing a competitive game like Fortnite. It might also refer to playing a cooperative game or - that is not uncommon in my experience - people actually playing different games, and just having some conversation on the side.

I often also stick around in the chat room for a while after I quit playing and have moved on to doing something else (wireless headsets are neat that way). I know that alot of people would be surprised to learn, that it is entirely possible to have an intelligent conversation about a non-gaming related subject (say, science or politics or art) in a gaming-related chat room .....

Point being, all of this has done more for me on PSN in terms of building a sense of community than any other feature the system offers. Once you've been on the system a good while, and once you've come across a couple of hundred players, you'll almost always find a room open with a bunch of people you (more or less) know playing something interesting, giving you the option to just join in. That way you only very rarely have to play with entirely random folks at all after a while, which is great benefit esp. because there is that much toxicity online.

@Mathias_Wolfbrok I won't pretend I'm overly familiar with the specific chip in use - but there's no reason pulling audio would be any different than connecting a controller. Again, I'm not familiar with the specific chip in question, but I would have to imagine that despite residing within the same IC, the WiFi and Bluetooth modules/antennas themselves operate independently. It would be operating on a different channel and bluetooth certainly has enough bandwidth for audio. The only rational reason I can think of is Nintendo wanted to be able to support 8 Joy-Cons, which is already pushing the limits of what can be connected to bluetooth. Still, I think it's silly limitation that Nintendo could have easily overcome by simply stating it supports up to 8 Controllers and/or wireless bluetooth devices simultaneously. I'd like to think consumers would be smart enough to figure that one out. Given that people wanting to use Bluetooth headsets is likely far more common than wanting 8 controllers connected, I'd think it's something they should have implemented.

@AlternateButtons Because it's gone through the Korean rating board. Unlike the ESRB, it doesn't rate gameplay videos. It rates exclusively gameplay. That means the game would both have to be in a playable state and that Epic Games feels like the rating was worth applying for.

It also helps that now Paladins has been officially confirmed while being leaked in the exact same server data as Fortnite.

Personally I don't care but...it does seem strange that a feature that is ubiquitous on every other platform is absent on the switch. Apparently some people like talking to other people.

@bluedogrulez That's partially why I'm glad there isn't "proper" voice chat. People can be annoying and rude, and I don't want to have to put up with it. I just want to enjoy the game.

If I'm gonna talk to someone while playing a game, I want to actually know the person, too.

I think @Ralek85 made a lot of good points about it in their reply to you.

Voicechat isn't necessary.

That said, Nintendo should implement a full Discord into the Switch's system.

Nintendo wont change, they are extremely arrogant sometimes, they thing because they have thought about it a lot that they know best, some times they are plan wrong , like many decision in splatoon 2 , not just the voice char, that they wont change like having to look at all the stages or times salmon run

@roadrunner343 Well, to that you have to factor in that local wireless can only support up to two Bluetooth peripherials per device, which is already a pain when playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with 2 people per Switch.

In any ways, it's still ridiculous that you can't even PLUG IN a headset with microphone into the Switch and do voice chat that way. Like, come on, the DS could do it, and it did.

I put in hundreds of hours into Fortnite on Xbox/PS4 and I rarely use voice chat. I agree that Nintendo needs to sort voice chat out, Fortnite is very much enjoyable without it.

@AlternateButtons Ahahahahahaha!

@DarthNocturnal Thanks. Really not for me - I'm a JRPG and platformer guy - but I guess I should take a look. PUBG really never looked that interesting to me, and I hate the name and acronym, but Fortnite maybe, and Paladins. I'm sure I wont' like them, but at least then I can stop looking stupid. My kid should be into this stuff, he played Overwatch for awhile but now he pretty much only plays DBXV2, but he's never mentioned them.

I think I'm going to keep your post as a text file on my desktop for future reference, so thanks again.

I guess people miss the point that tons of people play Online games with Family, Old friends and co-workers. Some who live in other countries and States - and rarely get to see.

I learn more about what is going on with my cousin in Madrid playing online than on any phone call. I do not stay up late at night and pay for PS-Plus just to play with random people.

Chat is a must.

Here's my "quick" solution for nintendos voice chat issue. Let the switch connect via bluetooth to your phone, your phone acts like an Bluetooth speaker playing the game audio (probably via the NSO app) and since the app is also handling chat then are only connected to the phone.

Sure it's not all through the console like it should be but I suspect there's an performance reason why. This would at least dear tangle the mess

@Savino
Maybe they will announce voice chat with a new upadate at E3 and after you update, you cna download Fortnite with the new added voice chat..... Great way to have people update their switches and get a game out of it.

@JTMnM My Amazon $4 worth of wires Ghetto version... just follow your diagram 😅

I know several female gamers who refuse to use voice chat because, well, there are a lot of creepy internet romeos out there.

It's "easy" on other platforms because MS and Sony have invested billions on VOIP services to support chatting over a paid subscription, one that is twice the price of the NSO family membership coming in September.

Voice chat isn't easy and it's not free. It's a huge server-side undertaking both for hardware and maintenance, plus the overhead of policing the service. Forcing people to use their phones shifts the weight and expense, and probably deters trolls from putting in the effort to ruin other people's good time.

Nintendo took a beating with the Wii U, so it's focus is building a strong platform now, provide an OPTION for voice chat, then probably invest in a better delivery method later if they see fit. And I'm fine with it as nothing irritates me more than hearing the BS from random players. So, I'm glad it is what it is at the moment.

Never cared for voice chat, and I never will. That said, I know people really want it, and Nintendo is just so far behind on this. The Splatoon setup is completely laughable.

I'd rather not hear the annoying voices of stupid children. I just wanna enjoy my games.

I am happy that Nintendo Switch is not equipped with an in-chat application. Wise desision by Nintendo.

Oh, boy! Fortnite! /rolleyes

Better get on that vox chat, Nintendo! Trolling 6-year-olds with the mouths of drunken sailors can't wait!

I have zero interest in talking to random people I don't know while playing a game with them, and if I'm playing with friends I don't mind using Discord or whatever. I agree that Nintendo really needs to improve their voice chat for the people who do want it, but seeing as the Switch controllers don't have a headphone jack, there isn't really a practical way to have voice chat built into the system, as you could only use it in handheld mode (unless you had a really long headphone cable plugged into the docked system maybe?)

@rjejr There are two Fortnite games. One is PVE and BattleRoyale is PVP.

I hope when it gets announced, that we also get the PVE version as it's awesome and I like that one a lot more than Battle Royale. I don't like that one at all!

Every time an issue comes up, it's probably best if everyone also tweets it to Nintendo and sends them a quick email.

One person won't make a change, but perhaps many voices will.

I want this company to feel frustrated by the constant messages, to the point it finally digs its head out of the sand.

Contact:

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/contact
https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica
https://twitter.com/nintendouk
https://twitter.com/nintendoeurope

Do you know of other ways to contact them? List them here.

Voice chat sounds vulgar. I'd give it a go as long so nobody swore, then I'd be gone...

Imagine it doesn't get announced now.

The most concerning thing I see from Nintendo fans whenever voice chat comes up is "I don't like and use it so Nintendo should never implement it"

It's selfish, arrogant, and actively makes Nintendo worse as a company if people keep campaigning against them coming into the modern era. They sure don't mind picking up all the worst pieces of modern gaming like season passes and patches, they should also incorporate the other things, too.

I have no interest in voice chat, but I tested it with Splatoon 2 and I had no problems at all. Oh, I have to use my phone or tablet, what a shocker!🙄

@mailman
You´re wrong. Switch is as much a handheld, as it is a home console.

"Why would you want to build a machine with handheld functionality - that operates in an always-connected world - and redirect voice communication to a secondary device. "

DeNA Partnership.

Ironically, you can plug a headset right into the Wii U GamePad and tadaaaa! voice chat. Some games didn't even require the headset.

@Menchi187 Of course he can't fathom it, he stands on a soapbox 95% of the time with his head in the clouds, screaming down his unproven "facts" at the unwashed masses.

my frustration excactly.

it all have to do with the authorical old guys at nintendo, that are afraid of progression. these guys need to STEP DOWN!!!

this is the title your company needs to be a player in online gaming, don't screw up this opportunity.

I don't use voice chat, but it would be nice if I could talk to my GF and friends during an online race in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I can't see why Nintendo can't provide this function directly in the console if they are providing it with a cellphone app. I still remember Reggie saying this was an "elegant" solution.

akward that such a console as the switch, wich is brilliant, is invented by a company that claims to be inovating, but in the other hand prove time after time it is afraid of the future.

the company feels divided. you have young people with great ideas, but products never feel finished or prepared for the future. you can blame the ceo and his order of old men. that still sees gaming as childsplay.

nowadays there ar more 30 and 40+ gamers, then teenagers. you never convince these people to join the switch as main platform.

its switch on switch off, just for the kids

I'm convinced that the Switch doesn't have enough RAM to support the dash board + the game + voice chat. It's a problem that will persist until Nintendo introduces an upgraded Switch model or won't be there until the inevitable Switch Two in five or six years.

So before I answered this I decided to ask my friend of other consoles and that play online to see what they use.

PS4 I have 59 friends, of them 41 responded, 11 use the in-house console chat system. The rest Discord with 2 Skype.

Of my 33 Xbox friends only 4 use the Live Chat, the rest use Discord.

Of my 18 Battle.net friends none use the in game chat systems, all use Discord.

And yet the 7 Switch friends I have only 3 responded and they use discord.

Patterns maybe?

Voice chat for Switch? "There's an app for that!" loooooool

@Menchi187 honestly I don't want COD: BO4 to be on the switch it will be trash...

@TheGreenYoutuber The port would be absolute trash, I agree.

The voice chat in Fortnite is just a bunch of 12 year olds spewing juvenile insults at everyone.

@Ralizah Same, last time I cared about social features on a game console is when I was a teenager. Now a days I just don't want to deal with it, and it's not like you have a lot of people using mics on the games that support it on the PS4 or Xbox either.

@JTMnM As someone who preordered that darn headset I can say this image gives me PTSD. With the wireless Pokeball joy-con coming out it seems like they're able to make tech that connects just like a controller with different input. So... Maybe an update and a wireless headset are in order? Please? Preferably one you could just use like bluetooth headphones but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. The headset situation on Switch needs a do-over.

@JayJ That's kinda true. I like having it sometimes, but I'd say I only use my PS4 headset 30% of the time playing online games. More often I just listen to podcasts or music. It's pretty rare on a team of ten people to find more than three with their headsets on in most of my games.

This has always been a negative point for me on my view of the switch, but because I didn’t have any friends that owned a switch it never affected me. But that changed less than a month ago when a friend of mine picked one up, and it’s now a nuisance that there’s no system in place to chat with my friend directly on the switch. I think the first problem being, when it’s docked, you have no way to plug it in if you’re further than the length of a cord to the top of the console, but also, I think Nintendo has not wanted to impliment it for the drain it would cause on battery for that system to operate/send/receive data on wifi in the background. But to assume I want to drain my phone’s battery, of which, I receive much more usefulness (messages, internet, cloud data, hotspot, gps, phone calls, etc.), is not a worthy price to pay.

hard to imagine Fortnite without 8 years olds squeaking

also the lack of part chat only effects squads and not solo

Honestly, the creation of the 3 way with a smartphone for voice chat, and no announcement of any attempt to fix this problem even as the Switch Online Service launch approaches, borders on intentional sabotage by Nintendo because they don't actually want convenient voice chat on the Switch but want to be able to say voice chat is available.

Or just have a built in one, like some other Nintendo games on 3DS and Wii U had.

@ClassSonicSatAm good point system wide chats or party chats are not even needed if there is in game chat

Voice chat is one of the things I despise the most in online games. Having a bunch of people, insulting, threatening and mocking each other is not what I could call fun or necessary, and, sadly that’s what 90% of chat is about with most (if not all) multiplayer games.
I hate it with a passion, and never ever use it.
As far as I’m concerned no voice chat is a plus instead of a con.

@Savino I agree! It's pretty gross and quite mysogynistic, and many instances it's essentially harrassment.

@Jeronan "PVE and BattleRoyale is PVP"

I need to learn a whole new vocabulary to start playing online multiplayer games I guess. What ever happened to deathmatch (DM) and capture the flag (CTF)? And that's besides choosing between the games. I own Overwatch on PS4 but never played it. My kid played it a few times and got bored. Figured if he got bored why bother. I know PS4 has a bunch of free to play games but I Always pas them by, figure I should play the games I paid for first. And that backlog is never ending, just growing.

I see no reason why the online chat app isn't directly on the Switch. Other plaforms do both and also support Discord.
Is that because there's no jack in Joy Cons/Pro Controller?

@rjejr You must be mad old, as those terms (PvP/PvE) are at least as old as World of Warcraft
For all intents and purposes Battle Royale is an upscaled Deathmatch/Last Man Standing while PvE is a co-op survival mode.

@SmaggTheSmug "PvE is a co-op survival mode"

How is PvE a co-op survival mode? I assumed it was player vs everyone, where 1 person was king of the hill, everyone else tried to kill them, like Evolve. PvP I do know, but the entire industry has been changing to letters for awhile now, it's getting annoying. And I'm still trying to figure out roguelike from roguelite. Heck I don't even know what rogue means in a game.

Though I suppose its' always been this way, I only play JRPG and RTS. FPS were never for me. Guess I just can't be bothered learning new ones.

PvE stands for "Player vs Environment", a.k.a. AI. PvP is "Player vs Player". It was used in WoW to differentiate servers in which players could only combat each other is specific places and otherwise it was all about fighting neutral mobs and the ones in which Horde and Alliance could attack each other anywhere, anytime.
As for rogue-like from rogue-lite: a "true" rogue-like is the most like original Rogue; an old-school turn-based RPG with lots of items, permadeath and procedural generation. Meta-progression is not necessary. Things like ADOM, Nethack, Dungeons of Dreadmor or Sword of the Stars: The Pit would be rogue-likes.
"Rogue-lite" is what some have been applying to games that use procedural generation, permadeath and some meta-progression system. Things like Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Steredenn Binary Stars or Immortal Redneck fit this description.

Every time I've played a game with voice chat all I hear are barrages of Racist stuff, sometimes at me if I say something in Spanish.
No to voice chat and Nintendolife's soapboxes.

Mods: tone down the language or go elsewhere.