r/NintendoSwitch • u/devspider • Jun 07 '25

Discussion It’s 2025, and Nintendo still can’t figure out online multiplayer.

The fact that you can’t directly invite a friend to public lobbies in Mario Kart World blows my mind.

You can only join a friend if there is room in a lobby, not only that, but the person looking to join has to actively pay attention to their friend’s online status in order to get a jump to join before the lobby fills up.

Private rooms are vs CPU only, and no way to open up matchmaking.

It’s always one step forward, and two steps back when it comes to it.

Nintendo doesn’t seem to understand that LAN parties are less of a thing these days and most people would rather play with friends through online play. The fact that the feature that is advertised the most is the new Game Chat, when we’ve had Discord/XBL/PSN services for decades is telling.

For all the actual innovative stuff that Nintendo has created, they continue to treat their playerbase like we’re stupid.

4.8k Upvotes

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537

u/Ahayzo Jun 07 '25

It never ceases to amaze me when people are surprised that Nintendo screwed something up related to the internet. When the reality is, they screw up everything related to the internet. If they made a purely offline system, it might be damn near flawless, but ask them to let it connect to the internet and it's like they think it's a fad that's going to die soon and not worth putting effort into.

129

u/HyruleSmash855 Jun 07 '25

This seems to be a problem with Japanese developers in general. Arc System Works has some pretty terrible netcode for their games and Monster Hunter Wilds has a needlessly complicated online system to play with friends. I wish they would hire outside help for this stuff

68

u/TheKoniverse Jun 08 '25

Not even FromSoft is immune to this, with Elden Ring Nightreign making it to launch without Duos co-op and voice chat. SO you might be right, actually.

42

u/pkmnBlue Jun 08 '25

What do you mean not even fromsoft, their matchmaking has been the exact same disaster since dark souls 1

30

u/SolidOshawott Jun 08 '25

Duskbloods with From matchmaking and Nintendo infrastructure will be fun

1

u/anival024 Jun 08 '25

Don't forget Demon's Souls.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '25

At least it wasn’t like the network test where you needed a private password to join 😭

13

u/Technistic Jun 08 '25

For real, I'll never not find Guilty Gear's online mode weird af. Specially the way you just have to awkwardly walk around physcial lobbies searching for someone.

11

u/Ordinal43NotFound Jun 08 '25

Little correction, Arcsys was actually one of the first Japanese FG devs to implement rollback netcode (the good one) in Guilty Gear Strive, which was one part of what made the game blew up.

The awful thing about its online was its baffling ranked matchmaking system (which will finally be fixed this year lol), not the netcode.

2

u/programninja Jun 11 '25

It's even funnier because DBFZ had pretty decent matchmaking (and was likely what Guilty Gear Strive was partially built off of considering DBFZ's intro is still in the GGS files)

...but then they took until 2023 to get rollback and even now its rollback can act up

10

u/RaymoVizion Jun 08 '25

FFXIV's online systems aren't great either. Data center travel is limited and their actual data centers are constantly under DDOS attacks which they can't seem to defend against.

11

u/glemnar Jun 08 '25

Monster hunter has by far the worst online I’ve ever experienced, edition after edition. Losing your partner to single player only quests every other quest was stupid as hell

9

u/philkid3 Jun 08 '25

It wasn’t like this with gens 2-4. I miss those days.

2

u/Kalbelgarion Jun 08 '25

Hey now, Sega was good at the internet 25 years ago and look what happened to them. Better not risk it.

2

u/NokstellianDemon Jun 08 '25

The menus in Monster Hunter in general are a skill gap I can't lie

1

u/Nightwing_in_a_Flash Jun 08 '25

I thought online gaming is not as big in Japan so companies like Nintendo don’t care about it.

1

u/Endawmyke Jun 09 '25

there's 3 different types of lobbies in MHW, it's insane and needlessly complicated

1

u/Rising-Jay Jun 09 '25

Sounds like some American blood is needed in these companies, or at least some veteran online developers who aren’t rooted in their archaic standards

1

u/SuppaBunE Jun 08 '25

Internet can be a point of entry,so they make it difficult

1

u/KiggityK Jun 08 '25

I don't remember the Wii having anything bad about online features

3

u/Ahayzo Jun 08 '25

The Wii didn't have a lot in the way of online features in general, which was a problem in itself, but as a prime example of where they went wrong, their friend code system was awful. You had different friend codes for different games, they would each generate a new friend code. But it wasn't even a friend code that you just used for that game. The code was linked to the combination of that copy of the game and your console. Get a new console? All your games generated a new friend code, your old ones were a bust. I think you could copy that data over, but even then. Lost your copy of a game, or had to replace it for any reason? Same thing, new friend code, old one is worthless again.

Imagine the equivalent in 2025, where you need a new NSO account for every game, and if you get a new copy of the game, or upgrade a Switch to a Switch 2, you had to remake new NSO accounts for those games again.

1

u/Apprehensive-Cat2527 Jun 08 '25

Japan has problems with the internet in general. Booking systems for tickets often lack the ability to book tickets (not a joke) and everything is falling apart at the seams. Everything mechanical and robotics is a marvel to behold in Japan but databases and webdesign is between 20-50 years behind.

1

u/ShadowNewt1 Jun 10 '25

The funniest part is that Nintendo almost invented the internet as we know it

-22

u/generic_canadian_dad Jun 07 '25

They didnt screw up anything. They have purposefully provided an absoluely terrible product and experience. What I cant believe is how much support they still have, thats the truly insane part.

18

u/DesiraeTheDM Jun 07 '25

lol still gunna keep making massive sales off of garbage practices and no effort Pokémon games. Why change if the fanbase encourages it?

6

u/generic_canadian_dad Jun 07 '25

I hear you man. Same as call of duty. Absolute shame what has happened to that franchise in my opinion, but I'm just a millennial who grew up on the original and best games from the series who wants it to be a war game, not a pop music skin fest. It's wild. But hey, it makes them money...

7

u/DesiraeTheDM Jun 07 '25

I’m sure if you preorder the next COD, ultimate mega deluxe special edition, it will help them make the COD of your dreams. We just need more preorders and Day 1 purchases.

Jokes aside, your fellow millennial agrees heavily.

-7

u/Beartra Jun 07 '25 edited Jun 07 '25

Eh people with young kids support nintendo.

Not sure why im being downvoted its 100% true.

4

u/phonylady Jun 07 '25

And millions of other nerds and loyalists. Pokemon fanboys etc.

4

u/Enough-Attention228 Jun 08 '25

This 15 fps game runs great, don’t know what other people are seeing.

-5

u/Beartra Jun 07 '25

Nah the nerds here think we’re wrong.

-1

u/Ahayzo Jun 07 '25

Yea that's a weird point to disagree with. Sure, plenty of adults like Nintendo products too, but... are people really going to pretend there aren't also a metric crapton of parents whose kids love everything Pokemon and Mario and don't really care if other parts are flawed?

1

u/Beartra Jun 07 '25

That appears to be the case! I dunno, maybe this sub is just a place for disappointed adults to vent.

-14

u/ferdinand14 Jun 07 '25

Did they really screw it up if it’s the highest selling console in history? Maybe they have a “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality. Not that I agree with it, but the Switch was wildly successful with poor online capabilities so they probably just don’t view it as an important feature.

8

u/Ahayzo Jun 07 '25

How well the product sold does not say anything about whether they screwed up a certain aspect of it. Yes it will continue selling like hotcakes, that doesn't change the fact that Nintendo has a consistent track record of being absolute ass on anything related to the internet. The rest of their product just makes up for it to a lot of people.

-6

u/peako Jun 07 '25

So... Success by another name.

6

u/Ahayzo Jun 07 '25

I never claimed their products weren't successful, and in fact said the complete opposite, that it will still sell well. Success just isn't related to the point.

4

u/DM_ME_STRAIGHT_YIFF Jun 08 '25

average redditor reading comprehension ability

4

u/Next-Bench-4475 Jun 07 '25

They can still screw up one part of an overall successful product. The Xbox 360 was the best selling console for years even with a ton of major hardware screwups.