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Let's talk GameShare! [roundtable]
 
GameShare on Switch 2, that is. It's mysterious. It seems kind of like a marriage of Wii U multi-screen support and DS Download Play. Here's my understanding of GameShare:

A GameShare session needs to be initiated by a Switch 2 with ONE copy of the game. At least 3 Switch 2 OR Switch 1 consoles can then be used as dummy terminals (through the new GameShare app added to every Switch's Home Menu), only capable of control input and video reception. All of the dummy inputs are sent to the Switch 2 host (online or locally), and then the Switch 2 host beams back up to three extra viewports (online or locally), while also rendering its own. (In theory, those viewports could just be clones of the main screen in a single-screen game like Smash. But separate viewports are the more interesting application, by far.) This would allow for the best example we've seen, individual hands of cards in Clubhouse Games, all rendered on the host Switch 2, but sliced up and individually served to each Switch through video transfer for full privacy. This could, in theory, also be done using smartphones as dumb terminals (as in something like Jackbox), but let's not get into that right now.

Back when Wii U was still Project Cafe, I was actually hoping it could do something like this with multiple Gamepads. Maybe Nintendo was even planning something like that, but couldn't make it happen.

There are still tons of questions about this. What is the streaming protocol? What resolution would its bandwidth allow? How high is the latency in local/online? Would it be viable for action games? Even online?

There is SO much potential in this concept. Obviously, the Switch 2 would have some trouble serving up four separate 60fps viewports in something like Mario Kart World, but not in something like Clubhouse Games. Perhaps that host Switch 2 could render 4 viewports in a 4k frame and serve a full 1080p image to each screen (or 720p for the Switch 1 dummies (no offense)).

The games thus far announced for Switch 2 Upgrades are:

ARMS
Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Game Builder Garage
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
Pokemon Scarlet
Pokemon Violet
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury
Super Mario Odyssey
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Breath of the Wild
Tears of the Kingdom
Super Mario Party Jamboree

We can easily imagine that the single-player games in this list will be updated to increase performance and/or resolution. The single-screen multiplayer games may also be updated with same-screen GameShare, for tv-less multiplayer sessions. (Maybe Nintendo could even bring the missing Wii U functionality back to NSMB?) But the interesting exceptions are Clubhouse Games, Big Brain Academy, ARMS, and Game Builder Garage.

We already know how Clubhouse Games works. Big Brain Academy could rejigger its multiplayer to work the same way. Game Builder Garage could go all sorts of ways. But ARMS... why ARMS? It already worked amazingly well in split-screen, aside from a 30fps drop in 3-4 player.

Sure, they could improve that framerate and bump the resolution to 4k. But what if they went one step further and cut those frames apart in order to serve each console its own full-sized screen? What if they did the same thing with Mario Kart 8 DX, which runs on the same engine? People have been wondering why Super Mario Party Jamboree only supports GameShare locally, on one board, with 30 mini-games. What if those are the mini-games most suited to surreptitious split-screen play?

Let's take it further. What if Nintendo updated the NSO N64 emulator to do the same trick, enabling, say, four-player GoldenEye or Mario Kart 64 with no screen-peeking? What if the Switch 2 had the power to render four separate GBA emulators and GameShare the other screens to separate consoles?

What if!

But, really, I just want Clubhouse Games 3. And a bunch of virtual board games.

URL to share (right click and copy)
05/03/25, 02:26    Edited: 05/03/25, 06:17
 
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I'm maybe a hundred times more likely to play games online with people now that I don't need to set up a headset or coordinate Discord times. I just press a button and start talking? Nintendo gets it.

I'm finding myself wishing that Blue Prince was out on Switch for a similar reason: Nintendo's screenshot UI is so much better than PS5's. Press the home button, click the picture icon. On PS5, you have two different types of Home button press, you have to navigate across multiple rows of icons to load your Content Sharing Experience, every button press makes some pretentious sound effect...
05/09/25, 17:33   
@Secret_Tunnel Man, I can't believe Nintendo is actually winning a system-level functionality contest here. The screenshot functionality on Xbox is abysmal. I have hundreds of GBs of free space on my Xbox's internal memory, but only a tiny fraction of it is available for image captures, and I filled that up with maybe a hundred or so Blue Prince screenshots. And what happens when it fills up? Older screenshots get deleted to make room for new ones, with no warning or indication that it's even happening.

What's worse, this apparently wasn't always the case, and as far as I can tell from people complaining to Xbox support forums (where Xbox's "representation" seems to just be volunteering fans or something???) this limitation just came in unannounced in a system update back in 2023, and has never actually been officially outlined anywhere and users are just piecing together how it works themselves. Crap like that is one reason why I'm not planning on buying another Xbox (seriously considering selling mine as it is) and generally prefer playing games on other systems when I can.
05/09/25, 20:42   
Edited: 05/09/25, 20:43
Secret_Tunnel said:
I'm maybe a hundred times more likely to play games online with people now that I don't need to set up a headset or coordinate Discord times. I just press a button and start talking? Nintendo gets it.

Ditto. I know that's pretty standard stuff, but it does mean a huge increase in likelihood I will play online now. Especially something like Animal Crossing? I can just poke someone to let me into their town? Sounds good.
05/09/25, 20:44   
@nate38 I wouldn't say Nintendo is winning when you can only capture 30 seconds of video. I don't even bother with video on the Switch most of the time.
05/09/25, 20:49   
Edited: 05/09/25, 20:50
@Zero That's true and I appreciate that Xbox can do 3 minutes maximum, but I honestly think I'd rather sacrifice that for the certainty that my screenshots and videos aren't going to randomly disappear from the internal system memory.
05/09/25, 20:53   
@nate38

Mega64's video today is about where I'm at with Xbox now:



For Blue Prince so far, I've just been taking pictures of my TV with my phone camera lol.

@Zero

Most of my Switch videos are clips from Zelda or Spelunky where, for the first 25 seconds, I have no idea why I saved it, only for a zany punchline to happen right at the end.

It is cool how PS5 allows for up to 15 minutes.
05/10/25, 00:12   
Well, Nintendo clarified the nature of each Switch 2 update, and, as usual, it seems like my idealized version of the GameShare tech was too pie-in-the-sky. Not completely, because I think that it's still possible, at least locally, but ARMS does not support it.

That said, Big Brain Academy's usage might still be interesting, and Fast Fusion from Shinen DOES support 2-player GameShare a la Wii U. Supposedly, it was pretty challenging for them to implement.

The proof of the GameShare pudding will be how that game plays, since it's a fast, graphically-intensive action game, unlike Clubhouse Games. And it apparently supports online GameShare?!

Speaking of which, when Nintendo describes GameShare over the internet, they specify that it runs through GameChat. So does that mean that the video is being streamed at 10 frames a second, or are adjustments are being made for this functionality? There must be adjustments/reallocations, because Super Mario World 3D and Fast Fusion support it, and Clubhouse Games needs to share different screens. Maybe those games/modes are less resource-intensive, so there's more overhead to stream higher-quality video? Maybe the other GameChat features are disabled while GameSharing? The video-sharing feature would be unnecessary in a shared-screen game like Super Mario World 3D and would actually ruin something like Clubhouse Games.

As an aside, can GameChat be disabled in certain games to claw back more performance? How does it work with M-Rated games when chatting with younger accounts?

Nintendo hasn't really described these features in-depth, but I honestly think that it would just confuse the hell out of people if they tried, at this point. You can tell that the system software guys went kind of nuts, though. In a good way!

Secret_Tunnel said:

Most of my Switch videos are clips from Zelda or Spelunky where, for the first 25 seconds, I have no idea why I saved it, only for a zany punchline to happen right at the end.
Same!
05/18/25, 20:00   
Edited: 05/18/25, 20:48
@Anand

I wonder what "Optimized for the Nintendo Switch 2 display and high-resolution TVs for improved image quality." means. Not 4K, I assume?

I like how Link's Awakening won't have improved framerate lol. The one game that needed it!
05/18/25, 20:17   
@Secret_Tunnel
They probably don't want to get specific, but the Switch 2 screen is 1080p, whereas the Switch 1 screen was 720p. And the maximum Switch 1 output was 1080p, I think? So games could be running at Switch 1 docked mode settings in Switch 2 handheld mode. And Switch 2 docked mode could go higher than 1080p, whether that's 1440p or 2160p (4k).

The 2D Zelda games shouldn't need a framerate cap boost, because they already had a 60fps target. The Switch 2 should be able to consistently hit that target, even at the newly boosted resolutions.

They could also shoot for 120fps modes, but it looks like they're prioritizing resolution boosts, since not everybody has a 120Hz tv.

Confusing!

Nintendo's messaging since the Switch 2 reveal has been horrible (including the recent reveal that only handheld mode will support Variable Refresh Rate at launch), but this stuff is complicated!

Also, all of the free updates listed on that page are hitting at launch. There aren't that many "Switch 2 launch games", but there really is going to be a metric shit-ton of stuff to do on launch day:

1) Mario Kart World
2) Other Launch Games!
3) Gamecube NSO (F-Zero GX!)
4) Zelda BotW and TotK upgrades
5) the free upgrades on that page
6) Trying out Switch games that had dynamic resolution or framerate dips, such as Bayonetta 3, as these should be automatically improved by the brute force of the Switch 2
7) Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour

It's almost overwhelming!

One more aside: ARMS 3-4 player mode is getting boosted to 60fps, which means that it's only a matter of time until Mario Kart 8DX receives a similar boost. Sweet! 30fps in 3-4 player local multiplayer in MK8 was always kind of a bummer.
05/18/25, 20:31   
Edited: 05/18/25, 20:48
GameShare is kind of crazy! The video quality definitely takes a hit with multi-viewport games, and the screens are a litte smaller, for some reason, but it seems decently smooth. I haven't tested it with more than one system or online, though...
06/06/25, 22:51   
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