Despite its portable offerings, Nintendo Switch won’t have Streetpass or Miiverse

It’s been a defining feature of the 3DS online experience for years, but Nintendo’s latest piece of hardware won’t be getting the same social treatment.

That’s because the newest gaming beast to come out of Nintendo HQ, the Switch, isn’t a portable according to the company: it’s a console with portable features. I disagree, but who am I to tell Nintendo what their own product is!?

Streetpass and Miiverse, two highly celebrated and popular social features on the 3DS, were thought to be on their way to Switch considering the nature of the console, and its ability to service on-the-go gamers.

Throw in rumours of a Pokemon game making its way to the new hardware, and you wouldn’t be alone in thinking the Switch is a handheld first, console second, and as such it would get similar 3DS features.

While we know little in the way of Switch’s online services, pricing structure and community features, we do know that it will have its own centralised, console-like offering, one that differs from the portable services of the 3DS.

We know this by way of PR Assistant Manager David Young, who told Venture Beat that Streetpass and Miiverse won’t be making their way to Switch.

‘“I can answer that we’re not going to be using Miiverse for Nintendo Switch,” Young said.

Young iterated by saying that the exclusion of StreetPass played into the idea that the Switch was a home console, not a gaming console.

Miiverse’s exclusion, on the other hand, is harder to grasp: it’s a social platform available on the Wii U and 3DS.

Interestingly, Nintendo has said that the Switch’s social aspect will rely on other platforms, not the Switch’s own internal offering. That means we gamers could be forced to register for third-party social media platforms in order to utilise certain console features.

Nintendo Switch launches in Australia on March 3.

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