Nintendo has finally revealed the function of the Switch 2’s mysterious C button.
GameChat is a voice chat function that’s been planned and designed in such a way that players can just activate and deactivate it on impulse.
As Nintendo demonstrated in the Switch 2 Direct, when you’re playing online with two or more other players, you can just press the GameChat button to activate voice chat.
GameChat works whether the console is docked or undocked, and there’s a solution even if you’re playing far from the screen. Nintendo claims that GameChat will recognize your voice, and amplify it to the other players through the microphone.
More interestingly, it also has some noise cancellation function. So even if you’re playing somewhere noisy, and that could include if you’re playing the game loud yourself, the other players should still be able to hear you.
We’re certainly curious how well the technology will work in practice. As we have seen before, Nintendo makes promises that generally turn out to be true, although there may be some small provisos around it.
Since this is a multiplayer function, four players can also share their player screens with each other. You can also change the screen sizes on the fly, so that you can, for example, help each other out while playing games.
There will also be a Nintendo Switch 2 Camera that you can attach to the top USB-C port so that you can actually show yourself playing with other players.
GameChat will be free at launch, but after March 2026, it will be part of the many services available with a Switch Online membership.
Naturally, GameChat invites many questions about safety, but we think Nintendo has covered their bases pretty well. You have to invite players on your friend list to start GameChat sessions. There are also report functions in place, in case you added someone in your friend list who turns out to not be a friend at all.
Lastly, the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls App will be updated so that parents or guardians can control and approve how their children will be able to play with GameChat.
And this is where we acknowledge the people who shared accurate rumors after all. LiC on Famiboards was essentially spot on, even if he didn’t know or share all the details.
But it may surprise you to learn that our Chinese speaking friend from September, 小宁子 XNZ, correctly predicted GameChat’s USB-C camera after all. With this great mystery finally solved, all that’s left to figure out is where to find friends who you can GameChat with.
