Nintendo appears to have blocked the recording of videos on its Nintendo Today app

Nintendo appears to have blocked the ability to record video content on its Nintendo Today app.

Nintendo Today, which was announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation on March 27 and released on iOS and Android on the same day, is a daily news app.

The app provides news, artwork, screenshots and video clips for existing or upcoming Nintendo games, and aims to give users numerous new pieces of content every day.

However, as initially spotted on Reddit by user Cube_play_8, Nintendo has seemingly implemented a new protection measure in the app which prevents users from recording any footage shown.

VGC attempted this with today’s news on Nintendo Today, which includes a Donkey Kong Bananza gameplay demonstration and a clip from Mario Kart World.

We used an iPhone’s built-in screen recorder to capture footage of us looking at each of today’s articles on Nintendo Today. All the screenshot and image gallery articles recorded with no issues.

However, as soon as we started the Donkey Kong Bananza video and the Mario Kart World clip, the screen went black after the PEGI logo appeared. The videos’ sound can still be heard, and the app overlay is still visible, meaning the only change is the video turning entirely black.

It’s not yet clear if video recording is blocked on all devices – the Reddit user pointed out that while their current Android phone was unable to record the footage, their older phone is still able to record it.

The Nintendo Today app is quietly adding a DRM or similar measure that prevents the capture/recording of content. (Making it impossible to archive promotional material for the Switch 2 in the future)
byu/Cube_play_8 inNintendoSwitch2

The app doesn’t appear to have received an update for three weeks, suggesting that if this is a deliberate attempt by Nintendo to prevent recording of its videos, it’s a feature that may have already been on the app but hadn’t yet been activated until now.

The block also appears to have been retroactively added to all previous videos, even those that could have been screen recorded in the past, suggesting it’s not likely to be applied on a case-by-case basis going forward.

Assuming the change is deliberate, it appears that Nintendo has started blocking video recording in an attempt to drive more users to download the Nintendo Today app, rather than seeing its more interesting content shared online.

Shortly after the app was launched, Nintendo used it to announce the release date for The Legend of Zelda Movie, suggesting Nintendo Today could be the medium through which other surprise news may be announced in the future.