Switch 2 video shows how GameShare works when playing with a Switch owner
Switch 2 players can transmit certain multiplayer games to other Switch and Switch 2 players
Nintendo has released a new video showing how GameShare works on Switch 2.
The video, which was posted on the Nintendo Today app, shows how a Switch 2 player can transmit a multiplayer game wirelessly to another local Switch or Switch 2 player who doesn’t have a copy of the game.
In the clip, the Switch 2 owner is playing 51 Worldwide Games (also known as Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics), which is one of the Switch games set to get a free Switch 2 upgrade on the console’s June 5 launch date.
This free update adds a GameShare option to the main menu. If the player chooses this, a nearby player with their own console can then choose the GameShare icon on the Switch home menu to receive the game.
Once all the players have connected via GameShare, the host Switch 2 console then transmits the game to all the other systems, essentially creating a local multiplayer session with a single copy of the game.
Even if the game is a Switch 2 title, owners of an original Switch will still be able to receive GameShare from Switch 2 owners. Switch 2 launch game Survival Kids, for example, features three-player co-op and supports GameShare which allows it to be played with two other Switch or Switch 2 owners.
As the video also shows, GameShare doesn’t simply stream a copy of what’s on the Switch 2 user’s screen to every other screen. Instead, each user gets their own view of the game, as if they were running their own copy.
The video shows the board game Renegade being played, and each player is viewing the board from their own perspective, rather than everyone simply getting the host player’s view.
New video showing how to play with other people using GameShare (From Nintendo Today App)
byu/Cube_play_8 inNintendoSwitch2
In a Nintendo Ask the Developer interview about the Switch 2 hardware posted in April, Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto explained that Switch 2’s GameShare feature uses similar tech to the Wii U, which showed one image on the TV while streaming a second image to the GamePad controller.
“In the past, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS had a feature called Download Play, where you could send a portion of a game to friends and play together,” Kawamoto explained. “We looked into the possibility of having this feature on Switch as well. But the data volume of Switch games is so large that it takes a very long time to transfer data, so we had to abandon this idea.
“So, we thought that by taking advantage of the Switch 2 system’s processing power and using the same streaming technology that Wii U uses to send images from the console to the handheld Wii U GamePad, we could share the gameplay instantly without having to take time to transfer the software.
“I thought it’d be nice if players could share games instantly and play together competitively or cooperatively. This was another feature I asked [system software developer Tetsuya] Sasaki-san to look into. Achieving it must have been a nightmare!”
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