Day 1 Nintendo Switch OS Update Details
If you’ve been an early adopter of gaming hardware for the past few years, the idea of a day one system update won’t come as a huge surprise. Back when the Xbox One launched, it required a connection to the Internet just to play games. It’s not quite that extreme with the Nintendo Switch, but for full functionality you’ll definitely want to get that update started as soon as you get home.
First things first, if your main objective is to throw in a physical copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and get right to playing the game – you can! The system won’t prevent you from playing that game without an update (the press have been playing it just fine even with the update not available). Nintendo has also announced that the system update can be downloaded in the background while you play, so that’s what I plan on doing. But, what does the update contain?
The biggest part of the day one system update is the eShop. In order to connect to the service and download digital games, you will need to update your Switch. If your plan was to go to a midnight launch, grab your Switch and run home and download a game, well, you might be waiting awhile. No word on how big the update file is, but there’s a good chance Nintendo’s servers will melt down with everyone trying to login at once. There is precedent for this. The Wii U’s system launch was far from ideal, with some people complaining the system update took hours. Now, we hope Nintendo’s learned from that mistake and that this update is much smaller and faster, but there’s really no way to know how slow the downloads will be until it’s out in the wild.
If you purchase a shiny new copy of Super Bomberman R and want to get some online matches under your belt, you’ll also need to the system update. No online gameplay will be allowed without the system update. The same goes for sharing images to social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
One of the cool things you’ll be able to do with the Nintendo Switch is link it to your Nintendo Account and Nintendo Network ID. This will give you access to your eShop wallet that’s already on your Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems. If you have money in there, you can access that on your Switch to download some new stuff, but not until (you guessed it) you update your Switch.
The last thing that will be added via the system update is the ability to connect to hotspots that require authentication. This is common in public spaces like hospitals and hotels. Since the Switch doesn’t currently have a web browser, Nintendo has created a small Applet that will detect the authorization page and allow you to enter in the username and password needed to connect to wi-fi.
One thing the system update won’t give you on launch day is access to the Virtual Console. Nintendo announced earlier today that it won’t be available at launch and that they’ll make announcements in the future. Booooo!
All things considered, this seems like fairly standard stuff. It’s unfortunate for some that they’ll have to wait longer to play their launch systems if they decide to go digital, but for many it shouldn’t be an issue at all as the update can take place in the background. Unless the update is super speedy, I know I’m not going to wait for it to finish. I want to get lost in Hyrule as soon as humanly possible.
[Source: Business Insider]
Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.
