If you are planning on using voice chat for Splatoon 2, here’s an official headset with an officially nutso set up.
[Image: Hori]
Splatoon 2 voice chat will be in the form of an app through your phone.
[Image: SplatoonJP]
If you’ve been wondering what exactly that will look like, we now know thanks to Hori’s official Splatoon 2 headset. Via Nintendo Switch, you can see how that will be configured:
[Image: SplatoonJP]
Look at all the stuff you’ll need to plug in! The game’s sound comes from the Switch, and the voice chat is being piped through the phone. Doesn’t this seem unnecessarily complex?
[Image: 4Gamer]
The cable is less than 51cm long!
[Image: SplatoonJP]
Before you say, “Well, this is just some licensed accessory,” know that this headset appears to be an in-game item.
Comments
28 responses to “Splatoon 2 Voice Chat Set-Up Looks Totally Bonkers”
It looks stupid AF, but its also clearly designed to segregate kids from adults by needing a phone and subscription.
Meanwhile, things like that have been dealt with before using the mystical arts known as parental locks.
But it’s Nintendo, so they’ve got to do it ass-backwards.
Pretty much, it makes absolutely no sense. Unless the system is designed to throw all of its power at the games, so it has none left over for auxiliary systems (in game browsers, recording software or voip) and the system was already relatively cheap so allocating resources would deeply effect gameplay.
That or making an artificial barrier to keep children out of voice communications, so that they can maintain this family friendly identity.
Pretty sure I read that the screenshot button will be able to record in the future. So recording software looks like it is in the works.
Kids tend to have mobile phones these days and both the PS4 and Xbox One multiplayer experiences, both of which require a dearer subscription, are rife with children cracking wise about how lovely other people’s mums are.
If you’re going to make up crap at least put a bit of effort into it.
So then what is a possible explanation for going with this setup? Finally adding voice chat as a feature of the Switch’s online service and yet removing the inbuilt microphone that was present in the Wii U, 3DS and DS (yet hardly ever utilised) before it.
Apparently the Switch has no Aux in/out just out.
But I also stick by what I said. This is likely meant to lower the chance of kids being in voice chat and having to deal with potential abuse.
Yes, but neither of the other platforms were;
A) Designed with Japan being the main demographic (Nintendo always does this)
B) Designed as handheld devices. They can call them consoles all they want, but they were very clearly designed with mobility in mind.
Pretty sure Nintendo have shown that they actively try to keep children from interacting with strangers (friend codes and bare bones communication systems).
Make up crap? It does look stupid as fuck and my statement is clearly inline with Nintendo practices even in place today.
Nah, still doesn’t work unless you’re running off the premise that Japanese kids don’t have mobile phones and subscription services don’t exist over there.
Portability only becomes a factor if you assume players will be online outside of their home. That’s not often the case; people play online at home, therefore portability doesn’t matter with regard to communication.
The setup is cumbersome and does look stupid as hell, but that’s not in support of the statement that “it’s also clearly designed to segregate kids from adults by needing a phone and subscription.” – the part that is made up crap.
Everything is speculation, but to me it seems pretty clear that it is inline with practices used across current and previous Nintendo platforms.
Nintendo obviously doesn’t realise that many kids under 10 have their own mobile phones these days.
But in any case, it’s Nintendo: their archaic and arcane thought processes have always been a mystery.
Aww it’s a squid-looking setup.
I see lots of people jumping to the conclusion that this is just Nintendo being ass-backward or anti-consumer, but what if it’s a limitation of the hardware? Something that would have made the machine more expensive if built in?
It is a limitation of the hardware, yes – but only because they didn’t put a microphone or mic port in there.
Microphones cost crap-all, and three of the last four systems they’ve shipped have come with them inbuilt (Wii being the only exception – and remember how well Wii Speak turned out?), and while they went mostly unused in terms of voice communications, they did still get used for that very purpose. I don’t see how there’s any other conclusion to arrive at.
The switch has a mic port, the 3.5mm jack has four contacts.
The system also supports multiple bluetooth controllers, so a wireless headset is no problem on a hardware or even fundamental software level.
The real solution here, if the phone is to be used as a social layer, is to pipe the system audio via BT to the phone, then have all of the audio coalesced through that.
This solution looks like how i used to use a vcr to capture game video from a pc, before rerecording it back in.
Just because it might support low throughput controllers, does not mean it supports head sets, it could just be a real cheap and nasty bluetooth receiver. I am pretty sure that if it were an option it then there would already be aftermarket bluetooth headphones on the market, however the only ones I could find were clearly a scam (had nintendo branding in some really dodgy looking packaging).
Why bother with speculation when we know exactly what’s in the switch?
The broadcom BCM4356 DOES support audio streaming, because it’s the exact same unit as found in plenty of phones like the nexus 6.
The limitation on BT audio is clearly in the software, and even then it’s a limitation added by nintendo.
The real solution is to not use the phone at all and have the system capable of performing all these basic functions without another several-hundred-dollar device >_>
This isn’t 2000, mobile phones are near-ubiquitous.
Mobile phones and “phones that are compatible with this app they’re trying to push” are not the same thing.
At the very least they should be making a PC version of this stupid app. Now those are ubiquitous. Except there’s no need because everyone’s already using an existing PC(/phone) app instead. IE they’re pointlessly reinventing the wheels on the trailer instead of just putting them in the vehicle to begin with.
You had your chance nintendo, And you failed spectacularly. Whoever in nintendo thought using a smartphone for voice comms on a console should be fired immediately.
Derp
I actually really like the headset. I would probably just use as headphones though. It looks like the squid set up is only for playing splatoon
Well, for playing any game where you want to mix the voice chat audio with the game audio. The Plantronics headset I won from Zangief does this already, except it’s got about a 2m cable on it and takes USB power to be able to amplify the signals as well.
Well, i guess it’ll be useful for Monster hunter as well, but there’s not a huge demand for it. I was probably just going to use discord on the pc.
Can anyone make out what it says on the headset?
F O something something A?
Not sure it does say anything, there are a number of different alphabets used in the game all around the place and between different brands.
It’s just an ingame brand.
Just Imagine if you had a newer iphone and needed an adapter …… and wanted your phone battery to last ….
https://imgur.com/sdAGhdD
These look so uncomfortable to wear unless you’re a child they are way to small around the ears. I tried to use some that were this size last night. They came free with some Lynx deodorant bundle and they made my ears sore so I put them back in the box and back into the drawer of unused deodorant/show gel Xmas presents. Don’t buy these unless you have abnormally small kids ears.
Isn’t that what licensing is all about?