A text-to-speech feature on the Nintendo Switch 2 appears to have no limits, as people get to grips with GameChat on the system.
After months of waiting, the Nintendo Switch 2 is officially out in the wild and people can finally test the console’s capabilities.
Many have already discovered how the Switch 2 upgrades for original Switch games are more transformative than initially expected (especially for Pokémon), while other improvements, like the Nintendo eShop actually running well, also go a long way.
One feature which has flown under the radar is GameChat, which allows you to chat with friends while playing a game, share your screen, and if you a have a camera, broadcast your face during rounds of Mario Kart World. In a boon for accessibility, the feature also comes with a speech-to-text feature and, naturally, people are testing its limits.
As highlighted by Bluesky user David Howe, GameChat’s speech-to-text tool doesn’t censor swear words. ‘CONFIRMED: you can say f**k in game chat speech-to-text,’ they wrote, with a picture showing an explicit exchange with a friend.
While Nintendo is known for being strict when it comes to online communication to protect its family-friendly reputation, this is perhaps a different case for several reasons.
Firstly, GameChat only works between people you’ve added on your friends list, so it’s a private space. It also requires players to register a phone number, so it isn’t easily accessible to young children.
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Crucially, the speech-to-text tool is an accessibility feature. In a Bluesky post, journalist and accessibility consultant, Laura Kate Dale, praised Nintendo for not censoring swearing ‘by default’ unlike some other platforms and described it as a ‘accessibility win for disabled people’.
If you want to turn on the speech-to-text tool in GameChat, you can activate it in the Switch 2 console’s accessibility settings.
While GameChat is private theoretically, it does require you to consent to terms whereby chat content is ‘recorded and stored temporarily’ on your system. As reported by Ars Technica, these stored recordings may be shared with Nintendo, but only if a user reports a violation of the company’s community guidelines.
However, these recordings are ‘available only if the report is submitted within 24 hours’, implying the footage will be deleted from local storage after a day.
Many retailers have sold out following the Switch 2’s launch on June 5, although you might have some luck if you head down to certain stores.
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