Nintendo is revitalising one of their favourite multiplayer game concepts for the Nintendo Switch 2 with GameShare, letting you share multiplayer games with other Switch owners, using just a single copy of a game.
This is different to PlayStation’s SharePlay, which streams a gameplay video to invited players, but is instead beaming game code to the other systems, letting them run the game on-device and with each player having a bespoke viewpoint, depending on the game.
GameShare will work both over local wireless and over the internet via GameChat, but it will be more limited in that second scenario.
Locally, a Nintendo Switch 2 can share a multiplayer game with both Switch 2 and original Switch consoles (depending on the game), but GameChat is a Switch 2 exclusive feature, so online GameShare only works with Switch 2 consoles. Additionally, some games will only have local GameShare enabled and block online play.
Six Nintendo Switch games are getting upgrades to support GameShare on the Nintendo Switch 2, most of them free.
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
- Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Games
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
- Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
- Super Mario Party Jamboree Switch 2 Edition – Paid upgrade, and no GameChat sharing
Each of these is a very different style of game. 51 Worldwide Games is packed full of boardgames, so each player can have different views of a chess board, for example. Treasure Tracker and 3D World are both isometric platformers from the Wii U with fully separate character control, while Super Mario Odyssey’s multiplayer is restricted to the second player being Cappy.
We’ve seen this concept many times in the past, whether it was the limited cable linked multiplayer of GBA games, giving small portions of games to those without a cartridge, or the same idea wirelessly with later handhelds like the 3DS – I think Tri-Force Heroes had this feature? – and it will be interesting to see just how extensively this is featured in Nintendo Switch 2 games.
Source: Nintendo
