Nintendo Switch 2 is undoubtedly one of the most long-awaited gaming consoles, and the company finally made it official a month ago. The gaming giant received significant backlash for the $499.99 price tag that came with the Switch 2. The hate didn’t stop there, though. Nintendo was forced to pause pre-orders to assess the impact of tariffs imposed by the United States, which led fans to believe that the already obnoxious price would climb even higher.

Thankfully, the post-tariff pricing remained mostly the same, with Nintendo maintaining the Switch 2’s price while slightly increasing the cost of its accessories due to “marketing conditions.” The company has now updated its privacy policy, and one particular change has once again become the cause of concern for Nintendo fans.

Your Switch 2 might record your conversations, but for a good reason

Nintendo updated its Privacy Policy earlier today, and while not a lot of it has changed, the company highlighted the updates by publishing a Summary of Changes to Nintendo Privacy Policy page on its website. One of these clauses states that Nintendo might "collect, monitor and record audio and video of your chat sessions with other users." This refers to a feature that the company launched alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 — GameChat.

As you might have figured from the feature's name, GameChat will allow gamers to chat with other users using the Switch 2’s built-in microphone, which uses background noise filtering to enhance call quality. The feature will also let users broadcast their gaming sessions, even if you and your friends are playing different games.

Given that Nintendo is a gaming platform younger people use too, the company monitoring chat sessions does make complete sense. The only reason why Nintendo is getting so much backlash, ironically, is because it actually decided to be transparent about it. Other gaming companies, including Discord, PlayStation, and Xbox, do more or less the same thing and have similar security measures in place. The clause doesn’t specify if Nintendo will always record GameChat sessions.

Its Privacy Policy also includes the following tidbit, which suggests that users may be able to opt out if they need to, but that’s a story only time will tell.

With your consent, and to enforce our terms, we may also monitor and record your video and audio interactions with other users. When you use any of our services that include these or other similar capabilities we may collect your content in accordance with our terms of use and this policy.

So, while the idea of being recorded might sound alarming at first, it seems Nintendo is simply being upfront about a practice that’s already common across the industry.