If you’ve been following our coverage of the Switch 2, you’ll know that the controllers have an extra button this time labeled C. It leads to the new GameChat feature, which is essentially Discord on Switch – with one big difference: It costs money.
Until March 31, 2026, we get to use the chat for free, but after that, you’ll need a subscription for Switch Online to use it. But if you don’t pay for it, what does the C button do? The answer is… nothing.
Polygon recently interviewed vice president of player and product experience Bill Trinen about what happens if the non-paying user presses the C button:
“You would be able to find out about the NSO subscription there and get a sense of some of the functionality.”
This means that you have an unusable button on your controller and you cannot map other functions to it. If that sounds a bit strange and somewhat aggressive, it’s worth remembering that Nintendo considers GameChat to be a killer app for the console, something Trinen also emphasises in the interview, justifying the fact that button usage has a cost by saying that it’s “part of the overall platform experience” and also states that “NSO really is a critical piece of the Nintendo Switch 2 experience”.
Do you think it is reasonable to have a button that costs money to use and how often do you expect to use GameChat?