Nintendo Switch Sports

Developer(s)	Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release Date(s)
Nintendo Switch	WW: April 29, 2022
Nintendo Switch	WW: April 29, 2022
Platform(s)
Classification(s)	This game has playable Miis
Genre(s)	Sports
Rating(s)
ESRB	04
PEGI	02
CERO	01
ACB	02
USK	02
SMECCV	02
GRAC	01

Nintendo Switch Sports is an entry in the Wii Sports and Wii series in general, for the Nintendo Switch system, released on April 29, 2022. It is technically a sequel to Wii Sports Club and retains 3 sports from the previous games in the series. It also has 3 new sports. While the Mii characters are no longer the main characters in the game, they are still playable as an alternative option. It is the first Wii series game released internationally not to have the "Wii" prefix in its title.

Gameplay

As with previous Wii Sports entries, the game is a compilation of various sports, and players can create and play as their in-game Sportmates (or use their Miis). The sports use motion controls to mimic the actions of the real sport played. A few sports require two Joy-Con. Six sports (listed below) have been made available to play, with an additional sport, Golf, being planned for a future update for winter 2022. The Leg Strap compatibility for the Soccer sport was released on July 26, 2022. All sports support online play. Sports can be chosen from Spocco Square, the main location for the game. The player characters can be customized with accessories unlocked by playing. The selection of accessories and emotes are updated every couple weeks and are unlocked randomly.

Sports

• Tennis
• Bowling
• Chambara (renaming of Swordplay)
• Soccer
• Badminton
• Volleyball
• Golf (as of 2022)
• Basketball (free update - Summer 2024)

Development

Development of this game started a little while after the Switch's launch with Yoshiaki Koizumi requesting Yamashita to develop a new entry in the Wii Sports series for the Switch. The developers had difficulty deciding what to add to the game since most of what had been achieved in the earlier entries. Additionally, they originally planned to develop the title with the intention of playing without swinging the controller. After years of development, they decided to restart development since they felt they diverged too much from the spirit of the Wii Sports series.

A significant portion of the development team were new to the series and had trouble understanding the different frame of reference for developing a motion-based game. The team also underestimated the difference between the Wii's and Switch's motion controls. The biggest issue was accounting for all the natural motions to perform the actions in the game. One such issue was in volleyball where the programmer designed the game to work as if the player was an actual volleyball player, but players were instinctively swinging their arms to bump the ball, resulting in the ball to fly off in a wild direction. The other sports had similar issues. The eventual solution was found through deep learning with manual final touches for the edge cases.

Resolution and Performance

The majority of the game runs at 60fps. It runs at 30fps at certain occasions, such as during the online loading screen, Spocco Square menu, before and after Bowling matches, etc.

Additionally, the game uses AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 for performance and resolution boosting as well as frame-rate upscaling.

Updates

The game launched with the 1.1 Update which enabled the online multiplayer. The 1.2 Update added Miis as an option for CPU opponents as well as the internal data for 13 addition collections.

Nintendo announced in September 2022 Nintendo Direct that they would add Golf to the game. On November 28, 2022, Nintendo updated the game to 1.3 to add Golf. It featured 21 holes and a Survival Golf mode similar to the Bowling mode where worse performing players got eliminated.

In February 2023, the game was updated to 1.4 which added reissued collections, offering earlier items after the player collects all the current collection's item. Special items were also added for fulfilling certain conditions.

Nintendo announced in the June 2024 Nintendo Direct that they would add Basketball to the game some time during the Summer. This update would include 2-on-2 Basketball games as well a 3 point challenge mode and a 5-shot streak multiplayer mode.