Topic: How about more UI Languages?

I know... most of the people can understand English but that is not the only language out there! Also the console should be controlled by small kids also.

Switch didn't have support for lots of languages (such as Greek for example).
A lot of kids in my country don't know English at smaller ages (less than 13), so PlayStation is the default choice here in Greece. But in the last generation even Microsoft supported Greek language.

Does anyone have a hint if Nintendo will support more languages in this new generation of hardware?

@Flugen With Nintendo expanding into Thailand, I’d expect Thai to be the next UI language, eventually also going into games.

And who knows, Nintendo might expand into other countries in the coming years. Right now I’m guessing more into Latin America, the European Union, Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia.

I still remember the time when programs on PC literally allowed you to add your own language manually. It was a pain but it's better than nothing. I remember adding one in Skype back in the day.

I still don't get why companies are so reluctant on adding more UI languages or giving users more UI customisation options. It's not like doing that is really expensive either.

Speaking of UI languages, I was thinking that the Switch 2 should split the separate regional variants of English, French, Spanish and Portuguese into their own language options like PS4 and PS5 rather than determining them by region, basically splitting them into these options:

1. English (United Kingdom)
2. English (United States)
3. Español (España)
4. Español (Latinoamérica)
5. Français (Canada)
6. Français (France)
7. Português (Brasil)
8. Português (Portugal)

It's a good motivation for kids to learn English

@Princess_Lilly But then there are those that just want to play in their native language, or their mother tongue. An example of this is with Latin America and Pokémon games, because until recently with Pokémon GO and pretty soon Legends Z-A, Pokémon games never had separate Latin American Spanish translations and people just played in English to avoid having to use the European Spanish translations.

@MrCarlos46 Actually now that you say that, exposing Latin American kids to real Spanish sounds like a fantastic idea, doesn't it? Etymologically speaking, that should provide a huge boost to speaking the language

@Princess_Lilly There’s a reason people started a whole campaign to get The Pokémon Company to properly translate Pokémon games for Latin America: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/pokemon-localization-latin-...

EDIT: I did not realize it said they also wanted Brazilian Portuguese translations.

@MrCarlos46 From what I read, it sounds like more of a Latin American version of Spanish problem, with it having distorted meaning. The example phrase is not an insult in proper Spanish, and this is exactly what I mean - being exposed to the language early can help you better understand it, whereas being exposed to distorted dialects can hinder the language learning.

I understand why people would like to have the "familiar" version, but starting a campaign for it sounds a bit unserious

@Princess_Lilly They wont go near. Imaging as an English speaker having to choose between a console that you understand and a console that you wont. In Greece, Playstation and XBOX has Greek in all the interface. Also most of their first party games have either Greek translation or Greek Subtitles.

So how can a parent choose a Nintendo where his kid wont fully know what button to press and to do what.

Come in the position of non English Speakers.. Imaging your self opening a console and ALL the option are in... French.

The sad thing is that this is trully cheap. To translate a document from English to another language comes in less that 10 eyros per page from a translation office.

@Flugen Nintendo doesn’t even have a big presence in Greece, so it will be a while before Greek becomes a UI language and eventually for games.

BTW did you also see the first reply I added after you posted this topic?

@MrCarlos46 I know. Its like... the chicken made the egg or the egg made the chicken.

How to build a big presence if even the smallest issue... a ui interface is not in the native language of a country?

XBOX does not have a presence here also (way smaller than Nintendo) but it tries. TBH my son even though we have a switch, he prefers XBOX just for this most of the times.

@Flugen It will probably be years before Nintendo even decided to add more languages like Polish, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, etc.

@Flugen I would try to figure out the French, then. This is literally how I learnt English, I was exposed to gaming from a very young age, and even before private lessons, I already knew some basic words.

But I don't think that would be the case with Spanish. I mean the Latin Spanish users already know the slang/distorted version, so they would just need to adjust to the real Spanish. And I think it has multiple benefits, like knowing busines Spanish (the one the being used at work) would increase their chances to be employed.

And soon there will be no choice with Xbox closing their operations and Sony slowly giving up the fight against Nintendo, not saying it's good or bad, but that's what will probably happen unless Sony snaps out of it and remembers how it ruled the industry with PS1/2/3

@Princess_Lilly Xbox isn’t actually ceasing operations. Sending their games to other platforms also allows them to reach other console owners and expand the Xbox ecosystem even if it’s not actually with an Xbox.

@MrCarlos46 true but they probably won't release a new Xbox console, so they'll pull a Sega and just release games for all platforms. The way it is now, MS won't catch Sony and Sony won't catch Nintendo

@Princess_Lilly A New XBOX is already on the plans... I think the codename is XBOX Prime

@Flugen If Nintendo adds another slew of languages for the UI and games starting with Switch 2, there will be a pretty big list of supported languages:

1. Arabic
2. Czech
3. Danish
4. Dutch
5. English (United Kingdom)*
6. English (United States)
7. French (Canada)
8. French (France)
9. German
10. Greek
11. Hungarian
12. Indonesian
13. Italian
14. Japanese
15. Korean
16. Norwegian
17. Polish
18. Portuguese (Brazil)
19. Portuguese (Portugal)
20. Romanian
21. Russian
22. Simplified Chinese
23. Slovak
24. Spanish (Latin America)
25. Spanish (Spain)
26. Swedish
27. Thai
28. Traditional Chinese
29. Turkish
30. Vietnamese

• (IDK why this one doesn’t appear as an asterisk) = Sometimes it’s just English (United States) stored on a separate "en_GB" language file, and even though the British English translations just use the North American English script with changed terms or names to fit the UK market, American spelling is retained.

Its not that much of a cost. Also its something worth investing for future generations also. Its a -one time- cost with long lasting benefits.

Yes. There just needs to be a market big enough to justify supporting Arabic, Czech, Danish, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai Turkish, and Vietnamese as new languages, and depending on the countries, I think there might be.

This could also be the chance for Nintendo to officially enter Ukraine and release the Switch 2 and the eShop there, which is also the perfect opportunity to introduce the Ukrainian language.

I forgot to list Finnish as a language they can support on Switch 2.

That list I put in the previous reply was initially 30 languages, but if Nintendo expands to Ukraine with the Switch 2 and also add Finnish support, then the list of supported languages would be updated to 32 because of the other few I listed above as well as Ukrainian and Finnish. Should I update the list on the previous reply to reflect that?

I know, adding 14-16 more languages at once with their upcoming console would be too much of a stretch, but it’s already a great way for Nintendo to enter other markets and support more languages.