Topic: How about more UI Languages?

I think other UI languages would be great. It make gaming more comfortable and accessible for more people.

@mabade Especially in countries where Nintendo sells their products through local distributors.

Although I was thinking: You don’t always need a big presence in a country to support another language, like Greek.

Which reminds me, when Nintendo started doing games in Brazilian Portuguese, why didn’t a majority of Switch games released from 2017-now get Brazilian Portuguese support via a separate downloadable PT-BR language pack? Especially Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with the release of the Booster Course Pass.

Console UI Text VS Games are another thing.
Because not all companies can get their content in native language.
For example, Sony here in Greece gives a tremendous amount of effort giving her games not only with Greek Subtitles but with Greek Voiceover options too! But other companies that make games in PlayStation don't bother enough (with a few exceptions).

Nevertheless, that thing helped Sony establish a really strong community here in Greece and boost PlayStation Sales even more.

If Nintendo wants to build communities in other countries like PlayStation was able to and reach even more non-English audiences, especially where Nintendo sells their products through local distributors, they might as well start supporting more languages, and the time to start would be now with the Switch 2.

They are supporting the major spoken languages no just english. Can you image the cost having to include every single language and the labor and cost those Devs would charge us to more to have part of their team just doing Language translation? That's not a cheap development project those people cost money and if you want to insure everyone can buy the game you can't just go off to tangent and expect studios to go under at the same time should no one buy because it cost of that much translation. Not that it could help but there are cost to doing that and the Studio must justify that cost long term as Game Development isn't cheap already as you have to pay Nintendo for them to put your game on their cart. This is the part people don't get The Devs pay Nintendo to put the game on Nintendo Carts if so but also Digital there are cost there but not much but there are for that.

All the console language strings is more or less 10 pages. Its hilarious cheap to add another 20 languages. I am not talking about games. But console ui

@SwitchForce @Flugen Now that Nintendo of Europe oversees Saudi Arabia, we could very likely start seeing Arabic language support on Switch 2, and maybe an official eShop there (probably limited at first but then extended to be a full eShop). Only a matter of time before Nintendo Co., Ltd. transfers oversight of the other Middle Eastern markets to Nintendo of Europe as well.

Actually I won’t be surprised if Switch 2 starts having Hebrew-language support and a full eShop too.

Arabic, Hebrew and Thai are possible candidates of new supported languages on Switch 2. Even if they don’t add a whole lot of languages at launch but possibly do so over time, at least these three should be added from the start.

Nintendo really needs to support Turkey and finally give them a proper eShop since the Switch has been selling better there than some countries with an official eShop. No reason not to open one up there. Turkish should also be another possible language candidate alongside the other three.

Add those four and the list of supported languages will be at 20:

1. Arabic
2. Dutch
3. English (United Kingdom)
4. English (United States)
5. French (Canada)
6. French (France)
7. German
8. Hebrew
9. Italian
10. Japanese
11. Korean
12. Portuguese (Brazil)
13. Portuguese (Portugal)
14. Russian
15. Simplified Chinese
16. Spanish (Latin America)
17. Spanish (Spain)
18. Thai
19. Traditional Chinese
20. Turkish

Nintendo’s Japanese website has basically confirmed 4 new languages will be added, as it states the ”Multi-language version” will have 16 languages, while the current has 12.

As to what 4 languages it will be is yet to ve found out. I have however been in contact in the last year or so with Bergsala (Nintendo’s Nordic distributor) and they’ve said that they will continue working with Nintendo to add the Nordic languages to Nintendo’s consoles. (Presumably Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish, as that’s where they have control of distribution.)

Could also very possibly be Polish, Greek, Thai etc.

Well the current list is actually 16 because 4 of those languages have different regional dialects that vary depending on the chosen region: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. It’s possible the 16 languages thing refers to the same list of languages, although new languages being added actually feels welcoming.

My guess for possible new languages are Arabic, Hebrew and Thai, maybe Polish too, although that last one could be because of this tweet I found weeks ago.

Now that it comes to me, I was thinking of this for English, French, Spanish and Portuguese language settings. After clicking on one of them (whether at first time setup or when you just feel like changing console language) it will open a sub menu asking you what variety do you want to use. Here’s what I thought:

English:

French:

Spanish:

Portuguese:

Yep, confirmed by Nintendo Nordics support site (unfortunately):

” Dessa spark stöds i hårdvaran:

British English, American English, French, Canadian French, German, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Brazillian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean.”

(”These languages are supported by the hardware”)

@jullebulle0505 A shame no new languages are being added tho, because Thai could be the next one considering they’re getting Nintendo Switch Online and the eShop alongside the Switch 2 later this year.

Meanwhile even though American English, British English, Canadian French, European French, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are listed separately there we don’t know if Nintendo will still make it where you use one of those languages based on your selected console region or if you can just freely choose which one you want to use regardless of selected region.

@Flugen There is cost to having multiple languages you have to pay someone to translate and program into the Switch OS. It doesn't magically appear. Also that region consumer market has to be big enough to justify doing such extra as that is time/labor/money to do so. No one is going to do that for free. Gaming markets are tight and any mistakes can make it worse so it's not they don't want all languages but there is a cost to doing so.

@Jester676 There was this from weeks ago about Polish translation: https://x.com/OfcaTheSheep/status/1894830534192189886

Not sure if it’s for the console UI and eventually games or just for marketing and website purposes.

@MrCarlos46 There has to be a market for the language region for them to do that and those job posting is because they need more options and it could be that the games like CyberPunk 2077 teams is from that language region so it would be good to get that so more of those in that region would buy into the games.

Do you have the link?