Nintendo has announced the Nintendo Music app. Intended to be a Spotify-styled hub for Nintendo’s music libraries, the app offers features like extended songs (these tracks are automated) and the ability to mask spoilers.
Enjoy Nintendo game music—now on your smart device! Nintendo Music features a variety of tracks from Nintendo franchises, plus curated playlists based on characters, in-game moments, and moods. From recent releases to nostalgic classics, even more music will be added in the future.
The app is available now for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.
Analysis
It is easy to see why Nintendo would develop this application. The company wants sole control of its IP, and has waged legal battles against anyone reposting its music for years. Nintendo’s leadership also dislikes giving any other business a cut of their profit, and has resisted adding its library of music to any online service (or, in most cases, even publishing its music on CD).
With this move, Nintendo has complete control of its music library. It is all behind the company’s walled garden, and unlike Spotify, users cannot upload their own songs to make Nintendo-influenced local playlists. To court listeners, the app offers automated variations of popular features like extended songs (though it loses the appeal without a human hand extending a song, judging how to join the edits seamlessly).
But it’s difficult to see how this appeals to the audience. Do you want to listen to playlists solely consisting of Nintendo’s music? Do you want limited ability to define what you listen to or how? This may serve a limited number of intense fans who rarely listen to anything save music from Nintendo games, but it does nothing for someone with a wider taste or people who love to build a varied tracklist.
The product being confined to Nintendo Switch Online members is another odd choice: it defeats all of the above. Anyone who may have used this service for at least some songs, or some dedicated playlists, is essentially locked out of the service. People who may have casually listened to Nintendo’s library elsewhere, without a subscription, will continue to do so. Nintendo Music cannot solve the problem it exists to solve.
While the corporate motives that created Nintendo Music are clear, what it offers as a product is not.
Source: Nintendo of America
Featured Image: Nintendo of America
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