Nintendo Switch Uses Friend Codes, To Add Social Media Options

The Internet practically broke this morning when many gaming news outlets discovered that the day one patch for the Nintendo Switch brought back the dreaded Friend Codes system of adding friends to play multiplayer with.

The much-maligned system, introduced with the Nintendo DS and Wii, forced users to share a twelve-digit code with friends in order to play multiplayer games with each other. This was made even more complex when some games came with their own code, to use in addition to the Friend Code that every system came with.

Naturally, some were upset with this development. Nintendo has now released a statement to Polygon in an attempt to calm everyone down:

Several methods can be used to add friends as quickly and easily as possible:  By linking Nintendo Switch to your Nintendo Account, your friends from Miitomo and Super Mario Run will appear as friend candidates so you can easily send them a friend request. Also, we are planning it so that friends from social networking services will be listed as candidates, too.

In the future, you will be able to send a friend request to friends associated with your NNID (Wii U/Miiverse) and Nintendo 3DS.

In some games you will be able to use an in-game interface to send friend requests.

You can send friend requests to those who have played with you recently.

You can establish a friend through local wireless communication.

You can also send a friend request by using a friend code.

The important takeaways from that statement are the fact that you can soon use your Nintendo Network ID, introduced by the Wii U, as well as social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to add friends as well.

That should be a relief for some that were dreading the return of Friend Codes, but still raises questions over why Nintendo chose to use them at all in the first place.