The Nintendo Switch eShop is a disaster. That’s something we can all agree on. It’s difficult to navigate, unintuitive, filled with games of more than questionable quality, and on top of that, it’s incredibly slow. There are many reasons why it’s like this, but there is a feeling that Nintendo should do better. Both because other companies do it better, and because they themselves have done it better in the past. And among those who think this way is Nintendo Life.
In anticipation of the Nintendo Switch 2, which at the time of writing this article has not yet been presented (and we hope it has been by the time it is finally published), they have decided to do the work that Nintendo doesn’t seem willing to do. A better version of the Switch store. And in just one week, they have created the first version of what they have called Better eShop. A better and more functional version of the official Nintendo Switch store.
Better eShop, a better version of the Switch store?
The main purpose of this store is to make the Switch store much more usable than it is today. Which, in their opinion, is not very difficult. To achieve this, they have focused on six particular features that make it stand out from the Nintendo store. Although not all of them are improvements over it.
The first of these are customizable filters for the store. Several of them are automatically adjusted to remove anything they consider spam and not legitimate video games, adding a report button to filter them for all players if there are any that slip under their radar. Another of these features is that they have added Nintendo Life reviews accessible on each game’s page, and it is now possible to write user reviews between 50 and 250 words, with a rating, in addition to adding games to a system collection. All of this is optimized to work faster, both on desktop and mobile.
Among the features that are not in themselves either improvements or substantial additions are the night mode, the inclusion of music, and the Nintendo store’s discovery algorithm as best as they could. Among the missing features is the ability to purchase multiple games at once, having to buy them one by one, but it is something they are working on while gathering feedback from players on this first version of the project.
On paper, it sounds good. And it certainly seems that they have far surpassed the work done by Nintendo with the eShop. But is that the case? The reality is that several users have pointed out that not everything that glitters is gold. According to journalist Kerry Brunskill from PC Gamer, the Better eShop filter filters all romance games from the eShop by default. Considering that games of this genre are spam and, by extension, should be regarded the same as games mass-produced using AI or recycled assets.
This demonstrates one of the biggest problems with this kind of automatic filters: who decides what deserves to be considered legitimate. Although it is true that the eShop is filled with games of practically no quantity and that a stricter filter is necessary, leaving out entire genres because they are not liked by a very specific sector of the population is, at the very least, problematic. And it would be equally so if it were any other video game genre.
The eShop: a basic disaster that works well enough
Nintendo’s job, like that of any other major video game company with its own digital store, is much more difficult than it seems. Having clear and explicit filters to work with, while not falling into censorship or arbitrariness, is tremendously complicated. And if not, just ask Steam and its decision to allow all kinds of Western pornographic games, but systematically censor games with erotic elements and great critical consideration coming from Japan.
Additionally, many of the eShop’s problems are fundamental issues that may not be impossible to solve during the console’s lifecycle, but are extremely cumbersome. Because although it may seem otherwise, the Switch’s eShop is not an app: it is a web page that we access from our console with a browser that calls the page, simulating being an app.
This already means that, out of necessity, it operates much slower than it should. At least on consoles. And why isn’t it changed to work better on the web? Because it is very costly. It’s not just a maintenance task, but it requires significant internal work on the store, which may be seen as unnecessary by Nintendo when the store itself is functional. If it works, even if less than ideally, it is optimal, and it is absurd to change it when it is perfectly possible to maintain it as it is, at least until the possibility is considered on a new console.
That means Nintendo Switch 2 could have a new store. And we want it. We desire it. We need it, even. So, what should the Switch 2 have? To start with, a complete overhaul of the application. This time, it should be an application. If we have a web call again, we will have the same problems sooner or later, at least in terms of slowdowns and issues making specific changes, which will lead to it making no sense to repeat the same mistake twice.
Switch 2, what can we expect from a new eShop?
In everything else, the key lies in two points: usability and curation. In terms of usability, this new store must be simpler. It should better guide the user, making it easy to access new releases, demos, already purchased games, and everything they want to access at any given time. In terms of curation, Nintendo must establish clear guidelines on what is allowed and what is not in the store. By creating specific guidelines on the types of games that are allowed, requiring prior approval for publication, with just this small change, we would have a much cleaner and more reasonable store.
Now, there is a problem with this. If Switch 2 is backward compatible with Switch, as everything suggests it will be, it’s possible that we will have the same store. Or if not, that there won’t be a change in content curation and, if there is, that there won’t be a cleanup. This could lead us to some of the same problems we have with the current store.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not that easy to make a good digital video game store. Not when it’s something that has to take into account many other elements, such as where it will be accessed from or how it will be integrated into different devices. Not to mention if we consider all the legacy it carries from different previous versions. That’s why Better eShop is an interesting experiment, undoubtedly useful, but in no case better than what Nintendo has done.
However, Nintendo has the opportunity to do better. It can do so with the Nintendo Switch 2. Although the possibility of not doing so, giving us the same eShop and simply saying that it already works and doesn’t need changes, is already there. However, to know for sure, it seems we will still have to wait. Even if with this store the wait becomes undoubtedly longer.