Nintendo has unveiled the technical specifications for the Switch 2 (via Digital Foundry), and the new console is a significant upgrade over its predecessor. After going hands-on with the machine myself and seeing the wide range of games that have been announced for it, that’s no surprise, but it’s still exciting to see a Nintendo console hold its own like this.

It has long stopped competing in the technological arms race fought by Sony and Microsoft, but Nintendo fans still want its hardware to be powerful enough to run both its vast library of exclusive titles and third-party heavy hitters. With the original Switch, you had a lot of those, but experiences like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Doom Eternal don’t run or look very good, while some publishers only ever released their games via cloud streaming.

But despite its powerful innards, Digital Foundry has confirmed that system memory will not only be set aside for games, but also general functions across the machine that players end up making use of. This is par for the course, and much like previous Nintendo consoles, dev teams will only have access to a certain amount of memory before hitting a wall.

With the Switch 2, however, there is a worry that new features like GameChat could end up having a demonstrable impact on performance when used with certain games. As noted by Digital Foundry: "We'll be interested to see how GameChat may (or may not) impact game performance as this does seem to be an area of developer concern."

In promotional footage for this feature, which is activated by pressing the ‘C’ button on the Joy-Con to join a voice/video call with friends, the framerate on streamed gameplay appeared to be incredibly low and could be indicative of how it performs in real world conditions. You are asking Switch 2 to fulfil the role of something like Discord or OBS while still running games at full efficiency, so something has to give.

Developers have already raised concerns about this feature taking away from resources it might otherwise need, a worry that Nintendo has countered by providing emulation tools for studios that allow them to simulate API latency and L3 cache when GameChat is active. If the performance hit is noticeable enough that developers need to test for it and work around it, that could end up being an issue.

It reminds me of when the Xbox One initially launched with the Kinect as standard, and much like the Switch 2’s GameChat, system resources were set aside that would otherwise count elsewhere. During its early years, Microsoft’s console was dragged for so many titles hitting 720p resolution and no higher, lagging behind the competition thanks to a peripheral that so few of its owners wanted anything to do with. I can see GameChat getting plenty of use by Switch 2 owners once it becomes a normal facet of using the console, but knowing before it is even out that it risks throttling game performance isn’t a good look.

Only time will tell whether GameChat will seriously risk holding back the Nintendo Switch 2. If it does, I’ll just stick to chatting with my friends on third-party applications while we play a cheeky round of Mario Kart World.