Five small Nintendo Switch home menu changes we’d like to see

The latest Nintendo Switch firmware launched this week, it jumped to number 7.0.0, a whole number increase and yet delivered very little for the end user. While a whole number jump doesn’t mean users should be seeing changes, we think its well overdue for some.

We’ve put together a small list of changes we’d like to see happen to the Nintendo Switch home menu, however, at the same time, we don’t want to ruin it. The Switch Home menu is super fast, the system boots up quick and you can get from game to game, settings to settings with no delay. We love it, and everything we’ve suggested here keeps that spirit. But it’s time we saw some improvements.

We’ve left the eShop out of this, that’s a whole nother problem, which we might tackle later. Let us know in the comments what you think and what you think the Switch Home Menu needs but keep performance in mind!

Themes

Every time there’s a firmware update we see the comments, and like a sauce loving Frenchman you ask…

And we agree!

There should be more choice to how your Nintendo Switch looks. Sure you can change or mod your Joy-Cons to alter the external appearance of your console, but the simple black or white themes are a little drag.

We’re in no way suggesting Nintendo go down the route of the 3DS themes, where icons, sounds, and wallpapers are changed and sold to people. These are slow, the Switch menu is fast and anything that could impact that – we don’t want. Plus if you give the people the opportunity to do it themselves, you end up with stretched compressed JPG wallpapers, and those horrible looking mockups you see on Reddit.

Our suggestion is simple, let people decide what color they want the back to be and the UI adjusts around it. The background is already just a color, why not let people select it? Nintendo want a Switch for everyone in the house, why not let people change it to be even more theirs.

Here’s a mockup we prepared, with a simple gradient that adds some depth. Nothing huge and still would add no overhead to the OS.

If you wanted to take the idea even further, why not make the Joy-Con colours dictate what the background could be?

Again, maybe these are just more terrible mockups to add to the pile – but we’re done with this monochromatic world.

Activity Log

The Nintendo 3DS, the Wii U and even the Wii had pretty great activity logs. These logs would tell you what you’ve played and for how long, and there was even some form of charts on the newer consoles.

The Switch has this, sort of in parental controls app but still not as in-depth as we’ve had in the past and there are no overall totals.

The Switch also has time tracking in your profile, but it’s ever so basic. You can find out how many hours you’ve played for only for the last 10 or so games, it only jumps in hour increments and if you try a demo you’ll be stuck with “played for a little while” until something else pushes it off.

It’s a small feature, but it was something old Nintendo systems did well, and something the competition didn’t have. Let’s bring it back.

The News

Perhaps this just a game journo problem, we get review codes from all over the world so we need to have 4 different region accounts on our Switch consoles to redeem. That means we get four different news feeds and there’s no way to filter them or turn them off.

Maybe you don’t have four, maybe you just have a Japanese one to get the different and unique games from there, or perhaps you’ve got a Canadian one because you used to live there.

Regardless we’d like to see even more filtering options, with multiple accounts we get the same news 3-4 times, the news we actually want is lost and because all the eShop links are region specific it’s mostly useless.

Whether you have just the one region account or more, there’s a lot of noise there and more filters and controls would be nice thanks.

Is this a problem though, let us know in the below Twitter problem – perhaps this is just a game reviewer first world problem.

How many people have more than one region account on their Switch?

— Daniel Vuckovic (@VOOK64) January 30, 2019

User Icons

Firmware 7.0.0 was released earlier this week and brought with it five new icons for New Super Mario Bros U. Sorry, but that’s just a little bit lame.

Because these icons are essentially PNGs (as the Luigi Balloon World porn exploit revealed) the overhead on having more can’t be that much.

The Nintendo 3DS had a system where game creators could submit for sale a number of 3DS themes per game. Why couldn’t we see this for profile images? Who wouldn’t want to have Hollow Knight as their profile image or any of the characters from Smash?

Because as any Xenoblade fan will tell you, there are some games that just aren’t getting any love.

Oh and can we make it easier to find out which of the 5 Steve’s who picked Toon Link are which?

Folders  and Organisation

Don’t think this needs any more explanation, the Switch home menu wasn’t designed to load as many games or apps as the Switch has now and it needs some rethinking. Folders, letting us pick the grid by default – something needs to be done. No fancy mockup for this one, Nintendo has the analytics, they know how people are using the system and how many games are installed. We just need something.

Maybe you’ve heard all of these requests before, or maybe not – but what about you then? What would like you to see?

We’ve got three months til the next firmware drops most likely. There’s still time…