Chinese and Korean UI is finally coming to Nintendo Switch; Nintendo Switch Online coming to the regions soon

sinonobu · Jan 16, 2019

Nintendo of Korea and Nintendo of Hong Kong announced that Korean and Chinese (both Traditional and Simplified) UI will be coming to Nintendo Switch in the very near future.

They also noted that regional settings and Nintendo Switch Online service that weren't available beforehand will be available soon as well.

http://www.nintendo.com.hk/topics/article/a_190117_01.html
http://nintendo.co.kr/news/view.php?idx=218

EDarkness · Jan 16, 2019

That's great. I wonder what took them so long to add that stuff in the first place.

Deleted member 36622 · Jan 16, 2019

Surprised the chinese one wasn't already available since they localized most of their first party games in mandarin.

TongPoo · Jan 16, 2019

Finally! Glad to see Nintendo makes progress in other Asian countries.

QuixoticNeutral · Jan 16, 2019

Good to see continued support for Traditional Chinese; the market for it is a huge global diaspora beyond simply Hong Kong, but given the state of PRC politics today and the Pokémon localization fiasco in 2016, it's never safe to take this kind of thing for granted.

Resetti · Jan 16, 2019

In the Chinese press release they said the update is coming in a few days.

lint2015 · Jan 16, 2019

EDarkness said:
That's great. I wonder what took them so long to add that stuff in the first place.

I'd imagine much smaller market and hence much lower priority. Welcome additions though.

t26 · Jan 16, 2019

QuixoticNeutral said:
Good to see continued support for Traditional Chinese; the market for it is a huge global diaspora beyond simply Hong Kong, but given the state of PRC politics today and the Pokémon localization fiasco in 2016, it's never safe to take this kind of thing for granted.

There really isn't when Nintendo closed their Taiwan operation and run their Chinese operation out of Hong Kong. It to mention many Chinese only PlayStation games are extremely hard to find outside of Hong Kong and Taiwan

Kouriozan · Jan 16, 2019

Took them a long time but glad it's finally happening.

Datajoy · Jan 16, 2019

Great news!

Sagadego17 · Jan 17, 2019

glad this is happening finally

Android Sophia · Jan 17, 2019

Updated the thread title to indicate that Nintendo Switch Online is coming soon as well.

Good news for the Switch in those regions!

frankabus · Jan 17, 2019

So I have a Taiwanese international student friend who is a part of my Switch online family membership and his account, I think, should be a US account. How would he switch his account region and still take advantage of the online membership? Is he supposed to make another profile for a TW account or...?

NanoGuidingStar · Jan 17, 2019

Wait for so looooong!!!! Finally

Cactuar · Jan 17, 2019

Surprised to hear that China is such a low priority market for Nintendo that they waited two years to do this. Id always assumed that China was a major player.

Hailinel · Jan 17, 2019

Cactuar said:
Surprised to hear that China is such a low priority market for Nintendo that they waited two years to do this. Id always assumed that China was a major player.

China is a very hard market to get into because of government regulations. Without a decent foothold already in place, Nintendo couldn't just launch the console overnight there.

Blade Wolf · Jan 17, 2019

QuixoticNeutral said:
Good to see continued support for Traditional Chinese; the market for it is a huge global diaspora beyond simply Hong Kong, but given the state of PRC politics today and the Pokémon localization fiasco in 2016, it's never safe to take this kind of thing for granted.

This is exactly why I started learning English, my language (Traditional Chinese) is no longer relevant and as a Taiwanese I simply can not tolerate simplified Chinese.

I'd rather play everything in English than simplified Chinese. Actually I'd rather play everything in a language I don't know than simplified Chinese.

Aters · Jan 17, 2019

Hailinel said:
China is a very hard market to get into because of government regulations. Without a decent foothold already in place, Nintendo couldn't just launch the console overnight there.

Nintendo is the least to worry about Chinese regulation. They have a functioning branch in China (by acquring their old Chinese partner IQUE) and their games can pass censorship easily. What they lack is motivation. The Chinese market is penetrated with imported Switch already, which is easy to find everywhere, and an official release won't necessarily bring more revenue. They also lack capability. The fact that Chinese and Korean UI support comes out two years later than the console is a joke.

QuixoticNeutral · Jan 17, 2019

Cactuar said:
Surprised to hear that China is such a low priority market for Nintendo that they waited two years to do this. Id always assumed that China was a major player.

Hailinel said:
China is a very hard market to get into because of government regulations. Without a decent foothold already in place, Nintendo couldn't just launch the console overnight there.

There's one other thing that shouldn't be overlooked: while on paper, it looks like China has traditionally not been a Nintendo market because for the longest time they didn't run offices or distribute hardware there, the truth is that China is a vibrant pirate market, and has been since the days of the Famicom. China already had the worst software piracy problem in the world prior to its economic ascent in the twenty-first century, and it's not an appealing market to get into at all simply because there isn't a culture of paying flat fees for software, especially not game software. It's no surprise that free-to-play MOBAs and mobile games were what finally cracked the market there on a large scale.

Blade Wolf said:
This is exactly why I started learning English, my language (Traditional Chinese) is no longer relevant and as a Taiwanese I simply can not tolerate simplified Chinese.

I'd rather play everything in English than simplified Chinese. Actually I'd rather play everything in a language I don't know than simplified Chinese.

I totally sympathize. I think a lot of people who don't know much about the region underestimate just how severe communist China's campaign of linguistic imperialism really is, and they gravitate to Simplified to chase the money. And in the west, it's easy to get the false impression that "Chinese" is a single, monolithic cultural identity, because that's exactly what the PRC wants everyone to believe while they do their best to stamp all over Taiwan and Hong Kong. Globally, the population literate in Traditional is actually quite large in number—one comparison I've heard is that it's bigger than Italian—but it's very spread out and difficult to accommodate as a demographic, if you are making decisions about localization that are limited to your own region.

RestEerie · Jan 17, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
This is exactly why I started learning English, my language (Traditional Chinese) is no longer relevant and as a Taiwanese I simply can not tolerate simplified Chinese.

I'd rather play everything in English than simplified Chinese. Actually I'd rather play everything in a language I don't know than simplified Chinese.

is there a reason why you hate simplified chinese so much? Political?

I'm singaporean and i knew how to write and read both simplified and traditional chinese and to me, simplified chinese is definitely much easier to go through than traditional (i mean, one horizon stroke to denote 'one' versus a whole bunch of strokes..).

Simplified chinese were created simply to well...simplify han chinese language as a whole because i think we can all admit, chinese as a language is just too difficult to grasp in written form with all the memorization and pictorial based formulation of words.

aznpxdd · Jan 17, 2019

But you can't even play on NSO in China due to its dependence on Google servers...

Aters · Jan 17, 2019

QuixoticNeutral said:
There's one other thing that shouldn't be overlooked: while on paper, it looks like China has traditionally not been a Nintendo market because for the longest time they didn't run offices or distribute hardware there, the truth is that China is a vibrant pirate market, and has been since the days of the Famicom. China already had the worst software piracy problem in the world prior to its economic ascent in the twenty-first century, and it's not an appealing market to get into at all simply because there isn't a culture of paying flat fees for software, especially not game software. It's no surprise that free-to-play MOBAs and mobile games were what finally cracked the market there on a large scale.

That hasn't been true for years. The new generation that is born after the ecnomic boom has grown to have their own income and they are more than happy to pay for videogames, which is often cheaper than other entertainment. Plus the pirate problem existed in the first place largely due to nobody could understand the games and Chines gamers had to resort to fan-translation in the end. There's a reason games on Steam, big and small, starts to support Chinese. And there's a reason why Nintendo started to translate their games into simplified Chinese (and in particular, Pokemon naming convention follows that in the mainland instead of HK).

everyer · Jan 17, 2019

As a Chinese Switch Owner day 1onboard. The waiting for 2 years really sucks.

And the eshop HK.

MonthOLDpickle · Jan 17, 2019

is this just for online or are they getting an actual eShop too?

hanshen · Jan 17, 2019

RestEerie said:
is there a reason why you hate simplified chinese so much? Political?

I'm singaporean and i knew how to write and read both simplified and traditional chinese and to me, simplified chinese is definitely much easier to go through than traditional (i mean, one horizon stroke to denote 'one' versus a whole bunch of strokes..).

Simplified chinese were created simply to well...simplify han chinese language as a whole because i think we can all admit, chinese as a language is just too difficult to grasp in written form with all the memorization and pictorial based formulation of words.

I find that a lot of people tend to ignore that simplified chinese is largely based on a draft by the KMT government in the 30s, designed to boost literacy by taking simplified characters that are already widely used by people. But no no no since it's from the mainland communist government, it must be evil, ugly and stupid.

Arguing that simplified chinese is somehow a butchered version of the language is like saying that British English is the only acceptable form of English or that everyone should stil write in Latin, because god forbid a laugurage should ever evolve. Not to mention that most people's traditional Chinese handwriting looks ugly as hell because who still spend twenty years learning just to write.

Blade Wolf · Jan 17, 2019

QuixoticNeutral said:
I totally sympathize. I think a lot of people who don't know much about the region underestimate just how severe communist China's campaign of linguistic imperialism really is, and they gravitate to Simplified to chase the money. And in the west, it's easy to get the false impression that "Chinese" is a single, monolithic cultural identity, because that's exactly what the PRC wants everyone to believe while they do their best to stamp all over Taiwan and Hong Kong. Globally, the population literate in Traditional is actually quite large in number—one comparison I've heard is that it's bigger than Italian—but it's very spread out and difficult to accommodate as a demographic, if you are making decisions about localization that are limited to your own region.

You are 100% correct, the thing is a lot of mainland Chinese actually want to go back to Traditional Chinese, my ex-girlfriend is mainland Chinese and she also feel very strongly about it, she keep tell me how beautiful of a language it is.

massoluk · Jan 17, 2019

frankabus said:
So I have a Taiwanese international student friend who is a part of my Switch online family membership and his account, I think, should be a US account. How would he switch his account region and still take advantage of the online membership? Is he supposed to make another profile for a TW account or...?

I don't think it matters. For what it's worth, I live in Thailand, have US and JP Nintendo accounts, use Thai address credit card, paid for Switch Online via US account. Their service is pretty lax.

TastyBurger666 · Jan 17, 2019

Resetti said:
In the Chinese press release they said the update is coming in a few days.

It will be coming with Firmware 7.0.

t26 · Jan 17, 2019

RestEerie said:
is there a reason why you hate simplified chinese so much? Political?

I'm singaporean and i knew how to write and read both simplified and traditional chinese and to me, simplified chinese is definitely much easier to go through than traditional (i mean, one horizon stroke to denote 'one' versus a whole bunch of strokes..).

Simplified chinese were created simply to well...simplify han chinese language as a whole because i think we can all admit, chinese as a language is just too difficult to grasp in written form with all the memorization and pictorial based formulation of words.

I mean as much as Hong Kong people love traditional Chinese, they still have no problem using simplify Chinese on exams to save time.

Blade Wolf · Jan 17, 2019

RestEerie said:
is there a reason why you hate simplified chinese so much? Political?

I'm singaporean and i knew how to write and read both simplified and traditional chinese and to me, simplified chinese is definitely much easier to go through than traditional (i mean, one horizon stroke to denote 'one' versus a whole bunch of strokes..).

Simplified chinese were created simply to well...simplify han chinese language as a whole because i think we can all admit, chinese as a language is just too difficult to grasp in written form with all the memorization and pictorial based formulation of words.

Actually that's incorrect, simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy during the cultural revolution. Which is no longer an issue in China.

As for why I hate simplified Chinese, yes it is political.
Simplified Chinese is an insult to the very foundation of the Chinese culture, it's nothing but soulless communist by-product.
There's no art or culture behind it, it was literally a ''censored'' version of Chinese, and the language itself is not even 70 years old.

Imagine 90% of the USA/UK are now communists and they all spell apple ''apo'' and the rest of the world think that's correct. ''Hir, hav an apo. It's gud fo u''

massoluk · Jan 17, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
Actually that's incorrect, simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy during the cultural revolution. Which is no longer an issue in China.

Ehhhh, I got no skin in this, but doesn't this mean Simplified Chinese works?

Imagine 90% of the USA/UK are now communists and they all spell apple ''apo'' and the rest of the world think that's correct. ''Hir, hav an apo''

Hey, the Americans are trying to convince people to say "favorite color" instead of "favourite colour" still. My phone defaulted to heathen US English. Language changes

Blade Wolf · Jan 17, 2019

massoluk said:
Ehhhh, I got no skin in this, but doesn't this mean Simplified Chinese works?

Oh it works alright, in fact it works so well that it's almost replacing Chinese altogether. It is THE Chinese now.

However, you'd be surprised how many mainland Chinese hate it, especially the scholars, teachers and students.
They know it's not their original language, it didn't originate from their culture, it was single-handedly created and forced upon by one government.

Aters · Jan 17, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
Actually that's incorrect, simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy during the cultural revolution. Which is no longer an issue in China.

As for why I hate simplified Chinese, yes it is political.
Simplified Chinese is an insult to the very foundation of Chinese culture, it's nothing but soulless communist byproduct.

Well someone needs to read more classic cursive and semi-cursive scripts.

hanshen · Jan 17, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
Actually that's incorrect, simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy during the cultural revolution. Which is no longer an issue in China.

As for why I hate simplified Chinese, yes it is political.
Simplified Chinese is an insult to the very foundation of the Chinese culture, it's nothing but soulless communist by-product.
There's no art or culture behind it, it was literally a ''censored'' version of Chinese, and the language itself is not even 70 years old.

Imagine 90% of the USA/UK are now communists and they all spell apple ''apo'' and the rest of the world think that's correct. ''Hir, hav an apo. It's gud fo u''

While I respect your political objection to the communist government, simplification of chinese characters was not a cultural revolution byproduct. The character set is largely based on informal simplification already in circulation or cursive writing, collected and published in 1930s by KMT scholars. Many of which are also very similar to simplified kanji used in japanese, introdued in 1940s. Let's also not ignore the fact that before the wide use of printing press, there are usually multiple ways to write the same characters, some of which are simplified. It's not hard to find simplified chinese characters used in classic scripts.
Its not like the communists just invented a bunch of oddly looking shit set out to destroy a language.

MonthOLDpickle · Jan 17, 2019

massoluk said:
"favorite color" instead of "favourite colour

Yea considering favorite was spelled without the U in the 17th century. With the U came in the 19th.

massoluk · Jan 17, 2019

MonthOLDpickle said:
Yea considering favorite was spelled without the U in the 17th century. With the U came in the 19th.

CAPITALIST AGENDA. It's colour!

Aters · Jan 17, 2019

hanshen said:
While I respect your political objection to the communist government, simplification of chinese characters was not a cultural revolution byproduct. The character set is largely based on informal simplification already in circulation, collected and published in 1930s by KMT scholars. Many of which are also very similar to simplified kanji used in japanese, introdued in 1940s. Its not like the communists just invented a bunch of oddly looking shit set out to destroy a language.

The KMT scholars also advocated for Latinisation of Chinese. Imagine the art and culture behind that. I think CPC tried something similar and it didn't work. Simplification was such a popular idea that scholars took it overboard.

Blade Wolf · Jan 17, 2019

hanshen said:
While I respect your political objection to the communist government, simplification of chinese characters was not a cultural revolution byproduct. The character set is largely based on informal simplification already in circulation, collected and published in 1930s by KMT scholars. Many of which are also very similar to simplified kanji used in japanese, introdued in 1940s. Its not like the communists just invented a bunch of oddly looking shit set out to destroy a language.

True, but they did force it upon the entire mainland China. From a Chinese cultural standpoint this is not a good thing.
But I guess I shouldn't really care, I don't consider myself Chinese anyways. It's just sad to see the traditional Chinese character fading away that's all.

Aters said:
The KMT scholars also advocated for Latinisation of Chinese. Imagine the art and culture behind that. I think CPC tried something similar and it didn't work. Simplification was such a popular idea that scholars took it overboard.

Pre-Taiwan KMT is one of the most divided government in Chinese history, in some ways it's barely one government.There's just too many voices in the party.
As you can see, when they moved to Taiwan they didn't try any of that stuff (latinisation , simplification etc). Which is why we are still using traditional phonetics.

hanshen · Jan 17, 2019

Aters said:
The KMT scholars also advocated for Latinisation of Chinese. Imagine the art and culture behind that. I think CPC tried something similar and it didn't work. Simplification was such a popular idea that scholars took it overboard.

Yeah. I think there exists a third edition of simplified chinese character set that is more simplified than what is in use right now, the plan was scrapped in the 80s because everyone involved realized how ugly it is. At the same time, traditional chinese characters used in HK/Taiwan are in fact simplified during the early days of computers. It is impossible to fit the characters in a 16*16 pixel grid, so most typefaces had simplified versions of traditional characters that are IMO borderline ineligible.

Blade Wolf said:
True, but they did force it upon the entire mainland China. From a Chinese cultural standpoint this is not a good thing.
But I guess I shouldn't really care, I don't consider myself Chinese anyways. It's just sad to see the traditional Chinese character fading away that's all.

Standardized education. Like you said, that's why illiteracy is not an issue anymore.

Aters · Jan 17, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
True, but they did force it upon the entire mainland China. From a Chinese cultural standpoint this is not a good thing.

But I guess I shouldn't really care so much, I don't consider myself Chinese anyways. It's just sad to see the traditional Chinese character fading away that's all.

Pre-Taiwan KMT is one of the most divided government in Chinese history, in some ways it's barely one government.There's just too many voices in the party.
As you an see, when they moved to Taiwan they didn't try any of that stuff (latinisation , simplification etc).

Actually, Chiang Kai-shek tried in 1952, but due to Hu Qiuyuan's protest it didn't work.

MonthOLDpickle · Jan 17, 2019

massoluk said:
CAPITALIST AGENDA. It's colour!

heh. I have no issues. Anyways those issues aren't really the same as Simplified vs Traditional. No comparison there.

RestEerie · Jan 17, 2019

Blade Wolf said:
Actually that's incorrect, simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy during the cultural revolution. Which is no longer an issue in China.

As for why I hate simplified Chinese, yes it is political.
Simplified Chinese is an insult to the very foundation of the Chinese culture, it's nothing but soulless communist by-product.
There's no art or culture behind it, it was literally a ''censored'' version of Chinese, and the language itself is not even 70 years old.

Imagine 90% of the USA/UK are now communists and they all spell apple ''apo'' and the rest of the world think that's correct. ''Hir, hav an apo. It's gud fo u''

your looking down of simplified chinese from a cultural and political viewpoint is no more than a Shakespearean scholar well versed in victorian 'queen's english' looking down at the common folk's tongue and i don't know, American & Australian English.

I can't comment much about the political side but from a cultural viewpoint, language should always evolved to suit the times. If you are coming from a 'cultural purity' POV via traditional chinese, then you must probably fuming at all the butchering the Hong Kong people did to traditional chinese despite them using it, what with all the '今夜吾D?', '楂Fit人' etc typed of HK exclusive terms.

I don't know about you but the idea of 'cultural purity' is pretty dumb. A 'culture' is basically just 'a way of life & consensus experienced by a group of people'. As long as a group of people agrees on this 'way of life'. Then it is a culture, despite its age.

Scoffing off simplified chinese as 'culture-less', 'artless' is like saying electronic syth music is a 'lesser' music than classical music because it is 'younger'.

HPH · Jan 17, 2019

Disappointing it took this long, but this is still good news. I was hoping for a bigger push from Nintendo especially in South Korea.

TastyBurger666 · Jan 17, 2019

TastyBurger666 said:
It will be coming with Firmware 7.0.

Yes, I know. Seems people missed this point - Firmware 7.0 will be out for everyone.

Deleted member 38706 · Jan 17, 2019

RestEerie said:
your looking down of simplified chinese from a cultural and political viewpoint is no more than a Shakespearean scholar well versed in victorian 'queen's english' looking down at the common folk's tongue and i don't know, American & Australian English.

I can't comment much about the political side but from a cultural viewpoint, language should always evolved to suit the times. If you are coming from a 'cultural purity' POV via traditional chinese, then you must probably fuming at all the butchering the Hong Kong people did to traditional chinese despite them using it, what with all the '今夜吾D?', '楂Fit人' etc typed of HK exclusive terms.

That's simply verbal slang. We do not use them in professional settings nor in education. Everyone knows how to write formally, it's just that it's unsuited for verbal communication due to Cantonese being our language. Also, I've never heard of "今晚唔D". Do you mean OT as in overtime? Also, I don't think it's comparable to your example. You're comparing English from two different time periods. Traditional and Simplified Chinese are both the same grammatically speaking. It's just that the words themselves are simplified. A better comparison would be removing certain letters from English words to "simplify" it.

It isn't just about politics (which I personally don't care for). We place a lot of emphasis on how a word should be written - it's like an art. Chinese started as simple drawings -- imitations of real life objects. For example, 山 represents a mountains. I'm sure you can see the resemblance between the word and the thing it's describing. Some words are a composition of other Chinese words. So what happens if you try to simplify it and it loses its shape? It loses the meaning that it has carried over thousand of years. That's why Simplified vs Traditional is still a contentious topic to this day. It's not just HK/Taiwan/Macau that cares about this. Plenty of scholars within the mainland argue over it. Is it an evolution or a devolution? That's what is being discussed. Anyway, this is not a topic that people can easily reach a consensus on. I'm just glad the Switch is finally supporting both. Tired of the games being in Chinese, but the Switch menu itself is stuck in English.

sugarless · Jan 17, 2019

TongPoo said:
Finally! Glad to see Nintendo makes progress in other Asian countries.

Side note but you just gave me an out of body experience as I use that YMO cover as an avatar on several sites as well LOL

But yes, great to see this coming.

SiG · Jan 17, 2019

When people mention "Traditional Chinese", are they talking about Mandarin or Cantonese?

sugarless · Jan 17, 2019

SiG said:
When people mention "Traditional Chinese", are they talking about Mandarin or Cantonese?

They are separate things. Traditional and Simplified refer to the characters i.e. writing systems, while Mandarin and Cantonese are different spoken languages (sometimes referred to as dialects of Chinese depending on your definition of a new language vs a dialect). They aren't 1:1 related - Mandarin is spoken in Taiwan and most of mainland China but written with Simplified characters in mainland China and Traditional in Taiwan; meanwhile, Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau, but written in Traditional outside mainland China and Simplified inside it.

entrydenied · Jan 17, 2019

SiG said:
When people mention "Traditional Chinese", are they talking about Mandarin or Cantonese?

We're talking about the characters that are being use in the written form of the language. Traditional Chinese characters are characters that has been written for hundreds of years while Simplified ones are like the name suggests, simplified versions of the Traditional characters. Simplified characters are used in China and Singapore while HK and Taiwan uses the Traditional characters.

The simplification is mainly motivated to make Chinese easier for people to learn and write. Even when it's simplified it's still really hard to learn even if you are chinese. There are 50,000 characters or so, with 20,000 characters appearing in the dictionaries most of the time. In reality we probably get by knowing just a few thousand characters that are commonly used.

Personally I like the traditional characters more from an artistic point of view but I understand the utilitarian angle of needing to simplify. I can't write most words without using a dictionary.

As for Cantonese, it's a regional dialect or vernacular and is not really Chinese, if you want to be particular about it. Chinese is the official dialect adopted by China to be the lingua franca.

TongPoo · Jan 17, 2019

sugarless said:
Side note but you just gave me an out of body experience as I use that YMO cover as an avatar on several sites as well LOL

But yes, great to see this coming.

Nice to see people who listen to YMO.

And it seems the update will be 7.0, hope there are more features coming.

Chinese and Korean UI is finally coming to Nintendo Switch; Nintendo Switch Online coming to the regions soon

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