Online services on the Nintendo Switch will be partly integral to smart devices according to Nintendo. Furthermore, the company has confirmed that Switch-related announcements from third-party partners will follow soon.

　　That’s what Nintendo’s general manager, Shinya Takahasi, and designer Yoshiaki Koizumi stated in a recent interview with British newspaper, The Telegraph.

　　Both Koizumi and Takahasi were asked about the Switch’s minimal launch line-up, which includes the new Legend of Zelda and 1-2-Switch. Judging from their answers, both don’t seem to be worried about the lack of launch titles, and Koizumi stated that third-party partners will making Switch-related announcements pretty soon.

　　Takahashi: Certainly we look at it not just from the perspective of what are the games available on launch day but what we have from a lineup perspective not just from this year but into next year as well. And speaking just about this year we have our launch games, Zelda and 1-2-Switch, and we’ve lined up so we’ve got great games launching in each season of this year. We’ll have Mario Kart shortly after launch, Arms in the Spring, the lineup continues after the holiday. This time we feel we’ve launched a system that has great games at launch in Zelda and 1-2-Switch but also a very strong lineup through the end of the year as well.

　　Koizumi: As you know we’ve been focused on development on first party games, but with Nintendo Switch we’ve also put a lot of energy into making third-party cooperation possible, and that includes a lot of attention paid to the development environment that we are provided to these partners as well as the middleware we create for them. Soon you will a lot more announcements from third-party partners.

　　Nintendo has high hopes for a new Switch-related online service, and it seems that this new paid service will integrate with smart devices.

　　Koizumi: So the online service is very important to Nintendo’s strategy, the most important thing for us is making the experience that much more fun for players. And so that’s what really drives us to drive us into what kind of features to include. With that in mind we have several services planned that I’m sorry I can’t talk about right now, but one thing I am able to mention to you is you will be able to use your smart device to chat with people you are playing with online.

　　And because this is a device almost everyone has we think that there is a very broad reach for this service, I think it’s a unique approach that people haven’t quite seen out in the world just yet. But because it is unique it is a bit difficult to explain all at once out of the gate, so we wanted to take a little bit of time and wait until we roll out some of the other information surrounding it.

　　​Will the smartphone to be integral to the service beyond the voice chat?

　　Koizumi Yes, we like to think as Switch as working very well together with smartphones so we’re basing quite a few plans surrounding that.

　　The Nintendo Switch will launch globally next month on March 3 alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch.