Last year, Nintendo held a top-secret playtest for a new service related to Nintendo Switch Online. Participants were sworn to secrecy, but leaks started dropping almost immediately once the playtest began, revealing some sort of MMO Minecraft-y thing. Unfortunately for us in this corner of the world, the playtest was limited to players from a select few countries, New Zealand not among them.
Nintendo is running another test for the same service from next week, but sadly, we miss out once again. To be eligible, applicants for the test need to have an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription on an account registered to one of the following countries: Japan, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Brazil, or Mexico. If you’re an expat of one of those countries and still have your Switch account associated with your former home nation, I suppose you’d be able to apply.
The test is expected to accept a total of 40,000 participants worldwide, with those outside Japan selected on a first-come, first-served basis—and there’s a good chance all spots have already been snapped up. (Japanese participants will be selected by a raffle process.) Applications are open until Wednesday, 07/23/2025 07:59 a.m. PDT, and the test will run from Monday, 07/28/2025 06:00 p.m. PDT to Sunday, 08/10/2025 05:59 p.m. PDT. The play test will be playable on both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
Participants are again being asked not to disclose anything from either the test software or the associated website. After what happened last time, I suspect Nintendo might be a bit more vigilant about shutting down leaks. We’ll see what happens.
Either way, I’m looking forward to when this service, whatever it is, finally gets an official unveiling.
