Nintendo has big plans for the Switch's online multiplayer capabilities. So seemingly big, in fact, that it's going to start charging players for it later this year — the first time it'll do such a thing in its history of offering online multiplayer.
But it appears Nintendo has its work cut out for it.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a recently released Wii U port for the Switch, is reaping accolades. It's a great game, to be clear, and it's the first major multiplayer title for the Switch. So how does it perform on that front? Not very well, it seems.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Online Multiplayer Problems
A number of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe players are now growing frustrated over the game's underwhelming online multiplayer experience. Some report random and frequent disconnections; some report lag.
Lag, Hit Detection Problems, And Random Disconnections
Despite the many tweaks and additions Nintendo applied to the Switch port, online multiplayer seems to be the one element which hasn't improved. Lag has been a big issue of Mario Kart 8 in the past, but it seems Nintendo is handling it differently this time. As per a post in the MK Boards, while the original Wii U game required the player to see their character hit by an item for it to register, the same can't be said for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This time, players are being hit by items mid-race they don't see coming.
But that's not the only problem with hit detection. Reddit user NicolasNSane also complained about another problem, detailing his experience with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's online multiplayer over at the Nintendo Switch subreddit.
"Far too often I will land a hit on an opponent, usually with a visual cue that it landed, like my character cheering, only for the player to continue on like nothing happened..."
Lag is frustrating. It destroys one's immersive gaming experience, and it disrupts a player's competitive streak. But even more frustrating is random disconnections. One Reddit user was watching a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe multiplayer stream and noticed that connections often dropped.
"[B]asically every second game had them disconnected, seems like the servers might be overloaded," a Reddit user wrote in the same thread.
How Online Multiplayer Works In 'Mario Kart 8 Deluxe'
For the uninitiated, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's online multiplayer system relies on peer-to-peer connections to work. In such a system, players with slow connections are often the culprit for terrible online multiplayer experiences, and seeing how Mario Kart 8 is reportedly the fastest-selling Mario Kart game in history, it's possible that numerous players with unstable connections are crowding online races. Hence, the reported lags and disconnections.
That said, there's hope it could be better. Once Nintendo launches its premium multiplayer subscription service, it might allocate dedicated servers for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Of course, it's all pretty much guesswork for now. But if Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continues its sales upswing, it's almost a no-brainer that Nintendo should at least make the online multiplayer experience less terrible. After all, the game's online features might give the impression that the company's online infrastructure is generally bad. This, in turn, might convince players not to pay for a dedicated service altogether.
What has your Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online experience been like? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
