Nintendo launches new music app for Nintendo Switch Online ...
Michael McWhertor is a journalist with more than 17 years of experience covering video games, technology, movies, TV, and entertainment.
Nintendo launched a new music-streaming app on Wednesday that lets fans revisit some of the game maker’s most beloved tunes, ranging from Switch games like Super Mario Odyssey and Splatoon 3 back to NES classics Metroid and Super Mario Bros. Nintendo Music — not a sequel to Wii Music — is exclusively available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, and can be downloaded now for Android and iOS devices from the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, respectively.
The Nintendo Music app behaves a lot like established music-streaming services like Spotify. Users can browse by game, platform, and character, or throw on mood-based playlists. Nintendo Music will let users loop songs for up to an hour, create their own playlists, and download tunes for offline listening. The app even has a spoiler setting that will prevent you from hearing songs from boss battles or big moments you might not have encountered yet.
Nintendo Music’s selection is pretty meager, compared to Nintendo’s massive game catalog. But it does include some genuine bangers. In addition to having “Jump Up, Super Star!” on tap, Nintendo Music offers the Wii Shop Channel background jingle to supplement any style of shopping you’re doing.
Here’s the full list of soundtracks available on Nintendo Music at launch:
Nintendo Switch
Wii
Nintendo DS
Nintendo GameCube
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo 64
Super NES
Game Boy
NES
Nintendo says that more tracks will be added to Nintendo Music over time. The app’s launch trailer highlights games like Wii Sports, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Splatoon 2, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Donkey Kong Country 2, and F-Zero X as future additions.
Unlike other game publishers, Nintendo has resisted putting its game music on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music in favor of its own dedicated app. The company has also aggressively gone after YouTube channels that republish its game music; in 2022, Nintendo hit a popular music channel known as GilvaSunner with thousands of copyright strikes, forcing the channel offline. An alternative, of sorts, known as SilvaGunner, still hosts high quality rips of great video game music.
