A Google search of Reddit posts mentioning both Nintendo and Spotify yields over 24 million results. On at least the first couple pages, many of the posts are by people wondering why the heck Nintendo hasn’t made its music library, its decades of classic video game soundtracks, available on Spotify or other streaming platforms: They already have the music, it’d be easy money!
For years, the primary options for listening to Nintendo’s music have been either getting your hands on obscure CD soundtrack releases, hoping your desired games have a Super Mario 3D All-Stars-like jukebox feature, or checking YouTube for unofficial uploads (which Nintendo has been cracking down on in recent years).
Now, there’s a new option, and it’s direct from Nintendo: Last night (October 30), the company announced Nintendo Music, a new app for phones and smart devices that’s available right now. It’s cheap, too: It’s only available to users with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, which might be Thwomp groan-inducing at first. But, that’s less than $2 a month if you’re on an annual plan, and anybody who would be interested in Nintendo Music likely already has NSO anyway.
Nintendo Music is what it sounds like: an app for listening to Nintendo music. At first glance, the user interface looks essentially like a direct copy of Spotify (albeit with more Yoshi). So, here’s a question: Why did Nintendo take the time to create their own Spotify, instead of just putting their music on existing streaming platforms? Instead of speculating about the thoughts of people I don’t know, here’s a better question: What are the evident appeals of each approach?
Let’s start with Nintendo just putting its years of Mario and Zelda music up on Spotify. That would have certainly been the easier, low-lift approach from Nintendo: Just click the “upload” button and wait for the pennies of royalties to start rolling in. From a user’s perspective, this would have meant one less app to juggle, and it would have been effortless to integrate the Splatoon soundtrack with their existing music library.
On top of that, having Nintendo music on Spotify would mean it’d be part of the platform’s ecosystem of intricacies. It could participate in the AI playlist feature, so users could find non-game music that’s similar in nature. Users could get game-inclusive “daylists.” Animal Crossing could dominate your Spotify Wrapped!
Now, onto the pros of Nintendo doing its own thing, and this is the time to highlight how Nintendo Music is setting itself apart from Spotify: with bespoke features that are specific to game music.
Perhaps the most notable feature is the ability to extend the length of some songs. It’s not just playing the same three-minute track on a loop, but it actually makes a longer version of the song, so it sounds like how it would if you just stayed in a game level for an extended time and just listened to the music. I know I’ve lingered on a game screen for an extra beat because I was digging the music, and this feature speaks to that part of me.
As I write this, I’m playing “Aquatic Ambiance” from Donkey Kong Country: not the default 3-minute-27-second version, but the hour-long version. A few minutes in, I forgot I was listening to it, which illustrates the value of video game music as background music. Especially in its extended form, these songs are perfect for setting a mood and keeping you in them without distraction, for essentially as long as you’d like, without moving on to a new song or the current song noticeably looping. It’s a seamless and unobtrusive experience.
(Important to note, though, is that not all songs have extended versions: I was really hoping the upbeat “Becoming Stronger” from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet did, but it sure doesn’t.)
Another unique, gamer-focused feature is spoiler prevention, which allows users to filter out music from certain games, such as ones they haven’t played yet and therefore don’t want to hear from. This and the extended songs are examples of things Nintendo couldn’t have done, or at least couldn’t have had as much control over as they’d like, had they gone the traditional streaming route.
This is also just a very Nintendo thing to do: Fans have been clamoring for news of a Switch successor, so naturally, Nintendo… released an alarm clock and then a music app. It’s another classic example of Nintendo’s signature unpredictability and whimsy.
Nintendo is keen on keeping tight control over its intellectual property. Never again would they be burned by third parties after the questionable live-action Mario movie from 1993, or the laughable Zelda CD-i games, which also first arrived in 1993. So, if Nintendo was going to officially release its music, it was inevitable that it would be via a mechanism like this. There are some drawbacks to the walled garden approach, yes, but ultimately, Nintendo Music is a perfect fit for its target audience.