Nintendo's free mystery Switch feature trial: how to sign up

Some 10,000 people will get to try a new feature of the Nintendo Switch — and sign-ups for the beta test are about to open up.

You have five days to volunteer and only need to fill in a form on the Nintendo website.

Sign-ups start at 4pm on Thursday, October 10. This will stay active until 3.59pm on Tuesday (October 15) but may shut down early if Nintendo receives enough entrants — a likely outcome.

But what will you be testing exactly? We don’t have much of a clue.

Nintendo describes the “playtest” as focused on “a new feature for the Nintendo Switch Online service”.

The obvious assumption is this feature will be a significant part of the Nintendo Switch 2 experience, even if it is also eventually available on today’s Nintendo Switch.

Introducing a new key feature solely for a console whose successor may be announced any day now would be unusual.

Those in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the US, and Japan are invited to enter.

It’s first-come, first-served for us in the UK, while Japanese entrants will be put into a lottery.

There are only a few requirements. Applicants must be 18 or older and need an active Switch Online subscription and the Expansion Pack sub.

Could this be a hint as to what the new feature is? The Expansion Pack includes access to classic games from the Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance and Sega Mega Drive back catalogues.

Is Nintendo expanding this part of its online service further or its cloud game streaming? It’s one possible outcome. Only a few titles use Nintendo Cloud Streaming presently, including A Plague Tale: Requiem and Resident Evil 3.

The actual testing period of this playtest begins at 2am on October 24 and ends at 12.59am on November 6.

You’ll be asked to download test software to your Switch. We recommend signing up as quickly as possible if you want to get involved.

Just this week, Nintendo announced Alarmo , an £89.99 alarm clock that wakes you up to 35 sounds cribbed from five Nintendo games: Super Mario Odyssey , The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Pikmin 4, Ring Fit Adventure and Splatoon 3.

It’s available to pre-order now but won’t ship until 2025. However, this alarm clock does not rely on Nintendo Switch software. We don’t think the playtest relates to Alarmo directly.

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