Nintendo recently took its fans by surprise by unveiling Nintendo Music, an exclusive streaming app for Android and iOS devices. This follows the launch of Nintendo Alarmo, a Nintendo-themed alarm clock, which debuted this month amid swirling speculation about the Switch 2—rumored hardware specs and a potential release date have been the talk of the community for a while.
When you first open the app, you might get the sense that you’re looking at a Nintendo-themed version of Spotify or similar music apps. It carries over all the functionality you’d expect, complete with Nintendo-approved playlists. There’s also some neat extra features, such as the ability to filter out spoiler-heavy tracks from certain games and even extend some songs up to an hour without just looping them.
So, what’s the big takeaway? Many of you are probably intrigued already and might even be downloading it to your Android or iOS device right now. If you have an active Nintendo Switch Online membership—even if it’s just a free trial—you can dive into Nintendo Music and enjoy all its features anytime.
However, let’s address a few issues that stand out.
Firstly, Nintendo’s decision to create a standalone music service instead of uploading soundtracks to popular platforms like Spotify might leave something to be desired for those who prefer a centralized music library. While having official Nintendo soundtracks is a treat, needing a separate app and subscription for those who enjoy other music or social aspects of enhanced platforms seems less appealing.
Moreover, Nintendo enthusiasts have dedicated over two decades to sharing Nintendo OSTs across YouTube and the internet. This makes Nintendo’s tardy entry with their own music app quite noticeable. Surprisingly, the tracks lack composer and artist credits, unlike the fan uploads that typically include these details. With Nintendo now striking down these fan uploads, introducing Nintendo Music was somewhat expected. It just seems like a missed opportunity since Nintendo could easily provide this information and aid in game preservation.
Lastly, there’s the issue of limited availability of tracks at launch. Although the app technically covers a wide range of Nintendo consoles, there are just 23 soundtracks currently available. This overlooks many iconic OSTs, even those suggested in their promotional trailer—like the Super Mario 64 OST, which is conspicuously absent.
Given Nintendo’s vast catalog of classic games and soundtracks and the time it took to finally offer something like this, fans were right to expect a more complete collection right out of the gate.
All of this leaves us with one burning question: when can we finally listen to the Legend of the Seven Stars soundtrack on Nintendo Music?
