Towards the end of 2018, Nintendo released a new version of the NES/Famicom controllers for the Switch that were made for the Nintendo Entertainment System—Nintendo Switch Online service.
One feature about the Famicom (Japanese) variant of the controller is that there’s a microphone hole over on its top left corner. This mic hole isn’t just there for a show, Nintendo’s engineers but an actually functioning microphone on the inside, which is compatible with a few of the Switch Online retro games.
While it’s cool that Nintendo made sure to pay attention to all the details, it’s a bit disheartening a mic made it into this controller and not even the Switch’s main controllers: the Joy-Con and Pro Controller. Nintendo has never explained why it opted not to do this, but a rumor surfaced recently that suggests a mic was actually planned to be implemented into the Pro Controller, but these plans fell through during development. Had Nintendo gone through with these plans, the much-criticized Switch Online app which Nintendo uses for voice chat in some games may very well have never existed.
