NBA Playgrounds finally gets online play on Switch

A patch has finally introduced online play to the Switch version of NBA Playgrounds, some two months after the game was first released.

Matthew Karch of developer Saber Interactive has been quite vocal about the frustrations faced in getting the patch live, however. As spotted by Reddit, Karch has suggested that the feature has been ready to go for some time, stating: I don’t want to even talk about it. I can’t talk about it publicly but I am at wits end. Online has been functional for weeks.”

Previously he had said: We are in the midst of a long process of back-and-forth to get small matters waived. It isn’t that we aren’t working on this. In fact, getting this relatively simple patch out has consumed more of our time than making further improvements in additions to the game.

When I say it is entirely out of her hands I mean that. We were put in a position where we needed to get this game out at the same time as the other consoles and because the platform was so new, it suffered in certain areas. There isn’t even a change log at this point – is the same patch that has been sitting there for weeks.”

Karch added that it took three weeks for the studio to obtain the required exemption as the patch was larger than Nintendo’s systems were designed to allow.

Other versions of the game have been patched to support a higher number of online players, and to include some new courts. When this will arrive on Switch is unknown.

The urgency stems from the fact that prior to the game’s release, Karch had saidthat launching without online would be half-assed” and that he wouldn’t want to release the game without an online component.” Karch later said that he was unaware that the Switch iteration of the game would do just that.

We’re a small team and we’ve worked hard to deliver the best bang for buck we possibly could with NBA Playgrounds. We took arcade 2v2 basketball back from the dead and we crammed as much fun into a $20 game as humanly possible,” Karch hasnow said.

We’re committed to making the game better and better. And we’re already working on the next round of feedback. But for our Switch players, still awaiting online play – and believe us, it’s coming soon – we can do more."