Nintendo Music is a streaming service very similar to Nintendo

When Nintendo announced its up-to-date music app last week, I excitedly downloaded it to my phone. I thought that I would finally be able to listen to the excellent score for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom without resorting to YouTube rips.

I was wrong. It wasn’t there. Nor soundtracks Tears of the KingdomOr The Waking WindOr A link to the past. NO The world of Super Mario Or Great Metroid. No F-Zero or Super Smash Bros., not to mention Xenoblade Chronicles, Rhythm Heaven or WarioWare.

In fact, Nintendo Music, available as part of the Nintendo Switch Online subscription, launched with just 23 soundtrack albums: eight Switch games and one or two from each of the company’s previous systems except Wii U and 3DS. There are some all-time classic scores here, such as: Zelda: Ocarina of Time AND Mario Kart 8 Deluxebut as time goes on, launch catalogs are very confined. For an app so clearly modeled after services that Nintendo has so far shied away from releasing its soundtracks to, like Spotify and Apple Music, it’s an odd choice.

These apps are designed to assist users browse huge music libraries and organize their listening, and Nintendo Music seems to be no different. The application is familiar and basic to apply, it is fully functional and well selected; you can download songs, create your own playlists, or browse official playlists organized by theme, characters, series, vibe, and more.

However, at the moment, if you apply the app as you would any other music service, you will face the limitations of the catalog. The same songs and soundtracks keep coming back. When I feel like relaxing, there are only so many times I want to hear “Phendran Drifts” Metroid Prime or “Water Atmosphere” z Donkey Kong countryas wonderful as they are. The official Mario playlist that contains no items The world of Super Mario Or Super Mario 64 it seems absurd.

In the here and now, Nintendo Music feels stuck. But – literally as I write this – I just received a notification about a up-to-date soundtrack, e.g Donkey Kong Country 2. Oh! Super Mario Bros. Miracle it was also added the day after the premiere. It looks like Nintendo is going to add up-to-date music at a pretty decent clip. Each app notification is a diminutive hit of dopamine triggered by curiosity, excitement or nostalgia.

Could there be a method to Nintendo’s madness? I think so. Nintendo will replace Nintendo, and the streaming-era fireworks approach of drowning the customer in content and then letting an algorithm sort it for them will never be the Kyoto company’s approach.

Nintendo is far too thoughtful and cunning for that. The company has always attached great importance to maintaining its existing catalog and carefully allocating access to it. In the case of the music app, this strategy led it to the somewhat absurd situation of trying to create scarcity where there is none; you can find almost any Nintendo music you want on YouTube, and there’s a growing cottage industry of lo-fi covers of Nintendo songs on Spotify and elsewhere. Nintendo is often accused of being overzealous in policing its intellectual property, and this app can be seen as another example.

Nintendo Music, on the other hand, honors the work by giving each soundtrack its own moment. In the absence of many personal favorites, I enjoyed discovering gentle folk jazz Animal Crossing: New Horizonsa result I didn’t know before. When Echoes of Wisdom eventually drops, the intensity of my listening pleasure will surely double. Delight, discovery and surprise are much more possible than in one giant library dump. You can have too much of a good thing, and a little focus will go a long way.

This is the epitome of Nintendo’s approach. The app is full of them, both good and bad. The Bad: Lack of appreciation for composers and musicians, sadly typical of a company that likes to present each work as if it were born entirely from an anonymous inventive mothership. The good: an extended feature that lets you loop some songs for up to an hour, and the care and thought put into the selection process. The app is filled with clever, unique playlist ideas that come from a deep understanding of gaming, such as the collected songs of KK Slider, Animal Crossing’s troubadour dog, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild a playlist focusing exclusively on topics from around the world. Funnily enough, the app basically manages the shuffle feature, changing the order of songs in official playlists every day whether you like it or not. It’s randomization and personalization the Nintendo way, that is, at Nintendo’s discretion.

Nintendo’s music is contradictory, even conceptually stupid – and its current scope is frustrating. However, if it were done any other way, it wouldn’t look like Nintendo’s work. I find it strangely calming.