BODY: Nintendo's quietly excellent music streaming service just got a lot more convenient. On June 2, the company rolled out a major update to Nintendo Music, finally bringing the service to web browsers and adding support for in-car listening through Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Until now, Nintendo Music was locked to its dedicated smartphone app — a limitation that frustrated subscribers who wanted to listen at their desks or pipe soundtracks through their car stereos. The new browser version means anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online membership can now pull up Mario, Zelda, or Splatoon soundtracks straight from a tab while working.
The car integration is arguably the bigger quality-of-life win. With Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support, drivers can navigate Nintendo Music's growing catalog through their dashboard displays without fumbling with a phone. It's a feature that competitors like Spotify and Apple Music have offered for years, and its absence had been a notable gap.
Nintendo Music launched in October 2024 as a perk for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, offering official soundtracks across the company's catalog along with features like spoiler-blocking filters and extended loop playback. The service has steadily added new soundtracks since launch, though Nintendo has been characteristically tight-lipped about subscriber numbers.
The insider take
In Japan, Nintendo Music has been positioned less as a Spotify competitor and more as a fan service bundled with Switch Online — which is partly why the rollout of basic features like browser and car support has felt so leisurely. Nintendo tends to release things when they meet its internal polish standards rather than racing to feature-parity, and the gradual expansion reflects that philosophy. With the Switch 2 era now in full swing, expect Nintendo to keep slowly building out the service as a long-tail value-add for its subscription ecosystem.
Originally reported by AUTOMATON (Japanese).