Why music will likely never return to Nintendo’s eShops

There is something perfectly simple and catchy about the Wii eShop’s theme song. It’s been remixed and parodied, even becoming the perfect sketch fodder for Nirvana the Band the Show. You’re probably already humming it right now.

While that music was so iconic, there is a surprisingly practical reason that later system shops, like the Nintendo Switch, didn’t feature a theme song. That trend will continue on Switch 2.

“Unlike back then, the eShop now has lots of videos that are showcasing the games,” Nintendo Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto said. “We didn’t want to intrude on that, so we don’t have music there.”

I asked this in an interview that took place after these same Switch 2 hardware developers did a longer press conference with a large group of press in New York on Wednesday. During that interview, another Switch 2 developer, Takuhiro Dohta, said Kawamoto had “strong feelings” about the eShop. Kawamoto followed up that he “probably booted the Wii Shopping Channel the most out of any application [on the Wii].”

Kawamoto did tell me the Wii Shopping Channel music still gets stuck in his head, which of course it does.

As for actual improvements to this quiet Switch 2 eShop, Kawamoto said on Wednesday his focus was performance.

“I wanted to make sure that it was a smooth experience. That the scrolling of the list doesn’t stall, that it’s very smooth, pages load fast,” he told the room in New York.

We’ll see more of the Switch 2’s eShop when the console launches June 5.