A Nintendo Switch Online “Missions and Rewards” patent has been published in the US. By satisfying certain conditions in certain games, NSO can offer the player points and rewards.
[Update 1] Okay, I found a bit more time to expand on this post. According to the filing, the NSO missions could include:
- Beat a stage/boss
- Obtain an item
- Use a weapon a number of times
- Use a weapon to defeat a number of enemies
- Use a weapon to win a number of matches
- Play a number of games in a genre
The rewards could include icons, “wallpaper that can be set on the home screen”, and even physical merch. Certain rewards could be tied to certain missions—can’t be obtained with just points. You can see your friends’ rewards and vice versa.
[Update 2] Nintendo announced that by playing Splatoon 3, one can earn a “theme” to reskin the NSO app. So the “wallpaper” reward has come true, but not in way that many players want:
[Update 3] I dismissed the physical merch rewards as an unserious patent example, and Nintendo proved me wrong 11 months later:
[Originally posted on 2025-09-04 Pacific Time]
