What a lovely gift for those who had been asking for this for a long time: on November 8, 2018, the YouTube app officially arrived on the Nintendo Switch. The announcement came from Ryan Wyatt, then YouTube’s global head of gaming, and the app could be downloaded for free from the eShop, the console’s digital store.
Days earlier, the news was already circulating as a rumor, and Switch owners were eager. It made sense: until then, the console had very few video options. Hulu, which arrived in November 2017, worked only in the United States. In Canada, for example, YouTube was the Switch’s first major video app.
Come along for the details, which are adorable. The app worked both in handheld mode and with the Switch connected to the TV, let you sign in with your Google account to see subscriptions and recommendations, and even supported 360-degree videos, using the console’s gyroscope to look around: you just moved the Switch in your hands. My little gamer heart loved the idea of taking the console off the dock and continuing the video in bed, without switching devices.
To install it, you just had to open the eShop, search for “YouTube” and download it for free. The Switch had launched in March 2017 with a total focus on games, and this was an important step toward turning it into a little video screen for the whole family too.
What came next
The Switch went on to become one of the best-selling consoles in history, with 156.59 million units as of June 30, 2026, according to Nintendo. On June 5, 2025, its successor, the Nintendo Switch 2, arrived.
Source: YouTube and Nintendo, via Eurogamer.
Lady Combo
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