How to Stream Switch on Discord

If you’ve got a massive community that you’ve built up over time as a streamer, you may have a thriving audience on Discord. It’s a fantastic app for communications, but it’s also a viable platform for streaming. There’s an opportunity to create bespoke, more personal streams using Discord, and if you’re a Nintendo streamer, we’re about to help you do just that. This is our guide on how to stream Switch on Discord – in case you wanted to do so.

While it’s by no means the most popular platform for streaming, it can make for a great alternative if you’re just starting out as a content creator. If you stream on Twitch, you’re open to the wider public, but streaming on Discord essentially allows you to curate your audience. There’s no bottom or upper limit – you can stream to just one person if you so desire.

Are Nintendo Switch Streamers Popular?

They certainly are! If a new Nintendo game launches, such as a brand-new Pokémon game or a fresh Legend of Zelda adventure, it will easily rise to the top of the Twitch charts. They tend to perform very well for a certain period of time, even if they’re not the most sustainable games in the business. With that being said, there’s no reason why a Nintendo-only creator couldn’t ultimately learn how to grow on Twitch, for example.

It must be said that you’re unlikely to grow if the only platform you’re streaming on is Discord, but there are several benefits to doing so. If you’re a Nintendo streamer eager to test the waters and please a small crowd, then you can go live on Discord and throw out a test broadcast with your streaming setup. It’ll enable you to gain a little confidence as a streamer, and then when you’re ready, you can make the switch to YouTube or Twitch.

Sure, you may not wind up being the most subbed Twitch streamer in the world, but you’ll be able to build a following, with no problem.

How to Stream From a Nintendo Switch

There’s one foolproof, simple way to stream from a Nintendo Switch to Twitch or YouTube, and it requires a small investment. If you’ve got a PC or a laptop, you can purchase something called a capture card – a device that sits between your Nintendo Switch dock, monitor or TV, and computer, and allows you to stream Nintendo games on Twitch. It’s a very basic and simple concept but there will be a little financial investment required.

It’s a little more complex if you’re learning how to stream Switch on Discord, but we’ll come to that in a second. However, if you’ve been wondering how to stream Switch on Discord without capture card technology, we’re afraid that we’ve got some bad news. It’s really quite a complex and awkward thing to try streaming a Nintendo Switch without a capture card. There are no clean processes and they all require fiddly, complicated solutions – such as using an old Xbox One to link through a Switch to a TV and then using an app on the other side.

So, the easiest way to stream from a Nintendo Switch is to absolutely use a capture card.

Now, let’s learn how to stream Switch on Discord.

How to Stream Switch on Discord

If you need to know everything possible about the concept of what we’re talking about, check out our guide on how to stream on Discord. For now, let’s take a closer look at how to stream Switch on Discord.

Firstly, you’ll need that capture card that we’ve just discussed – as well as a computer of some kind, and a television or monitor. As the first step in the journey, you’ll need to rig up your capture card and use whatever software is needed to produce an image. There will be detailed instructions on how to do this. If you’re looking for the best live streaming software, you can download something like OBS Studio, which will give you the interface needed to compile and broadcast your stream.

And yes, that includes streaming to Discord.

However, there’s one key step involved that you won’t need to worry about when streaming from other devices or to other platforms. If you’re streaming to Discord, all you can typically do is share your screen, showing viewers your gameplay – and nothing else. But, if you set up OBS Studio (for example), you can throw together a camera, overlay, graphics, and of course, the game itself, and port it into Discord for everyone to see.

This is accomplished using the ‘OBS Virtual Camera‘ function. This is where you essentially tell Discord that your camera is the OBS Virtual Camera, and it treats the input like a webcam. By doing this, you will have made your camera, visuals, and your gameplay visible for all to see on the Discord server. If you’ve got you Nintendo Switch connected via a capture card, then congratulations – you’ve just learned how to stream Switch on Discord!

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