How to set up a router's port forwarding for a nintendo switch console

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-Switch/How-to-Set-Up-a-Router-s-Port-Forwarding-for-a-Nintendo-Switch-Console-1498000.html

by chha • 5 years ago

20 18 5 years ago

nintendo.co.uk

chha• 5 years ago

"Within the port range, enter the starting port and the ending port to forward. For the Nintendo Switch console, this is ports 1 through 65535."

How on earth can someone seriously have this as a requirement?

monocasa• 5 years ago

No restrictions on game developers from a network perspective, and if someone is so up shit creek that they're on this page then go nuclear on the router settings to try to avoid a support call?

Hamuko• 5 years ago

Nintendo has never been good with the online stuff so this doesn't surprise me in the least.

snitch182• 5 years ago

not to say they have been pretty much clueless so far...

u02sgb• 5 years ago

The method to choose a static IP is pretty iffy too. "add 20 to your laptop's IP".

I suppose all of this will work (and likely generate fewer support calls). I really hope the person that wrote this article wasn't involved in setting up their firewall!

hrrsn• 5 years ago

I pity the poor souls who have routers that can only enter one port forward at a time.

8fingerlouie• 5 years ago

Within the port range, enter the starting port and the ending port to forward. For the Nintendo Switch console, this is ports 1 through 65535.
Set the protocol as UDP.

Yeah, that's gonna be a hard pass from here.

no uPnP/NAT-PMP, and despite keeping gaming consoles on their own VLAN they will not have ports opened.

pfSense and NextDNS takes care of keeping the devices in check on the inside.

dusted• 5 years ago

but but.. what about the other services I wanna put on the Internet?

zinekeller• 5 years ago

Don't worry, it's only UDP forwarding! /s

jeroenhd• 5 years ago

You've got a Switch, why would you want to do anything else? You should play more switch games instead, duh!

ageitgey• 5 years ago

I know this is posted to look shocking, but this isn't something that consumers need to do. This is probably some random old article buried in the support wiki that they don't actually use.

I've had a Switch since launch day (~5 years ago) and have played online in numerous locations and with many internet configurations. Nothing about its online services requires port forwarding or any kind of custom network configuration.

12ian342• 5 years ago

Strange, I couldn't play a game with a friend and after we both did this and only this, it worked.

Macha• 5 years ago

Caveats:

This may be required if:

* your router does not support upnp

* One of the players is behind cgnat

cassianoleal2• 5 years ago

* You have disabled UPnP on your router because it's a horrible security mess.

AndyJames• 5 years ago

It's official support document on Nintendo's official website about their newest console. There's not "posted on" date so it's current. Maybe it's not required but it's recommended by Nintendo which is bad and it would still be bad 5 years ago on lunch of the console. It's not like in 2017 it was OK to open all ports on your router.

12ian342• 5 years ago

Online play "works" with "just" 45000-65535 open. Probably fewer.

AdmiralAsshat• 5 years ago

Back in the PS3 days, I had to do some stuff like this when I disabled UPnP on my router. Random games would just bomb out when I tried to connect to their online multiplayer components and throw cryptic error messages. Then I'd spend time googling what ports the specific game was trying to use and opening them up on the router.

Luckily I haven't had any such problems with the PS4 so far. UPnP has been off on my router since day 1 of getting it and the PS4 seems fine. I've only had a Switch for a little while (haven't really ventured online yet except to the e-shop); I really hope that's not something I'll have to start doing again.

cassianoleal2• 5 years ago

Also worth mentioning that the Switch doesn't support IPv6 so if you're behind CG-NAT or have more than 1 console on your network (or want other services to use some of those ports), you're out of luck.

How to set up a router's port forwarding for a nintendo switch console

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