Last week's Nintendo Direct was a big hit with, well, pretty much everybody. The first new Mario Strikers game in more than a decade, a western release for Live A Live, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC. All of that, and the highlight might well have been the Switch is getting its very own version of Wii Sports. The inventinvely-named Nintendo Switch Sports will be here on April 29, 2022, but some of you will get the chance to play it this weekend.
Nintendo is holding a play test for the game and anyone can apply, providing you have a Switch or access to one over the course of this weekend. Sadly, you won't be able to play Switch Sports non-stop for the entire weekend if you are lucky enough to be welcomed into the play test. The game will be playable for five 45-minutes windows between February 18 and February 20.
Other than only being able to play for a grand total of three hours and 45 minutes if you're free during every available window over the weekend, there's another little bit of bad news. Nintendo doesn't want you sharing anything about your experience, whether it be good or bad. “By downloading and participating in the Nintendo Switch Sports Online Play Test, you agree not to publicly share any details from this online play test,” a clause on the sign-up page reads.
Nintendo can partly prevent you from doing that by disabling the ability to use its in-built capture tools while playing Switch Sports, but not if you're using external-HDMI capture tools. What the sign-up page doesn't explain is what might happen if someone does share screenshots and videos over the weekend and Nintendo catches them. Perhaps you'll be blacklisted from future Nintendo play tests.
This isn't out of place for a beta test, or a play test in this case. The point of having it is to unearth any problems before launch, something Nintendo will want fed back directly to it rather than shared for the world to see on Twitter. Seems a little unfair when those Nintendo execs were allowed to play Switch Sports volleyball in the middle of a Direct, though.