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Why Nintendo got rid of menu music

Thomas Game Docs

879,582 views

The music from the Wii's menus is iconic - the Wii Shop Channel theme, the Mii Maker theme. But with the Switch and the Switch 2 consoles, Nintendo got RID of these menu themes - all you hear on the Switch home screen is silence.

So in this video, we'll explore the history of Nintendo's menu music. We'll look at early examples of menu themes, how the Wii's iconic soundtrack came to be, and why Nintendo got rid of menu music with the Switch and Switch 2.

PATREON - Patreon: ThomasGameDocs
BLUESKY - https://thomasgamedocs.bsky.social

SOURCES
Toru Minegishi 2006 interview
https://web.archive.org/web/200806141...
Nintendo 2008 GDC Wii Menu talk
https://gdcvault.com/play/426/Plannin...
Koichi Kawamoto 2025 interview
https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-swit...
Nintendo 2018 UI talk
https://nintendosoup.com/nintendo-swi...
https://nintendoeverything.com/ninten...
https://x.com/6d6f636869/status/10321...
https://cedec.cesa.or.jp/2018/session...
Kazumi Totaka 2020 interview
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-...
Iwata Asks - Wii Channels
https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interv...

CREDITS
Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (1999) Nintendo 64DD "no disk inserted" animation
Game Boy Advance Startup HD GBA startup animation
Game Boy startup screen [HD] Gameboy startup animation
BS-X The Town Whose Name Was Stolen Satellaview OS video 1
The Town Whose Name Was Stolen - Satellavi... Satellaview OS video 2
(2001) Gamecube Pre Launch party in New ... GameCube news footage
2 October 2009 Wii Shop Channel footage Wii Shop Channel footage
20 Minutes of Nintendo Wii Menu Music (Aut... Wii Menu footage
Nintendo Switch 2 - System Music - First T... Switch 2 setup music
10 Minutes of Nintendo DSi Menu Music (Aut... DSi Menu footage
Gamecube Menu Walkthrough GameCube OS tour
My Wii U Menu Wii U Menu footage

CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:45 Part 1: No menu, no music
2:51 Part 2: What does a menu sound like?
6:27 Part 3: The sound of the Wii
11:59 Part 4: Silence
18:15 Outro

20 Comments

@ThomasGameDocs Creator 11 months ago Pinned

Hey everyone!! Thanks for watching my new video!!!

What's your favourite Nintendo menu theme? Mine is from the Wii - specifically, the night theme from the Forecast Channel!!

@davidzendzian3049 11 months ago (edited)

The 3ds literally had free downloadable themes, not only giving you new backgrounds, but some even gave whole new songs! It really was a fun treat

@FaizJabir 11 months ago

I can't believe the excuse for not having menu music was a focus on performance, when the store has so much lag.

@Hi_Just_Fred 11 months ago

I think a console should try to make itself memorable, not just the games it has.

@PrivateLZG 11 months ago

Back then, Nintendo made their OS's as its own little game, now it's just an OS.

@MiniMii550 11 months ago

I LOVED the chill BGM for the Switch 2 setup screen, I wish they would’ve carried that over to the actual menu screen for the console.

@DOCTORDEADHEAD 11 months ago

I think you can "focus on games" while also having a fun menu but maybe that's just me

@Marioman73 11 months ago

Wait until Nintendo hears about this crazy concept called User Settings, where we could, and I know this sounds insane, toggle the music on/off ourselves!

@thebananaspeedruns9275 11 months ago

I like how with the WII, DS, WII U, and 3DS selecting an application without launching it will pay a unique sound, each physical game had there own sound when you select your inserted game without pressing play and launching the game, except for playing GameCube games on a Wii as all GameCube games shared the same selection sound, the Wii took it one step further by giving every physical game the ability to have a small animation (that was at most 10 seconds long) that accompanied the game’s unique selection sound

@CaptainCat101 11 months ago (edited)

I wish Nintendo would give us the option to play music on the Switch menus and stores. Heck, they made a Music App, they could just recycle tracks from their games

@Miisee 11 months ago

I understand that decision to not include music, but at the very least I think providing the option to toggle it would be nice, whether it be for the home menu or the eShop. Besides the games themselves, this was a core aspect of what made Nintendo consoles so memorable during the Wii/Wii U generations. I know a lot of people prefer the no-nonsense "games first" approach will just say "I bought a console to play games, not stare at a menu and listen to music", but I'd really prefer a balance of what we got in the Wii era vs what we got in the Switch era.

@monchilenny2761 11 months ago

Fun fact: Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound. It's pretty ironic that this influenced both the Wii Menu music and his longtime friend Robert Fripp's work for Windows Vista/7

@baconlabs 11 months ago

And here I thought it was because John Nintendo's great-great-grandfather was a musician who left the family to pursue his dreams and was never heard from again, and then Shigeru Miyamoto yelled "NO MUSIC" a lot

@mabfuentes8885 11 months ago

In the words of Miguel’s Grandma from the movie Coco: “NO MUSIC!”

@dabunginator 11 months ago

I've only owned a DSi & 3DS, but I never found the home menu to be bloated or distracting. It's still pretty straightforward & doesn't take long to launch a game.