For all of the things we like about the Nintendo Switch, its lack of serious app or multimedia support has become increasingly frustrating. Switch owners had to wait a full four months for the system's first true media-streaming app, which finally launched late Wednesday—and for most of the world, it will require jumping through quite the language-barrier hoop.

The honor belongs to Niconico, a video-streaming app from the popular Japanese video service of the same name. This free app is now available to all Nintendo Switch owners, regardless of their country of origin. To download it, users will need at least one Japanese Nintendo eShop account set up on their Switch—and in good news, the installation is not only easy but free. This is thanks to the Nintendo Switch's utter lack of region-locking. (Niconico has previously released video apps for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS systems, but those are region-locked.)

The English-speaking friendliness ends as soon as the app boots, however. Having installed and tested the app on an American Switch, I can report that Niconico does the trick, so long as users are fine with a complete lack of language options. You'll need to tap through Japanese-language menus before watching your first video. Doing this creates a free Niconico account attached to your Nintendo Network ID.

Once you're in, use whatever system keyboard you want (English, Japanese, etc.) to search for content after tapping a "search" icon on the default GUI's left side. English-language content searches were mixed; band names like Pearl Jam and TV series like Rick and Morty immediately brought up quite a few English-language results, but searches for other musical acts (Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, Metallica) brought up scant and often incorrect results. Niconico also allows users to type comments that float over the video in question at whatever timestamp they choose, and I was able to write words on a few videos. I have no idea if other Niconico users will see that I've written the word "butt" on their favorite American music videos.

Also, an aside: this is the first Nintendo Switch "menu" to include pleasant background music, which the Switch's home, settings, and eShop menus all lack. Anybody who misses Nintendo's knack for pleasant ambient tunes on the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS will delight in the chime-and-synthesizer ditty that Niconico plays by default. (You can disable the menu music, along with the app's more annoying water-drop sound effects, in an easy-to-spot "sound" options listing.)

Ultimately, I only had to blindly tap through three confusing prompts before getting to a basic "search-and-watch" interface (along with some default thumbnail lists full of gaming-related videos). I'm happy to report that I can finally watch (some) videos of my choosing on my Switch, but the video quality is definitely ho-hum. Even the service's highly rated anime videos ran at a 720p resolution that suffered from blocky compression and artifacting, while the aforementioned American content was generally closer to 480p resolution. You'll also need to be online to use the app; sorry to any offline-video hopefuls.

That being said, I was surprised by how much I loved pulling my Switch out of its dock to take whatever video I was watching to another room in my house. While I doubt I will continue to rely on Niconico for serious media watching, this Switch-specific perk has already accelerated my appetite for a legitimate YouTube option.