Topic: The Nintendo Switch Online Subscription Service Thread

@MisterPi I think the biggest factor regarding Mario Tennis Aces co-op challenge is the Swing Mode requirement. More people would likely play it if you could use normal controls.

@Grumblevolcano well I know I would. Played it once and not much of a swing mode fan. Love the online tourneys tho

@NEStalgia Part of what could help is overlay in the online games, and Smash is the biggest factor in this. It's common for Nintendo fans to hop into the same titles, and I know for sure that ARMS and Splatoon 2 is a good example. Smash alone is probably going to be a driving force for the online.

Personally, I doubt we'll see massive player drops until some time after Smash. I'm expecting a lull in October and November, with a spike in subscriptions after December. It'll be a gradual drop some time after, if there is one. TBH, I'd be fine with them moving Online and Cloud Saves as free while keeping Voice Chat and the retro library as a paid service, but I doubt they'd give it such a major overhaul soon.

I have a question, if i have an individual suscription, and my friends(they don't have a nintedo account, only a user in my nintendo switch) come to my house to play with me, can we play online splitscreen?

@Marco2124 if you launch the game using an account with a sub, you should be off to the races. Provided that a game doesn’t require another controller to choose an additional profile (which I don’t remember a game with that requirement), the profile launching a game will be the one the needs a sub.
Hope that helps!

@HobbitGamer ok thanks

The problem is that subscriptions are trying to plug a hole in the changing market. It's not necessarily about online play it's about the way the market has changed from a up-front one off expense to an ongoing expense. I'm talking patches, free content update, security, digital store fronts, companion apps and so on.

It's easy to say that you're happy to pay a subscription for Netflix but you need to remember that this is a market that has already gone through this kind of change. 10+ years ago you'd buy the game on a disc or cartridge and that'd be it. Because there were zero ongoing costs to the developers, platform holders and publishers that model made sense. But these days the costs don't end when the game goes gold. So the choice is to either absorb entirely those ongoing costs in the initial cost of the game or find other ways to generate revenue. And with people not wanting to pay more at the checkout and a thriving used game market? There was really only one possible outcome.

It's kinda like the pickle that some energy companies find themselves in. They build grids and markets based on the idea that you'd pay for every kwh of power you consume. That worked fine. But then people started to install solar panels, suddenly some people were paying next to nothing because they weren't consuming that much power. But the energy company still needs to pay for the maintenance of the network itself. So, obviously, they start charging more for simply being connected to the network.

When a revenue stream is broken companies have to find other ways to pay the bills.

I agree that those are ongoing costs that didn't exist before. Those are still not good reasons for a subscription model.

If we break down that list:

• Patches
  Of course they should patch buggy code. This is part of the ordinary product development and is nothing new. If you have bought an experience, you at least expect to go trough it without it breaking.
• Free content updates
  They can release it as DLC if they want. Still, those updates aren't really free if you have to pay a sub, is it?
• Security
  Also part of ongoing costs to have a platform. Are you seeing Microsoft trying to make you sub for win 10?
• digital store fronts
  This is just an absurd argument. They sell things in those shops while bypassing every middleman in the retail sector. No need for complex transporting, no need to have factories filling cartridges with content. And still sell the games for full prize. This isn't a cost, it is a cost-saving.
• Companion apps
  Those are mostly used for advertising. And quite often today, they have some sort of cost attached to them.
• So on
  Here you have the biggest costs. The voice app, nesflix, cloud saves etc. Here you actually have a point a sub is needed since they are services. So why are we paying for online again?

Also, most points gets moot when you realize the third parties doesn't get a cent from the sub. They can eat those costs, but the poor platform holder (that gets a cut from every game sold) needs them to be afloat.

I can only think of The Escapists 2. Never tried online, but for split screen local multiplayer you need two users.

I wish Nintendo would charge a little bit more for this service and then add in games from SNES, N64 and Cube to go alongside NES. Had a lot of fun so far with the old NES games including ones I wouldn’t have bought on a traditional VC.

This is your borderline weekly reminder that Nintendo could have sold online NES games as their own service and not forced people to pay for a service that should be free (for their 300 dollar console with 60 bucks as the norm for major retail releases, while in a market that competes with PC gaming's free online).

And that yes, paid online is still bad, it was always bad on Xbox and Playstation. This is entirely separate to how Nintendo is actually doing online (even if it does help my point), this just inherently should not be a thing.

The fact that free to play games aren't being affected just exposes how stupid this is. You could pay even more money after consistently paying 60 bucks for major retail titles, or you could PLAY AN ONLINE GAME FOR FREE. DUR, I WONDER WHICH IS THE BETTER DEAL?!1!?!?

@toiletduck Only just noticed your post at #853. Thanks - it seemed a bit OTT to me given I'd volunteered my time for a few years without much in the way of prior issues, but it would take more than that to change my web habits, me visiting here multiple times a day. And I can't say I'll miss dealing with a profanity list that about 99% of the user base doesn't care about, or trying to sort squabbles out etc.

Well, it's a thing now. So. It's over. If folks really wanted something else, they shouldn't have bought a Switch, since Nintendo said at launch that paid online was happening. The thread doesn't need a 'weekly reminder' of the fact that it exists.

@HobbitGamer Amen. People need to get over it at some point in the future.

"Just stop having your opinion, it annoys me, so please accept something you disagree with for my convenience"

Lol

It's not that the opinion is "wrong" or annoys me. However posting a 'weekly reminder that you're paying for what should be free' is going too far. NSO is live. It was anounced when the Switch first launched that paid online multiplayer would be a thing. And I know I've said this multiple times before, but the time for people to protest paid online multiplayer on consoles was when Microsoft first tried charging for Xbox Live or when Sony decided to start charging for it. By this point in time it's an industry standard.

But you know what the "it should be free" crowd are ignoring? The fact that the funds generated by NSO subscriptions can (and in part likely will) be used to improve the service. It'll go towards paying for a department to maintain and improve the online multiplayer service. This means (in theory) that the netcode will improve over time. New features will be added over time. Connection stability will improve over time.

Mind you, if a game's development staff botch the netcode for the game there's gonna be connection issues regardless of how reliable the NSO service is overall. And that's not connected to "server based" or "p2p" connections. It's entirely based around the code written to handle the online connection.

EXAMPLES!

Blood Bowl 2 uses dedicated servers for online matches. And it has a lot of issues with people losing connection to the servers. Plus on XB1 if you lose connection to the server, you're counted as forfeiting the match. No, you can't rejoin the match. I've lost count of how many times I've tried to play a BB match online only for one or the other person to get DC'd during the pre-match setup or during the initial kickoff cut scene.

People keep pointing to it using P2P as why Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has connection issues. But to be honest, I've not encountered any such issues so far in either game. I've not encountered any lag in either game, or other indications there may be a problem with the netcode. I have encountered what I strongly suspect was someone rage quitting when they happened to be the current host though. It's kind of suspicious when everyone's booted back to the lobby in a MK8D race after the person in the lead gets hit by a blue shell during the 2nd lap.

Whenever I see a "X-ly reminder that..." I always imagine clapping emojis in between the words.

I don't know why.

@FaeKnight servers does two things P2P can't do, consistency and equalizing.

A connection to a random person on the internet means you have no idea what to expect. Does the person have a good connection? Wifi or cable? How much latency? You can write the best "netcode" (which isn't a real technical term) in the world, but still get a lousy host. With a server each and every connection is the same.

Equalizing is you and every one have an equal input lag. All your inputs gets processed on the server side. If the one you are competing with are the host, they have a big advantage in that their button presses are instantly processed.

But still, the quality of P2P isn't the issue, it is the paying for nothing part. Tell me again why Nintendo need to put a third-party game behind a paywall?

Technically you are not paying for nothing, you are paying for less since communities shrinks when you put up a paywall. Less people = worse matchmaking.

We get it, you hate NSO for stupid things you keep parroting and don't like. Some people don't like it when you keep parroting the same thing over and over again. >_>

@Therad My experience and observation is that it's not a "paywall" that causes the community to shrink. It's the one-two combo of toxic in-game communities and gamers jumping to the newest 'hot' game at the drop of a hat. For the first point, unless you yourself are a 'hardcore elite' player (note the mocking snort) who feels the need to cuss everyone out, that sort of verbal filth and constantly accusing people of hacking the game if they demonstrate any sort of skill is very off putting. Such behaviors are the main reason I generally ignore multiplayer vs and prefer online co-op.

As to the second part, if it's a 'yearly release' title then the current version is the only one with any real online player base. And for one off games people abandon the game as soon as something shiny comes along. Battleborn is a solid game and provides a good single player experience in addition to online co-op and team based online multiplayer vs. It does this without loot boxes or other cash grab mechanics. And from what I've seen of it, Overwatch is not a superior game. Yet as soon as Overwatch went live most people abandoned Battleborn like it was a sinking ship. When it came out Condemned 2's online multiplayer was popular, but within a year it was barren. Gears of War's online dried up as soon as Gears 2 came out. Prey (original game) had a thriving in-game community right up until the yearly release of the latest "call of Battlefield" shooter. It's a story that gets repeated over and over. Splatoon vs Splatoon 2 is another good example. As soon as Splatoon 2 came out, apparently the lobby for Splatoon became a ghost town.

In short, it's not a "paywall" that causes online multiplayer lobbies to become empty. It's the fickle nature of gamers in general.