Talking Point: Should The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Library Expand Faster?

Yes

That's all i have to say

No.
I think it should shrink after launch

NSO should already have had hundreds of games across many many systems by this point in the console's life.

and they shouldn't have such sloppy emulation.

I'm comfy with how it is going. I mean, if I only played NSO games, then I might start getting thirsty...but it's a nice bonus that should have an impressive library in 4 years time!

Is there anyone that just plays NSO?

The big issue is that we are now paying the same amount as PS+ and LIVE GOLD. They get 3 games a month. Nintendo should be dropping at least 2 a month. At this point they have 4 consoles to pull from. There is no excuse.

An issue is that as much nostalgia as we have for the N64, there are not that many good games. If they expand faster, they will go through all the good games within a year.

As sorta mentioned by the video, the lack of planning is actually very saddening for a subscription.
Other console makers use a subscription for online and have basically something happening every month. And then the dripfeed is just insanely slow like what the heck...

At the very least, update the Genesis games. I need Rocket Knight Adventures since Konami is at the helm. Give me that and I'll shut up.

this drip feed drop of games on Switch Online+ Expansion Pack is terrible, at this rate, we gonna be old man for Nintendo to add N64 entire catalogue

@g_ruz
Agreed. My WiiU has had a permanent place in my living room since 2012. Playstations and Xboxes have come and gone, but the WiiU still gets played at least a few times a week by my family.

I'm excited to play Paper Mario again but not everyone has the same tastes. It's very tedious for a premium service to act like 1 game is suitable after almost 2 months no matter how good that game is. I've been eagerly thinking about the games they'll add after the announced lineup but we potentially won't even have all 6 until 2023

They've already got subscription money from the people who dove in. Now they don't really have to do much. It's the Virtual Console all over again

It takes mere seconds to google a given game and download the ROM. We know these games are running on basic emulators that aren't anything special.

It's definitely not an acquisition or resource issue, so it must be a legal issue. Nintendo can coerce all these different companies to make Smash appearances, but putting company archives on NSO is less profitable and therefore it takes more convincing from Nintendo. That's definitely a factor.

...Of course, all of the above doesn't apply to Nintendo's own library. We can speculate as to why a retro game from, say, Taito isn't on there, but Nintendo has no excuse for not giving us EVERY first-party game from their archives.

So basically it's corporate executives doing their thing to the detriment of others. What else is new?

It's ridiculous considering how much they want you to pay extra for N64 games, and Megadrive games...

Definitely. And the base online service too, let's not forget it...

I'd prefered if they just started out with, say, 5-6 launch games, and rather released one game every week. It's the lack of schedule that annoys me the most.

The drip feed method is asinine. There is zero defending it.

I could accept the drip feeding if at least the library carried over to the next generation, when the Switch 2 launches, they don't have to rererelease all the games again.

I don't have it. I really want it. But I'm not caving on this one until the price is lower. Or they add the gba games from the wiiu Era!

Few games are available so far.
Yes, some are great, some are good, but considering the asking price, it's just sad, as most are now 20+ years old and the best have been rereleased repeatedly (looking at you OoT, with your GC and 3DS rereleases...).
The competition is offering current gen games for the same price.
Should they add Wii, WiiU, GB, GBC, GBA, DS, 3DS and/or GC games, they could compensate somewhat, but it would still be overcharging, considering their graphics and age...
If they were to add current gen games as MS and Sony do, I might reconsider...

I’m glad I didn’t upgrade to Expansion Pak. It’s better to wait until they add Gamecube and GBA games to upgrade.

They could add Saturn and Dreamcast as well if they are at it, but oh well

I would like them to fix the emulation of the current games first.

Well Duh.

Of course it should expand faster. In a few years it'll be an incredible service though - hopefully they don't reboot it when the Switch 2 comes around.

@SwitchplayerJohn There's lots of third party games on the SNES app and already some on N64 like Winback and Sin and Punishment so not sure what you are talking about?

@victordamazio
Nintendo will find ways to rerelease Switch games anyway because they still haven’t solved the development issues that plagued them during the Wii U.

Good to see people are finally realizing that the problem with all of Nintendo's retro services is the drip feeding, they need to release games faster.

Adding more consoles to the service won't solve the problem if they release like 10 or 20 games when the new console comes, then keep releasing games so slowly.

Another thing: We need better options, so many NES and SNES games are missing, yet they release games that were already boring in the 1980s and 1990s, and aren't even bad games we want to revisit like Castlevania: The Adventure.

Quality needs to improve, more games etc.
Like it is now its not worth one cent.

@SwitchplayerJohn The 3rd party games like Demon's Crest and Breath of Fire 1 & 2 (Capcom) or Castlevania Bloodlines (Konami)?

Some 3rd party games will never be on the table because they get sold more profitably in other collections but you'd have to think that there might be some choice picks for the N64 (particularly things like Castlevania 64 and Mystical Ninja 64) down the line given that they've pushed the boat out for Banjo.

A better question (referring to the article title) is if Nintendo should allow us to purchase the games outright a la Virtual Console.

They should give you option of the AC dlc or something else of similar value coz as it is it is overpriced for those without Animal Crossing.

Having launched in October I think it’s likely there will be another batch of games for MD and N64 before the end of the year.

Don’t we normally get a Direct presentation early to mid December? With some dates / info for Q1 releases. New NSO games maybe revealed immediately afterwards.
We’ll see if anything gets announced this week.

What is there to talk about? As consumers, we're naturally biased to consume more, not less. There's only one honest answer we can give to the titular question, but whether it aligns with the interests of Nintendo (for whom, mind you, both subs are just extra revenue, not something make-or-break) is a different matter. Sure, Ninty also naturally wants more of us to get and stay subscribed - but let us ask ourselves instead: how badly do they want it?

There is no reason for it to be expanding this slowly with a slow drip of one game added every so often. It's not like they have to develop anything besides the emulation software anyways, all the games should just be simple rom dumps for them for the most part.

It absolutely should go faster. Especially if they keep feeding the games to us in such poor quality anyway. I regret getting the expansion pass and the only reason I did was because others in my family plan wanted it but they're barely even making use of it. So if this keeps up then next year I'm downgrading back to the regular plan. This is ridiculous.

I'll wait another 3 or 4 years when they start giving us GBA and DS games...maybe after that we'll finally get GCN 3 years after that.

One or two games would be fine… if it was for all consoles each. One new games throughout all 4 NSO consoles every 3 months is just ridiculous.

If it was say 1 N64, 2 mega drive, 2 NES and 1 SNES per release or something like that it still wouldn’t be great, but at least ok.

@Yosher The only reason I got the expansion pass is because my standard pass expired right around when it released lol. So far I've been disappointed, the selection of games is so poor that I don't even bother with the N64/Genesis app. The Sega Ages titles and Genesis Collection has made the Nintendo Genesis app for the most part redundant anyways. I would play the N64 app if they had a better selection of games and improved the performance of the emulator.

I can't help but contrast Nintendo's approach with the NSO subscription service — a handful of ancient games now and then at the best of times — with Xbox's Game Pass, which offers the entire back catalog all the way up to the day one release of brand new games.

Some key differences: Game Pass costs more of course, and Nintendo holds the crown jewels of gaming (Mario, Zelda, etc) and they know it. But the biggest factor is the arrogance that comes with being a market leader. Xbox is sweetening the pot every day to lure new gamers, while Nintendo, riding high, thinks it can get us to excited to pay for the same 90s bangers time and time again. The NSO Expansion Pack is the most egregious example yet of Nintendo believing it can take its gamers for granted.

The pendulum won't swing until the market share does. I'm not holding out any hope that Nintendo will suddenly start dropping games into the NSO any faster.

"Should The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Library Expand Faster?"

No, I don't think so. A new game added to the service every five years is just fine.

@Turnip_Knight Speaking of Xbox, they managed to recently deliver us a massive list of classic original Xbox and 360 titles with enhanced performance and graphics available on Xbox One and Series consoles. It's like they can give us tons of classic games, and spend the time to enhance them, yet Nintendo can't be bothered to give us the occasional N64 rom dump and decent emulator performance.

I don't have the expansion pass as I am taking a "wait and see" approach since I don't like the initial price point for what was initially offered. What I'm seeing has not been good, and one new addition after ~2 months is not good either. The price point becomes easier to swallow with more content on the service. If they're going to drip feed, I'll likely not care about upgrading by the time that the service does reach the quantity and quality I'm wanting to see.

@RasandeRose You mean, like Netflix

Tbh, I think Nintendo should focus more on adding good games to the service other than just adding more. But it can be a bit less slow.

I think if they would say "every first of a month you get 1-3 games" I would be totally fine... the problem is there are not much nintendo games left to add to snes and nes and we all know that the n64 library is very very limited...

I believe the real problem here is, Nintendo has always spoon-feed their costumers since they where a toy company and we'll, that was generations ago, much of its costumers didn't even recall they were a toy company (or a card company) at one point so, this is not what it is expected from a company this big, and I think that's what president Furukawa should be dealing with as I believe that was Iwata main strength, he start Nintendo transition from a small company (in their minds) to a international leading act. They need to hire more people and grow, it's such a small company for what they have to do, start buying small studios in growing economies so you can have competent workforce at low cost and gave those guys projects like a steady realese window for these projects and build from there.

There should be at least one game added to NES/SNES/N64/Mega Drive weekly. They managed it in 2006 with a poorly run digital marketing team, they can manage it now.

At this rate, Nintendo might actually release two new consoles before we get all the N64 games. The Switch will be a retro console!

I was stupid and jumped in right away, expecting that I could spend a few hours on the existing N64 games, and that it would grow weekly until there was a decent library. I’ve played for maybe an hour all together? I gave up on Zelda when it started juddering in the first area.

…I’m not sure why my expectations were so high; I guess it was just because the price was so insanely high to start with?

the expansion pack is literally Nintendo giving people the middle finger

My maxed out family plan is the ONLY thing that justifies this madness. In the end, $10 a year is absolutely nothing even for crap games I don't play. Haha. Just hope better games/systems/DLCs come along later.

Too slow of course. I but would like a game that wasn't on Wii U VC like Cruisin USA and Cruisin World, Super Smash Bros, Glover, Tetrisphere, Mario Party 1 and 3, (two of them were on Wii but I didn't get them on time and now the Wii Shop is shut down) (and whatever they can from Rare). And in the end we 'll only get Superman 64.

I think I'm more interested in seeing how the defense squad come to Nintendo's aid this time when the next gen console releases and Nintendo have once again decided to start from scratch with their retro selection.

We're some time away for that, but it happens every single time and I can't tell if it gets funnier or just more depressing to see it.

It won't matter, in a few years the Super Ultra Cube will release and NSO will stop supporting new games and eventually blip out of existence.

It should go away from complete lack of support.

Faster would be better. I remember in the days of the Wii, they would update the catalog what? Once a week?

Now all I'd ask for is once a month which would be a steady stream of "new" retro content.

They should have just dumped a bunch of N64 games on some Switch cartridges instead (natively rendered at 1080p/720p), and Bob's your uncle.

I'm not paying to rent them. I already bought some of these games on Wii/Wii U, and I'm not looking to downgrade. And should I really feel it, I can find another way to play the games (not that I have any particular yearning for N64 games).

People sure have high expectations and demands for something that costs about the same as a McDonalds Big Mac per month.

Is 1 and a half months nearly 2 months? Or is it just over 1 month. I mean... it's a glass half full situation. Maybe just say 1 and a half and keep it simple, otherwise it shows a bias which will affect the polls

I don't know why they don't just put out everything they can. It might have actually justified the price.

If it is going to cost this much, they should put all the games on it to begin with. The way they are doing it now does not warent an extra fee.

Just dump them all at once, and let the gamers play the games of their choice, at their own pace. It's not like the n64 library is that big, especially when you take out the impossible to release liscenced games and shovelware

I already paid the NSO subscription. They want me to pay more for games which I already bought through means of the Virtual Console. Several N64 games have emulation issues and they don't seem to be bothered to fix it. Not even to mention the problems of NSO itself like the archaic and laggy netcode and lack of functional voicechat. And yes, the slow drip of new classic game releases is hugely frustrating to me.

Nintendo's online "service" doesn't even merit 20 Euros a year, let alone stand 40 Euros. Where's the value?

If the rumors that Sony is going to merge PS Plus and PS Now are true and let's say it would cost 80 Euros a year, then that would be totally worth it. And it would mean even more egg on Nintendo's face. When will they learn!?!?

I have the expansion from day 1. Not too bothered with the NSO nes/Snes/n64 apps but the dlc for animal crossing is great. Kids love it so worth the purchase

Haven’t subscribed and don’t plan to. They need to improve the emulation, add more titles, and lower the price to get me even interested. You don goofed with this one, Nintendo.

I wonder if Nintendo will ever bring back the virtual console, even if not on the Switch on a future console?

In the time between the NSO Expansion Pack announcement and its release, I bought Paper Mario 64 on my Wii U and played it to completion. It was nice to play it again nearly 20 years later. It’s nice that some will be able to play it for their first time soon, but Nintendo really needs to step up its game. I’m glad I didn’t upgrade to the expansion pack, as I wasn’t all that interested in the Animal Crossing expansion and I own most of those Genesis games from previous collections. Honestly, I would have liked to just buy an N64 mini with 20 or so games for like $80-100 and be done with it; I like owning those games, not having them tied to a subscription service.

Moral of the story: glad I picked up a Wii U. I get to own digital n64 games, and I have the Zelda remasters that Nintendo (hopefully) ports to the Switch in the next 2 years.

I wouldn't be complaining if Virtual Console and Classic Mini Consoles never existed. This would be a brand new opportunity for Nintendo to show off games nobody knew about.

But that's the problem. Virtual Console existed, and with its substantial library, it's very painful to see Nintendo not acknowledge it.

Wii VC managed 1 N64 title a month for almost 2 years. Yes, this started with 7 instead of 1, but 1 game a quarter is too slow

"Do you want to make more money?"

"Should cars run on dreams?"

"Should you be able to wish for more wishes?"

These are the burning questions this article title makes me think of.

Shame on me for rewarding this absurd article and clicking on it but who, in their right mind, will answer "no" to that question?

Yes. This has everything to do with Nintendo's Japanese business practices by providing customers with a catered service as an experience.

It's outdated and stupid and is clearly hurting their brand in the long run.

Would I like every game ever made to be released today? Sure. Do I want a slew of Cyberpunk-quality ports that run at 5fps and crash constantly? No. Do I think Nintendo owns the full rights to every asset ever included in any game, ever? No. Am I happy with the content I get for $6 per month? Yes.

The people have spoken. Vote with your wallet

If it gets to Mystical Ninja I'm all for it

The N64 only had 400 games anyways, of those 400 only 150 were any good and a majority of the good ones are already on Switch such as Turok, Quake, Doom 64, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, Star Fox 64, Duke Nukem, Mario Kart 64, Star Wars Episode 1: Racer, etc.

It's either release them when they're ready to go, or sit on a bunch of games until you have enough to satiate the players with a massive update. I really don't care which it is, I'm enjoying the hell out of my old favourites again!

I'm a Subscriber and would like if Games would come out much more faster than how they are now. All the Games so far are Incredible! Thank You #Nintendo

Can't imagine Nintendo releasing N64 games to NSO any slower lol

Love the idea of this service, but the Wii virtual console was another hit or miss. If your serious about your retro gaming there are other ways to play plenty more than these services will ever provide. I know.

Again, a total of 38 N64 games were datamined from NSO catalog, of which 10 of them will be available to NSO + EP subscribers by Dec 10. Unless Nintendo wants to spend the next 6-7 years making the remaining 28 titles available to play, they have to add games at a faster rate, even if it means adding two N64 games every 2-3 months rather than one.

Nintendo gave some early adapters of 3DS some GBA games. 10 years later and we don't have even GB mono games on Switch. And N64 are a "special tier"

@dimi big difference from Nintendo the third place console business practices to make nice and Nintendo the market leader business practices which are borderline….

I think a lot of subscriptions will be cancelled when the renewals come round.
It will be better for the gamer to take a month by month subscription, play two or three n64 games then cancel for a few months.

After all when a big game gets released (botw) or what ever, there won't be much time for n64.

I wont buy this, its not a model I support. I'd rather 'own' something than pay an ongoing amount for something thats already curated, including many games I have no interest in, or have other existing ways to play. With films or TV the subscription model makes more sense to me, as I tend to watch things once, or infrequently revisit something I enjoyed. With retro games, I want my own collection I 'own', I suppose.

The issue with so many people who criticise the NSO, is that its being compared with other similar services and it doesn't hold up.

But the reality is, most of these N64 games on the virtual console cost $9.99, the others cost around $7.99 - if you consider ever SNES/Genesis game being $2.50 and every NES game being $1.

You're looking around $270 in value for the entire service.

Now i believe PS+ is around $400 and Xbox Live is over $500 in value, which is a lot higher than $270...

But $50 a year for $270 worth of video games is a solid proposition, especially after it breaks the $300 mark. I just this people need to stop comparing NSO with other services.

If you think about it separately, it's still great value for money.

@Matty1988
Throw in translated versions of Mythical Ninja 2 and 3 and I might consider.
Though I would prefer to buy a physical collection of all games of that series...

Yes it should expand faster, throw as many games as you can on it as fast as you can on it. Then add more when you can.

They need to add more. The way I see it is that with the price of the expansion now they need to atleast off 1 game to each system. Now I can understand the Mega Drive may miss some months as it isn't their system But for the others it is a must.

What they should do is get the third party ones in first when they can secure the license for it to be on their. If they are unable to get a third party game for the system then they can fall back to one of their first party games.

N64 and Genesis games should be part of the basic NSO subscription.

@RasandeRose Ask a stoopid question, I guess.

@Gamer_Zeus While I understand why you think that but you really should compare them since they are close in price now.

When it was €20 for a year then you couldn't really compare them because of the big price difference.

With NSO expansion price there are now into the comparing zone. If you could only sub to 1 service if you own a switch and a ps4/5 or an xbox. Most people will pick the later as it offers far more features then what the switch offers. Like not needing an external device to take with people on the same console as you. Extra discount of games from time to time.

Now there is 1 benefit the switch has with them offering their games vs xbox live and ps+ is that you don't have that FOMA issue. It doesn't matter when you join NSO you have access to all game at launch while with the others you missed out on games that you could have gotten for free if you were subbed at the time.

The reason you have to compare them is to see what is offering better value. Same goes for video streaming services. You have to compare them to see which one is offering the better value as many can't sub to all of them.

Where are the games? The N64 library doesn’t have that many games. The Sega library is a joke hence the slow drip. I would’ve gotten the expansion pack if they included GameboyAdvanced games and my be loved Gamecube games. We will probably wait a year for the game boy games to come out. That is how Nintendo has been doing it and they been doing it for years. It’s only worse now that they locked the games under an online service. This is always been foreseeable and predictable. Drip 💧 Drip 💧 Drip 💧

@Gwynbleidd you sound quite jaded by all this, i do kind of get why though, you know the annoying thing about the Virtual Console?

I'm not entirely sure how many games you've purchased on it but i purchased around 19 myself, which cost me upwards of $200 at the time, costing between $8-$15 each.

Thats 4 years worth of NSO subscriptions and over 130 games, you can see it however you want to see it.

Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to take this, but the fact remains, the service is good value for money.

@SilentHunter382 but you don't have to compare it to anything, there is no reason too, so what it almost costs the same price?

So what the value isn't as good as PS+ or Xbox Live?

Is it still good value for money? Yes... so why bother to compare it under those weak reasons?

Be real with yourself right now, pretend that the other services didn't exist at all, pretend that Nintendo's services was the only service, would you honestly, with a straight face, be able to sit there and tell me over $270 value in video games for $50 a year is a bad offer?

Seriously??

It just goes to show, 137,000 youtube dislikes and Nintendo couldn't care less. And why should they when they have everyone's money for the next year.

I can guarantee you, they will drip feed us those 7 extra games over the next 12 months and thats all we will get.

Then next October they will announce that all the games we had been hoping for this year will be coming soon in the hope that we all lap it up and renew again.

@Gamer_Zeus What if most of those games have no value to you? 130 games but only liking 10 at the most. Is a meh offering. Especially, when the games are over 25 years old.

@victordamazio

I think the even bigger problem with Nintendo's online service is the lack of continuity. The Switch is almost 5 years old and the next console will probably be out in another 2 or 3 years. Just like the Wii, Wii U, DSi and 3DS the games probably won't transfer over and Nintendo will start a new with slowly re-releasing games.

@Gamer_Zeus The problem with putting a price on the games is that it will very from person to person it value if it is worth €50 or not. Just saying that it has a value of €270 really means nothing to some who may only like 1 game from service.

I am on Humble bundle monthly and I don't look at what the games are valued at as I won't be playing all of the games I just see what the games I am interested in are worth the sub cost for that month. If there is only 1 game I am interested in but it cost lest then the sub price then I don't care if the whole package value is €120 for €15 a month if the game I am interested in I can get for €9.

It should have been a massive library at launch that grows regularly, same for SNES/NES. It’s pathetic. They have the means to craft the Netflix of classic games and they’re doing the absolute bare minimum while charging a premium and even doing a worse job with emulation than fans have been doing for years.

Their efforts in the legacy console content has been a joke on Switch, especially compared to Wii and Wii U (where releases were slow even there).

@River3636 well i mean to be fair there is around 20 games across the entire service that i like and around 5-10 more coming that i want too, so yeah for me, the service is outstanding value for money.

I guess you can't please everyone but honestly, the service is great value. But i get what you mean, its all subjective.

Not just the number of games, but the number of systems. We should have more than 4 systems at this point in the Switch's lifespan.

Oh absolutely they should, this is a yearly subscription so it's a bit silly when so many of the games aren't even available across that period. I mean we are still effectively miles behind what was available on the Wii some 15 years ago and that can't be right

The entirety of Switch Online and everything to do with it deserves only an endlessly looping Tidus laugh track. It did when they started and it still does years later. The 'expansion pack' has added a second, somewhat higher pitched laugh track into the mix. Perhaps in 2035, when they release the expansion to the expansion pack with a whopping two full Game Boy (not Color) games and a free Mario hat in Fortnite (*) for the low price of €50 (on top of the existing fees), we might get some Tidus drum tracks as well. Ha ha ha!
(*) Luigi hat sold separately.

I have zero interest with renting games seevice.

The real question is why is this a question?
It's like asking "is water wet?"

There is only one answer and that is yes

Why? you will complain anyway. Wee had like 3 NES and SNES games a month and whined and cried. Now we have one every god knows when thanks to you and still whine and cry about it.

You will only be happy if Nintendo comes to your house, gives you ALL the games and makes you sandwiched. And you'll still whine and cry about it.

N64 games are pretty substantial compared to NES games. The nine games offered at launch ought to be plenty for two months, and that's not even counting the Sega games. So one new game after two months seems about right.

Besides, it's not like the N64 has a huge library, and Nintendo probably doesn't want to run out of new games to add after six months.

I have been eagerly awaiting another article about the Switch online expansion service, as the comment sections are usually pure comedy gold, just going to get my popcorn.

Just like the poll choice says, I think it could stand to be a bit more frequent but I'm not annoyed enough to complain. The NSO retro games are mostly just there for me to occupy my time between big releases.

It hasn't been two months completely deceptive of you. 1 month and 15 days not 2 months. It called being honest in "your talking points". Do you want it done right then be patient. I don't understand why you lied to us. People had complaints, hence the games releasing slower. I would like quicker releases, but I want it done right. I will take a longer wait time to play a polished product.

@DK-Fan What kind of sandwiches? I would really like a peanut butter and banana sandwich right now or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a nice glass of almond milk. Where is my sandwich Nintendo?

This is garbage. Too little too late especially compared to their own virtual console on past consoles. It's 2021 and I'd expect BASIC functionality from an online service like voice chat and messaging. Besides that, I want to browse a library of hundreds of retro games and just get those I really want/need.

But hey. There are other means to play them anyways - and Nintendo isn' doing much on their part to discourage you from using them.

No, we should already have all the games.

I don’t mean to be rude, but most of you guys are annoying.
You ask for N64 games, and when Nintendo gives them to you you complain. I mean, why?
Everyone complained when the Virtual Console was around, too, and now they are saying they love the Virtual Console?
I don’t think so. “The Emulation sucks”, “It’s overpriced”, “Not enough games”, etc.
Why can’t everyone just be happy that they are listening to us? Just why not?

I just want to play a couple of games on this service. I should be allowed to purchase separately, not having to subscribe

For that much money they should dump every single rom they plan to drop at once.

@GrailUK but it should have a great library NOW to encourage upgrades to this style of account, no?

Good luck with that wish.

Nintendo should start taking games away like they did with the Mario 35 anniversary. Really stoke that FOMO. Subscribe and play while you still can!

@Dethmunk

Sir, this is a "Talking Point" article, literally meant to drive discussion. It's the whole point. Don't like it? Don't click it

That´s really a question? Of course! Not only that, but it should get the emulation better as soon as possible!!

NSO was a great idea, but Nintendo just does NOT care at all! Nintendo has just failed. There are thousands of NES and SNES games, where are they? Well I am sure they are not in NSO.

Nintendo does not tell us when the games will come out they expect the fan base to blindly trust them. So they can release a game or two whenever they feel like it. Meanwhile, they managed to fool people into thinking there Online service is good. Lol 😂 How about they give us dates for the games that become available. It is sad 😞 because I am a Super Deluxe Nintendo Fanboy. I don’t want to Criticize my be loved Nintendo, but I must. The only N64 game I want on the service happens to be Paper Mario. Fortunately, I own it for WiiU. I even own game boy advance and DS games on the WiiU. The Switch … well.. Drip 💧 Drip 💧 Drip 💧……

Any other subscription service with no new additions after a month would lead to mass cancellations. That's why they tied people in to 12 months. Bare minimum it needs 1 new game on each of the N64 and Megadrive per month.

I feel like at minimum, within the first year we should get %70 of the Wii Virtual game size, and %40 at launch. And that goes for all of the 4 game services

@Enigk I feel like we should get at least the Mega Drive Classics games at launch, because it's cheaper than NSO, especially when you consider physical and limited games.

Also, they should give us import games IMO. I know they give you European game versions which is surprising, but remember the Wii days where you got Japanese games available too? This would make it super easy to create comparison videos. I would also include this option in the NES and the SNES apps. On a side note, give these games English translations, too.

Expansion pass was promoted at launch as a terrible value proposition. People who bought the expansion pass, would probably buy anything, so i doubt they are a priority for Nintendo.

I won’t share my absolutely impassioned thoughts on the topic as I’ve recently done so. Probably rattle the cage again tho once it ticks over to 2022. If you have the Expansion service please play Ristar for me, especially if you have the Oled, and have a happy holidays

@iNintendo Lol, the expansion has only been out a couple of months. The basic NSO has some awesome games. I'm not exactly sure what you are wanting, but the way Nintendo talk, this is going to be a thing for the forseeable future. We can all see what library the service should have...just maybe lack the patience to wait for it lol

@Gwynbleidd First of all, sorry for sounding biased, but you are probably right.

What you said about Virtual Console, I was mistaken. I never used the VC but I just(wrongly) assumed that everyone complained.

And I completely agree with you about choice. They definitely should allow people who want another option to use that option.
In fact, I only bought the expansion pack for the 64 games. I’m not even a fan of SEGA or even own Animal Crossing!

TL;DR: I mostly agree with you and realized that I was biased.

I subscribe to psplus, I do subscribe to online game services, but not the Nintendo one. NSO offers zero value to me. The base service has zero value and neither does the "expansion". If they lower the price to $10 a year, add 10 times the SNES and N64 games, and make the games availible to keep, instead of this rental thing, then I might get it.

The Wii U did not get a lot of 3rd party support, but Nintendo worked hard to keep your business.

With the Switch, we get tons of 3rd parties, but Nintendo takes the customer more for granted.

I understand that there are costs involved with running the servers, so I don’t mind paying for NSO.

However, they need to do better. I would like to see instruction manual scans added (or QR codes like they did with the mini consoles).

@Gwynbleidd I get it, that’s why I posted mine too, the repeating of stuff. And yes, everyone should have his or her own opinions when it comes to stuff, we were both just voicing our own opinions.

Of course. Your gonna charge that much to play N64 and jack up the price cause licensing fee with Sega and then literally don't give us any new Sega games plus no SNES/NES games in sight.

And then Nintendo wonders why people are upset with NSO.

Update it 2 times a month and add more incentives and maybe folks will look at it better

What's also funny by the way, is that while Nintendo's retro catalogue technically grows whenever they release a new console, their feed of releasing retro games slows down more than the previous generation despite starting over from zero. It's a different kind of hilarious and it's highly annoying.

Being a Nintendo fan these days is such a double sided coin. They have so many great games and all but some of their practices are so stupid.

Slow news day I see. Doesn't really need to be a talking point when it's just blatantly obvious the expansion is a ripoff.

Why not bring back the Wii U virtual console and sell us the games all at once, then you can make them part of the expansion pack at your leisure.

Also the rewind feature sucks, give us save states

Releases more often would be nice, but they should make sure the games work near 1:1 or better first, I’d happily wait if that was why it’s taking time.

This is exactly why I didn’t upgrade to the expansion pack. The nes and snes updates were very sporadic and mostly disappointing.

I have never understood this dripfed mentality of Nintendo, are they afraid if overstimulating us with choice or is that much of a hassle getting N64 games to run on the Switch. Video Services never have this issue, imagine when Disney+ launched it didn't have all the animated movies avaliable but they would give you a new one every week (maybe,if they don't forget)

I think what really irks me is that none of this will matter in the long run, Wii, Wii U and now Switch, when Nintendo launches its next online service we will be right back at the beginning....

@Gamer_Zeus The problem is, that $50 a year only rents the $270 worth of games.
People don't want to rent games that they have bought recently in other collections.
We either need a lot more titles that haven't been available elsewhere for a while or the virtual console option where we can pick and choose.

They drip feed, then reset with each new device and restart the drip feed. It's pretty ridiculous.

It would be nice if the NSO expansion included eShop discounts, arcade archive title rotations, etc.

It is super messed up paying additional money every month for a partially complete service, particularly compared to game pass which drops modern games (not retro games!) constantly.

@EarthboundBenjy Bring back the wii ehop...serious.

baffling amount of comments going "How is this even a question/article. The only answer will be yes" when this very comment section proves there are people saying otherwise

People are pretending that the Wii, Wii U and 3DS VC's didn't have the drip feed. They had it and plenty of people complained about it. In true Nintendo fashion though, they decided to make it worse with every device instead of better.

They don't get my money until they add Banjo!

Seriously, where the f*** is Banjo? That game was a huge part of the reason I bought the expansion. If they’re still releasing it this year like they said they were, they’re really cutting it close.

@BAN Seriously, where the f*** is Banjo?

Gamepass?

I’m in the right demographic (family group w multiple ACNH players) and so invested in the expansion, but heck yeah I’d like to see them do better than 1 game per 2 months. And what about Genesis/SNES/NES this time? I don’t particularly NEED more games at the moment, but how about a game or 2 a month among the systems to keep it interesting, like in the ol’ Wii eShop days?

But I wonder sometimes if it’s just the American consumer in me wanting more for more’s sake. I’ve had good times on some NSO games, like Dr. Mario, Fire & Ice, Mario Tennis 64 and others I’ve barely played or never tried before, and haven’t even cracked into several classics in there. I still feel for someone in my situation, NSO is an OK value.

@Crono1973 (I own Banjo on N64, Xbox 360, and Game Pass… the point is that I want it on Switch)

Only nintendo can drip feed but somehow fanbase is content. Weird bunch.

This is why I laughed at people who paid extra, and THEN bought the controller too!

Come on! It's Nintendo! If we have more than 10 more games by this time next year, I'd be VERY VERY VERY surprised.

I expect a new switch before that happens.

Faster would be better, but the real key is fully advertising the timeframe for releases so that consumers can make an informed decision on whether to upgrade or not.

Before, the drip feed was annoying, but you were paying for the online functionality (which was albeit terrible) with classic games as extra.

With the price hike for N64, it is explicitly about the games, and they need to actually demonstrate fully what consumers can expect from it.

I am perfectly fine with their rollout right now, even as it is I can't play what they have before more comes out. I am still going through Ocrina of Time. But, then again, I don't have much time to play these.

@Gamer_Zeus Shhhh don't you dare bring logic into this! I want to be an emotional person and get upset over Nintendo lack of providing me with every N64 game ever made on day one!!! HoW DaRe you Nintendo!!!!

All kidding aside based on recent reports Sony will be doing something similar and have the greater challenge of emulating PS3 and PS2 games. Both systems Sony has historically fumbled far harder than Nintendo has with N64. So I'm popping my popcorn for the day 1 impression there as I expect the cost of their backwards compatibility service to be far more pricy than NSO.

Compared to what Microsoft does with their backwards compatibility, this is plain ridiculous. Xbox 360 and OG Games performance is not only up to par to the previous console, but in most cases it is actually enhanced.

Meanwhile Nintendo gives 25 year old games poorly emulated? Yeah, doing the bare minimum for maximum return, the Nintendo Way. Outside of their AAA exclusives which are outstanding and always some of the best games ever, everything else is half-assed, full of lazy efforts.

As long as peuple are paying for this scam Nintendo will continue to milk these cows slowly and the cows are the preople who are paying for this expansion unsubscribe if you have and don’t subscribe if you haven’t then maybe they will start paying attention to wath you have to say,

@munstahunta Nintendo has offered drip feed in both the VC and in this subscription service. I honestly don't think there is anything consumers could do to make them release a collection of system specific games (like the Genesis Collection).

People can unsubscribe but it won't change Nintendo's course at all. Some companies are stubborn and then there's Nintendo that gives new meaning to the word.

You have the Mega Drive, the most ported over library of games, and a beefy one at that. There should be no excuse not to do a few a month.

What gamer is going to say no to that question?

It is for that reason I think it's a pointless question to ask.

The better question to ask is, "is the current rate sufficient enough to sell you on the service?". And that will probably be a no for anyone who hasn't already signed up. I got in at $10/yr joining a group of 8 on the forums here. So I'm perfectly satisfied. Would I be satisfied at $50 though? No. Probably not.

At the end of the day, they're gonna spread out their games over the next year, probably 1 per month on average, starting this December. Expect all games to be added by Christmas 2022.

Considering how late after launch the implemented it, i doubt they will bother to increase the pace. Watch the next console drop and nintendo just start all over again with with snailpace.

For the price very much yes seeing as you can get PS Now for less a year and that while not the biggest selection of older games before the PS3 still offers better value since it has fairly recent games too. For instance this month it seems that both Final Fantasy X/X-2 remastered and the recently released GTA3 Remastered will be added and more. Now as much as I love older Nintendo games it would be nice if both Gamecube and Wii were added to this service to at least make it more modern other than having the same games that were released over the past two generations on the virtual console drip fed to us because many third parties don't want to put their games on the service instead opting to release their own collections or remasters. Throwing in a collection of indie games and maybe one big current gen game a month wouldn't exactly hurt the service either. Personally I can't see the appeal of the expansion pass at all and even the regular NES and SNES collections are lackluster because of the lack of big third party games.

Oh yeah, definitely need to speed up on these games.

If only Nintendo would do something like Xbox Gamepass it would rock but im not happy with it

One big question is if Nintendo will “reset” yet another time and pull this s*** again on the next system.

I consider the Switch a reset since it did not carry your Wii to WiiU or your DSi to 3DS to the Switch.

@ecco6t9 Yes, it's like a 3rd, maybe 4th reset. I think the 'rental' service is a response to the possibility that consumer laws would force Nintendo to allow users to use the games they bought on older platforms, without paying again.

I prefer the Virtual Console model where you buy an individual title and own it. On my end, the only positive here is being able to score bluetooth N64 or Genesis pads. They don't play nice with my Mac, but my PC likes them well enough

@Zenszulu Couldn't agree more. I stopped my subscription because I finally realized that I did't even play the NSO in its previous incarnation. The service really isn't competitive with other on the market. I think PS Now is phenomenal, maybe even too much so. I have a hard time justifying buying anything outside of it. I am not sure folks with an NSO subscription see that with every month that drips by, the cost of their subscription actually goes up with NSO. A person could wait two years and reap equal rewards to someone who waited and paid for a lackluster service in the meantime. Part of the value of services like Netflix and PS Now is also the cycling of content.

Not worth the $80 Family Pack asking price for just 2 people

Leaving aside the whining and the drama generated by these topics, in my opinion, it is not a very good idea to constantly update something, in this case games and services, because with each new addition in each update, little by little new ideas are diminished for add something new and thus, reach the point that there will be no news and will slowly tend to lose "momentum" and therefore, a premature end.
Although of course, not an update every time "an eclipse occurs", since it does not help to retain players and they will despair for something new.
The important thing is to add things calmly, without pressure, but at the same time, well planned and patience; the latter, above all things and for EVERYONE!

No, i Love to wait 8 weeks for 1 Title. What a stupid question.

I am genuinely shocked by Nintendo's strategy. Satoru Iwata would be sad to see how his fellow gamers are being exploited. As a comparison, when I bought Wind Waker on GameCube I got Ocarina of Time, Master Quest and Majora's Mask for free. Imagine if BOTW2 included BOTW & Twilight Princess on a free bonus disc.

I was looking forward to the exciting reveal of Nintendo's new treasure trove of nostalgia but when it hit home how consistently miserly Nintendo has become I ordered an Everdrive & now have every game plus ROM hacks on OG hardware for £70. Refurbished my old controllers with GameCube sticks for an extra £25. £95 for everything & I own it all, hard to argue with that value. I had my wallet ready for you too, Nintendo....

Old games that nobody wants to play...
The addition of more games is too slow...

Never satisfied!

makes it more special if they release a new game every 2-3 months

I'm not bothered by the quantity (the price to quantity ratio, on the other hand...) nor the quality of the titles released. Given the history it's exactly as I would have expected from Nintendo.
The problem is the quality of the experience. Due to the insane way Nintendo has done the button mapping, these games are unplayable without the special N64 controller. And portable handheld N64 is the entire point of Switch N64!! I'm all about the bloody N64 and I've hardly given this app the time of day aside from a romp through Zelda the day my N64 controller arrived in the mail. I want to play on the go! But not with the B and A buttons switched position and two of the C buttons turned sideways! Give us custom mappings, or at least map the buttons sensibly. Otherwise the whole endeavour is a complete non-starter.

I don't mind tge slow release. I don't have enough time to get through my Switch backlog as it is.

BRUH idc how long they take to drip feed games, They need to bring that HIGH asf overpriced inflated cost down before anything else. Then we can talk about speed the drip feed to a trickle xD. I'm not dropping $56+ USD on a service that doesn't give us free relevant games amonth to keep like all other rival console service. That small cost before the expansion came out was the magic number and a good value for the service provided.

I don't feel like donating money to Nintendo. If they had put the legacy titles into a second service, separate from the cloud save and online play subscription, called it The Nintendo Game Museum, part of the Nintendo Historic Society, asked for a monthly membership fee for the club and donations, it would at least have been honest. This could have cost even more than the lackluster NSO(+), but at least people wouldn’t feel stiffed.

Once they update it so you can customize the button layouts I'll go back to it, awful lazy state to release it.

I'm on the fence really. You have a lot of people here who just go 'well, we had ALL of this on their previous platform so why can't we have this all right now?' which annoys me because it's really not that simple. But then when there are clearly issues with what they have provided thus, you can't not be annoyed at Nintendo. I'd rather Nintendo deliver good emulation and get a game out once a month / 6 weeks. But when you can't map buttons yet, and graphics are pretty appalling, then maybe they just shouldn't bother! With Paper Mario we better get some QoL improvements across the board with the N64 games, and I hope they're working on graphics on the other games behind the scenes as well.

@ROBLOGNICK It really is that simple.

It will come when it comes. No point in adding to negativity and the I have to have it now culture. I grow up with patience. And in my 30s these last two years that is what gets me through. Not going fast to something but letting it play out how it will play out. The games will come you just have to wait. Or just buy a used n64 and games from a game shop or online place that has old games. And get a crt tv and just play them. It will be way more expensive but you can play them sooner if you really need the old game fix.

@Zeeeus The initial dump of Megadrive games did seem to be lacklustre compared to the Classics collection. You would have thought they would have added more titles to the Megadrive list by now to get it up to speed. One day the service may be worth the bump in price.

I hope Sony is paying close attention to Nintendo's mistakes here. If you turn people off at launch, it's almost impossible to get them to reconsider later. First impessions count more.

No of course it shouldn't expand. I love waiting years for two or three decent games.

They wonder why everyone would just as soon emulate.

@River3636 Well in that case why isn't every NES, Game Boy, SNES, Game Boy Color, N64, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U game ever developed and published by Nintendo on the Switch already? If it's that simple.

@electrolite77 Should we just get everyone to cry and kick their legs around until they do get what they want then?

No people should not necessarily happily accept everything and they should say what they don't like about things, but if you want me to copy and paste some of the commenters complains then it may be difficult to justify some of them.

@N64-ROX : portable handheld N64 is the entire point of Switch N64 Very good point! The only reason I even considered the Expansion Pack. The Switch N64 controller is nice, but they should have made N64 Joy Cons. The Switch is designed to be modular. Nintendo should make a $100 N64 controller set (left, middle, right) with rails on both sides of the middle prong and rail covers for all three modules to play in tabletop mode.

Yeah, I'm very disappointed by this drip feeding of games. There's so much games missing and frankly, Paper Mario is great, but getting just that game almost seems like they're just dropping this to make up for any lack of communication on their part about further upcoming games. Tiresome...

@Hordak A big yes to that one.

Yes.
Nintendo is probably thinking that games that comes out in the Expansion Pass count as a new games or something. So they want to spread the releases as much as they can.

The entire Nintendo 64 catalog of games developed by Nintendo should be in the service since Day 1.

@setezerocinco
It’s not that there isn’t games people don’t want to play. It’s more it’s not the games everyone “wants” to play and how they want to play it. I would love to play Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on the switch but I know I’m in the minority but that minority still wants the game.

If you're dumb enough to pay $50 a year for this, I imagine you'll be happy with anything.

I have no issues with NSO, it's not like you can play the games all at the same time. 1 a month, 2 a month, 3 a month, does it really make a difference. For how much it costs the service is a bargain.
Love to know how many of the people moaning on here have Netflix, Prime or similar services. It's the same thing.

Why can't people just be grateful for what they have? I mean, it might be a bit slow, but Paper Mario is still a good game.

As much as they're charging for it, yeah we should be getting games added at a quicker pace.

That being said, Retroarch is on Steam, and I have my shiny Steam Deck on pre-order for next year, so...

I want more consoles supported.

STANDARD SUBSCRIPTION
Game Boy + Game Boy Color (10 games each at start)
Turbografx-16 (10 games at start)
Sega Master System + Game Gear (5 games each at start)

EXPANDED SUBSCRIPTION
Sega CD + 32X (included on Genesis page; 2 games each at start)
TurboGrafx CD (included on TurboGrafx page; 5 games at start)
Game Boy Advance (10 games at start)

And each week would have one new game for one of the supported consoles.

@Hordak I much prefer that model. Once Nintendo inevitably decides to discontinue the service, those games will be gone forever. Whereas I'll always have access to the wii/wiiu VC games I downloaded, at least until my wiiu dies.

Colour me surprised.

More games, new console too like gameboy. Since launch on the expansion, one new game. I’m waiting till more is on the expansion to but it. Too much for too little content. I don’t have ACNH

Look, anyone who'd followed Switch Online since its inception and saw that asking price for the "expansion pack" should have known good and well to stay far, FAR away. NES and SNES games had come at a trickle for over a year, and the cloud saves that were the real selling point of the whole thing had seen some spotty effort (fans had to campaign for Animal Crossing: New Horizons to get cloud saves). Then they asked for MORE THAN DOUBLE the base subscription price for a couple dozen 30 year-old, poorly emulated titles (half of them for the Genesis, whose library is easily and permanently purchasable on every current platform available), and a lot of people replied by saying, "Take my money NOW!"

Well, Nintendo's got your money now; they never made any promises regarding regular, specific updates or improvements and they have absolutely no incentive to do so. When consumers finally learn the lesson to start voting with their wallets and saying "NO" to corporate greed instead of enabling and rolling over and accepting it, THEN things will begin to change for the better. If you made the mistake of trusting Nintendo to fulfill promises they never made, let alone intended to keep, for an "upgrade" that history clearly showed was going to be treated the same way as the base subscription, then let the sting of this lesson burn in well so you never repeat it.

@ROBLOGNICK Corporate greed, laziness, and complacency.

If there was like a 2 week trial every month for a major game it may be worth it. They missed their opportunity to do a free time with Animal Crossing at launch; I imagine since this would also include the DLC a lot of people would have bought the game.

I think one game every 3-6 months is more than enough. Nintendo encourage us to do more homework less gaming.

Each console should be getting at least 2 releases a month. Plain and simple.

@electrolite77 I guess it this case there are lots of complainers so is looking more like I said. But I agree people can complain in what ever way they like, and in the main the complaint that there should be more games which is certainly fair. I guess I just need to read less of them for my own sake.

@SwissCheese Hopefully Master System, SG-1000 and TurboGrafx 16 games.

So it looks like NES/SNES/GENESIS are getting no new games and N64 will be getting one game every one to two months, hurrah...SMDH.

Nothing there that made me want to subscribe, but i may do in future. I also just cancelled my auto renew for the base NSO, as to be honest I havent used it in a while. I'll sub again if there are some actual games added though. Maybe. Its not an issue of cost for me, but its still a waste of money if I am not going to use it.