Topic: The Nintendo Switch Online Subscription Service Thread

3 quid a month?

The price itself isn't much of a precedent. For a single user it's $60AU/year or $5AU/mo. For comparison PS+ is $7AU/mo, XBox Game Pass is $10AU/mo, Google Play Pass $8AU/mo. So price isn't really much of an issue here, the question is more whether or not it'll have enough content to justify that price. And at this stage the service hasn't even launched yet so we're really just speculating

Honestly, I think people romanticise the VC a bit too much. I get that psychologically people want to "own" content. Literally. I have shelves full of CDs, BluRays and Vinyl in a collection that continues to expand so I get it. But objectively the VC was a horrible value if you were even remotely committed to the service.

And the fact that you were curating the collection yourself, card in hand, wasn't a positive. All that meant was that playing something outside of your comfort zone was a gamble. Which isn't a great thing for discovery. Between the Wii and Wii U VC my N64 purchases were Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64 and Paper Mario, all incredibly safe purchases (a total of ~$60AU BTW, two years worth of the expansion). Was I interested in games like Sin & Punishment at the time? Sure. Was I willing to gamble ~$20AU on it.... no....

10 pounds for the year for NSO + expansion

Wish there was an alternative option of buying the games you wanted.

N64 games for £5 or so. I’m not paying that much to subscribe. No way.

It's a bad precedent because everyone gets to give a bundled game a go, where DLC is only of use to people who have the base game. How many of us would have even bothered with Tetris 99 if you'd needed to buy a base game just to get access to it, for instance?

Of course, if they were to offer all forthcoming first party DLC as part of the bundle that'd be a different matter. Then you'd at least be getting something, whatever your taste in games was.

However, if it's just for one random game per year, it can only go downhill after Animal Crossing because there's very little else that Nintendo makes of similarly broad appeal. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be many people signing up if they were offering, say, Fire Emblem's DLC.

Nobody should be writing it off as too expensive without considering joining a group. £10 for a full year. That easy.

@skywake You are my favorite person now, thinking exactly my thoughts on all of this. With the NSO offerings, everyone is always clamoring for all the big Nintendo games. Well guess what? You can play those a million other places, just like the Genesis games everyone is saying they wish were not added for that very reason. My favorite part of the service has been the more obscure games I've never played before. If they were on a VC for $5, $8, or $10 a piece, there is no way I would buy them individually. I still have never played Sin & Punishment for that very reason, and I am super excited to finally get to.

@GamingBread shhhhh... We don't speak about that one...(but possibly yes)

The DLC thing is just bizarre. At the absolute very most only about 40% of the Switch Userbase will have any interest in it. Realistically it won’t be anywhere near that once you take out people who have New Horizons but aren’t interested in that DLC. So the rest of the Userbase now has the perception that Nintendo are asking them to pay for something of absolutely no value to them to get to the other stuff they may want.

I know people mate say the same about paying extra for free games with PS Plus/GWG to get online play. But at least those are standalone games the suer can try on a whim, rather than DLC.

Even by the baffling standards Nintendo have set with their handling of Online gaming going all the way back to Iwata in 2002/3, OTD a weird one.

I'd like to point out that Sega Genesis Classics has been on Switch for years and has over 50 Genesis games. On top of that it does support online play via the basic Switch Online subscription.

Just to prove a point, I have Sonic 1 on Dreamcast, GameCube, GBA, DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, PC (Steam), mobile, and Switch. Most game systems after the year 2000 has Sonic 1 in some form.

Even the few N64 games I like, I already have on my Wii U. I even have Star Fox 64 on 3DS.

This is why the Expansion Pack doesn't feel worth it to me at all, I have other ways to play these games.

@Matt_Barber
I still don't see how that makes it a bad precedent. It puts a bit of a question mark on future value for sure but that's not really the same thing as a "bad precedent". When you think about it, funcionally, a free game you have zero interest in playing is as much value to you as free DLC for a game you haven't brought

Its not worth it but joining a family group eases the cost with the same benefits. We’ve had this discussion for the past 3 years and I’ve always used family groups to split the cost. I have 3 spaces if anyones interested

@skywake
You and many others forget that the VC games went on sale quite regularly so you could purchase games cheaper. VC would end up cheaper in the long run especially if Nintendo would use the account system in place to its fullest.

There should be more options. Why lock this sort of content behind a online gaming paywall? I’ve reiterated time and again I don’t play online “period”! I’m sure I’m not alone in that boat. Even if I had internet at home online gaming is not for me. What I am interested in is games I missed out on in my youth. The VC on my 3ds was a godsend. I was over the moon with excitement for the retro offerings on the switch to be the same way. This just makes me so mad!

Except they didn't. There was the 3DS Ambassador program, the early adopter discounts on WiiU, the Wii -> Wii U "upgrade" discount and I believe a referral program on Wii where VC games was the reward. But other than that, nope.

@skywake
Yeah they did. Quite regularly the 3ds VC. I purchased several at very cheap prices.

@GameOtaku I can second this, as I've bought a few 3DS VC games discounted (Sonic Blast and Super Mario Land 2 stick out), and on Wii U, I got Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island at a discount.

These were regular sales. In recent years, VC games really do not go on sale on these two, while other games do.

@GameOtaku
Well lets flip this around, if you were buying that many games on the VC that you were more aware of discounts on releases than I am? You were probably spending more than the cost of NSO on those titles. Which would by definition make the VC model a worse value. And if so your disagreement with the subscription model is not a rational one

It's true. Vc games as well as actual 3ds games were discounted quite often. Either on a regular sale or through platinum or gold coins.

@skywake it really is a case of which do you prefer, so I don't think either mind set is incorrect. However, for me personally, it made much more sense to spend more on VC titles in the long run than NSO for a yearly sub since I actually get to keep the games. What good would it do if I end up actually loving banjo and don't get to play it next year when if I don't resub? Again, I don't think either mindset is wrong in the discussion. I'm just more into the 'buying the games outright' mindset than renting them.

@NintendoByNature And how many of those VC games do you still play today? If you do still play them frequently, then good for you and owning them outright is clearly much better. But for me and I think probably most people, we play a game once and move on, so it doesn't matter if we don't own it anymore. And as I have said before, I would clearly PREFER owning it outright, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. But as you rightly said, neither way is inherently better. It depends on who you are and how you play, and I play many more games through the NSO than I ever did through VC because I never wanted to waste my money on a game that I either had already played a million times and could get any number of ways (the Marios, Zeldas, etc.) or had never played but did not know if I would like. Now I get them all.