Topic: The Nintendo Switch Online Subscription Service Thread

There are those who are enjoying the Online Service and some who don't. I don't think this is a scam imo. And I firmly believed the Switch's Online Service will get better as time goes on. It is not the fallout. People are overreacting.

@GameOtaku What makes you think games you bought at a discounted price go 'poof' if you don't maintain your subscription? That's actually not true. The "free games" bit, yes that's true. But then the Instant Game Collection's whole deal as I understand it is it's a rotating set of games members can play for that month. End of the month, the games change even if you're still subscribing.

The fact Microsoft changed the free games on xb1 to only be accessible if you remain a gold member IMO is scammy since that's just it, they changed it to that system. But neither company removes access to a game you paid for, even if it's at a discount. They might in some rare instances remove a game from the online store, but if you bought it you can still play the game.

EXAMPLE:
XB360 had something called Game Room. It's an app where you can buy arcade cabinets and console games from the 70's and early 80's. The consoles include Atari 2600 and the Intellivision. Game Room has been taken down from the store. But because I did download it in the past and bought various arcade cabinets and atari games for it, I can still download the app, the games I bought, and play those games. Similarly I still have access to the Family Game Night app and the board games for it I bought. They took it down from the online store after physical copies of Family Game Night were released that included all the games. But I can still download the app, the games I bought for the app, and play them.

@FaeKnight a minor correction, ps+ games you download are playable for as long as the sub lasts. Which is frustrating

If you paid for the game, no they aren't suddenly unplayable. If they are part of that month's free games, they are. If you paid for the game using a member discount, that just means you got a discounted price. It doesn't mean the game is only playable if you're a member.

If the game normally costs money, but you didn't pay a cent for it because it's a current free game, then you can't play it if you're not a member.

Ah, then I misunderstood. Yep that's correct.

@FaeKnight
Then I was mistaken about the discounted games. However you are still given "free" games on for being a subscriber, and if you happened to miss out on a free game then it's more than likely to appear as s discount the next month. You wouldn't expect the bank to come and repossess the tv you were given when you signed up for a new account when you found another bank that does service better and closes your old account would you? Seriously the amount of money Sony takes in from console sales, games, psplus and other merchandise they can't afford to let s few games go as free to subscribers?

I've no problem paying strictly for the classic games themselves as I dont play online (and when I do it's not enough to make up for the cost of admission). $20 for a years worth of classic games you own and never goes away sounds like an awesome idea or if they wanted to sell games a la carte $0.38 a piece as someone calculated would also be a great alternative. But paying a fee every year to rent I don't see it as being s very good deal.

Just a clarification about the NES classic games as part of the collection. They aren’t going away next month. It’s a collection that is being added onto. So in two months you can still play Mario Bros, etc.

@FaeKnight was playing soccer earlier tearing it up in some online. Have to say I'm loving the service. Sure some things need improving but I much prefer it over VC.

@JaxonH The thing about the online checks for NES games is that now Sony is doing the exact same thing with their upgraded PSNow service.

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2018/09/20/playstation-now-ad...

But I don't see anywhere NEAR the amount of blowback against Sony for this. Why? Because it honestly does not matter in the slightest, but because it's Nintendo and online people want to latch onto ANYTHING to hate on the service. I think the service is not as good as it could be, but that specific complaint is just completely dumb, especially when a competitor is now doing the exact same thing.

@JaxonH That is probably the most comprehensive examination of the service I’ve seen, and falls pretty much in line with my thinking. As an added bonus, it doesn’t attack anyone.

Folks should remember too that improvements take time, experience, and input.

Actually, it's interesting that PS Now has been mentioned. So for $60 a year for PS+ (compared to Nintendo's $20 for NSO), they get online (like us), cloud saves (like us), free games every month (like us). However, you have to be a subscriber for the month to get those games free and to continue to be a subscriber to play those games (similar to Nintendo, but slightly different). Like if we stop subscription with Nintendo and then come back a few months later, we don't miss out on anything. On PS+, you don't get those month's of games for free. You do have access though to the ones you had previously download again though.

But...those games on PS+ that are free every month are rarely any good. You occasionally get that AAA game, but a lot of times it's indie games that most don't care about. NSO is adding NES Classic games that are beloved. No, we may not like everyone, but we all have different tastes and they were games that were highly loved in their time and still by many.

Now, onto the PS Now mentioned earlier. That's an additional subscription. While PS+ is $60 a year, that doesn't include any of the games in PS Now. PS Now is an additional price every month, quarter or year. I won't even go into the pricing for that as there are many different prices.

So Nintendo's online library that they are growing every month is all part of the same one low $20 a year subscription...unlike the other guy.

It's not that Nintendo Online doesn't provide value. I think the value is there.

The issue is, some features that people expect are either incomplete or missing entirely, even for a $20 service.

It's like... buying a car that has no AC, no heater, no radio or CD player, but comes with bucket seats and lane assist. For the price of the car, the value is there. You got your moneys worth buying that car. But you expect an air conditioner that works for the summer time. You expect a heater that works for the winter time. You expect a basic feature like a radio/CD player. The only difference is you can actually go by all these things with the car. We have no option to buy these things with regard to Switch. And that's why it's such a problem because we feel these things should be complete and on the menu, and it's a major inconvenience to downright aggravation not having them.

As for PS Now, I think perhaps the reason there is no blowback is because it is an online streaming service at heart. It's simply allowing downloads as an additional extension of the service. But at the end of the day it's a streaming service so online connectivity is expected going into it. And being on a home console, you always have access to your home Wi-Fi. With Switch, it's not a streaming service, it's monthly game downloads, and on a portable system that will often go offline. Either way I'd be just as irked with PS Now, and that's probably why I'll never use it.

The major problem everyone always overlooks is that not everyone (including myself) has an Internet connection at home. Just like I can back up my files at home on a flash drive from my switch or laptop without using the cloud service. Basic data protection should be a no brainer, no matter if you have fancy interweb access or not.

The nes games also being a part of the service also is a huge inconvenience when before you could purchase and play the games you wanted anytime you so desired compared to having limited access to a limited library of games of which you may have already purchased in the past (I've well over 100 bc on my 3ds alone and that took years). Why is basic services so hard to get through!

For NES games, just tether to your data plan with your phone for like a second if the Wi-Fi is out or if you're out and about? Only needs one check per week and it's no big deal.

Cloud saves shouldn't be the only way to backup saves, yeah, but so long as Nintendo is uber paranoid about hacking, they're probably not going to want that be a thing.

@EvilLucario
But it is a big deal to tether it to your phone when you have gasp no service at home to do such a thing. Shocking I know isn't it that Internet service isn't available everywhere all the time! I play games on my own time not Nintendo's, gamers shouldn't have to be inconvenienced simply because they can't get to Internet service for a weekly check in when you could buy them like before with vc (once you remove playing games online bit you are left with the same vc games you already purchased).

If you don’t have means to connect to the internet, I’d advice against paying for an online service.

Virtual console doesn’t exist on the switch, this is a rental service, it would make no business sense to let you play offline indefinitely when they want you to keep paying.

Either way, I’m pretty sure the 3DS, WiiU and the NES Classic Edition consoles are still pretty much functional and available. You can play most of those games there too.

@Yosheel
If there was more content for the 3ds vc (which is odd sense the last slew of vc was wiiu only tg16 games which were available on 3ds in Japan). The prospect of the ultimate vc machine that could play pretty much anything up to and including the GameCube was what I was hoping for and so far I've been extremely let down with it classic content this far since most of it focused on arcade titles.

If it's so simple for hackers to add games to the service I don't see why big n doesn't step up its game and release more than just 3 a month, have the entire vc library at your fingertips and then continue to add more. I've got the roms loaded on my 3ds that I bought from the service transfer it to my PC and drop them into the switchs sd card it searches for new classic games voila easy transfer of legacy content. Why can't it simply be that easy. With psp to vita a simply went to the online shop and looked in my downloads and redownload all my games (with maybe one exception).

My questions would be the following:

If you don't have internet access at home, what are you doing buying games that are mainly online games or paying for an online service? And why would you care about cloud save backup if you don't have internet access at home?

Anyone want a subscription for £5? I'm up for signing up for a family sub and sharing it with 5 other accounts (I need the other 3).

If anyone is serious about sharing a family sub then email me at [email protected] and give me an @ here.

I will send you an invite to the group and expect payment within 24hrs. Payment will be via PayPal (it's easy to setup an account if you haven't already).

Edit: I've got one taker already, so just 4 spaces left now.