Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

And that's the issue. If Ubisoft started charging a mandatory fee of $20 a year to access their games (not talking about online, but just the privilege of playing the games), you could easily argue that $20 isn't a lot and that nobody should be allowed to complain. It's not about the money, it about the principle behind charging for a P2P network. Because as it currently stands, the only thing that changes in September is the mandatory paywall. And it's pointless for Nintendo to suddenly introduce dedicated servers for no apparent reason at all.

You can follow your principles until you die. It doesn't make you right or them wrong.

It's a case of accept it and move on or don't and don't. Sure things are changing, but that's the price of progress. Everything changes. Everything. All the time. Doesn't make everything right or wrong. Accept it or don't. Pay $20 or not. Your choice.

My choice is not to pay - at least until I hear in full what we'll get for our money. I'm not against the charge, but as a pretty much solo gamer, online has very little interest for me. But even so, if what it offers benefits me then I will invest.

@NaviAndMii
PS Plus ?
Ooooh...
That's one of my Restriction for my PS4 when i get it later.
I Forbid any kind of Freebies from Sony.
I Refuse to get any Free Games from Sony.
That's why i will Not make ps plus for my ps4. Just only Normal PSN Account to buy The Sims 4 DLC and Expansion Packs Only.
I will not be "nice" with Sony and my ps4.

But, i will Accept any kind of Freebies from Nintendo, as long they are suitable for me.
I'm willing to spend $20 for Paid Online Service.
My money is Mostly for Nintendo.
Not for Sony.

You're putting quite a lot of words in my mouth. I'm just saying you can only refer to something as 'added value' if a user perceives it as such. I might perceive a few of the 'free' games as added value, but most of them won't appeal to me. That doesn't really matter though, since I wouldn't mind paying 20 bucks on a yearly basis to play an occasional game of Mario Kart or trade some Pokemon in the near future.

There's other stuff which could be included in the new online that appeals to me but not to other people or the other way around, e.g. cloud save or voice chat or whatever...

@ToiletDuck - I never put ANY words in your mouth. I didn't even quote you.

Should we stop with talking about the price till we exactly know what we get for it?

@Anti-Matter Not just that either, the PlayStation Network has gone down 3 times in the last week - even if you're only paying for the online part of the service, it's not much use if it's offline half the time!

It definitely sounds like there is going to be more to the online subscription than what we currently know about.

"Preparing some attractive (contents or programs) for subscription-based online membership. Please wait for the detail announcement later in the year."

Remember originally it was 1 NES game or 1 SNES game with online play per month. You only got to choose one or the other, not both. They also said at the time that those who missed out on that month's free game would then have the opportunity to purchase it, VC-like. The way it was described though made it sound like even subscribers only had access to the game they chose for 1 month although it was never actually confirmed if that was the case. Nintendo was slated at the time for being stingy and rightly so, especially since there was no indication of how much it would all cost. They then came back some time later with much more details of the service and this time made it clear that you will have access to the monthly games for as long as you stay subscribed. With all the details on what a subscription included and the low cost of joining announced at once, most websites covered the news favorably and the reaction from gamers was generally positive. But really this low price just glossed over the fact that SNES games were no longer included and were now something that may be considered in future. To me though that came across as them being even more stingy than the first time. That was a long time ago now though,things will have further changed since then.

Well yeah, the changes if any to the actual online service itself is the key thing to look at. Stuff like free games is nothing more than a distraction.

The kind of stuff you should be looking for is (not a full list):

• Cloud saves
• Equivalents of Xbox's Party Chat and Game Chat
• The mobile app being an extra option rather than the only way to voice chat
• Dedicated servers for 1st party games (Note below)

Note: Including existing 1st party games like MK8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 moving over to dedicated servers, not just new 1st party games.

Of course Nintendo ends up winning anyway though because if you want to keep playing the games online you'll buy the subscription even if the service is identical to how it is now just with a few free games here and there.

@Grumblevolcano I don't see why party chat isn't doable, am I remembering correctly that there is a game that can kind of make use of the headphone jack as a microphone or something? Maybe I dreamt it.

I agree with Octane. No matter how "cheap" $20 is compared to the competition, it's still too much. Nintendo has done squat to show us that their online has improved versus past generations. In fact, it has actually gotten worse with the fact that the Switch, unlike the Wii U, has Friend Codes without usernames. In other ways, the online system is just unforgivably bare-bones. Nintendo's just getting greedy, and they have not given us any reason we should need to pay for their online services.

NES and SNES games? How about no. I've had decades to play these games. I've had several opportunities to get them on Virtual Console. I don't want to pay $20 a month to temporarily keep them on one system (at the end of the Switch's lifespan, you will have spent a ton of money for games that no longer even exist on your system). I want to pay for them once on Virtual Console and know that Nintendo will ensure that my purchase will mean something when the next system comes around, as well.

This is exactly what I'm afraid is going to happen.

Yet. We don't know what they are offering.

It's $20 a year, not per month!

We actually got a visual novel for once, The Men of Yoshiwara: Kikuya. It's the same one that came out in Japan last week. It's a romance game for women, though. I'll do some research. Maybe it can be enjoyed by men like Hakuoki which the visual style reminds me of. It's only 20€ which seems to be 8€ less than on Steam so that's nice.

@zitpig Right, $20 a year. Just a mistake I made in my post. I do know it is $20 a year, and it changes nothing for me.

This is on Nintendo. Before coming out and telling us that we're going to have to begin paying for their online services, they should have proved to us why. Instead they were just like "BTW, you're going to have to pay for our online services now lol" and that was the end of it.

Nintendo has a long reputation among gamers for having very mediocre online infrastructures compared to their competition. So, to really come out and say that we're going to have to begin paying for their online without any sign that they're actually going to improve it is incredibly bold and really feels like a slap to the face.

The very least they could have done was list a bunch of major improvements they were looking to make to the online system and then say "We're going to need you to pay for a subscription for this service, we hope you understand". But nope, none of that.

If I were them, I probably would have given some details about what the service would provide or include before telling us how much it'd be. For their sake, I hope they impress us.

@Late - Whether these sorts of games/novels/err... apps appeal to the masses (male, female or other) or not, it's great that more esoteric stuff, like this, is released worldwide and I wish it every suscces. It's good to try something new from time to time.

@OorWullie They never said itbwas delayed to autumn im afraid. The only delay the Onljne ever had was to 2018. Just 2018. Now it is September 2018. A delay eould be falling outside 2018

You know Im more confident paying £20 yearly for this than £60 yearly for PSPlus.

Namely because the Nintebdo one hasnt gone down three times in the past week and had a historic mega security breach. XD

@Grumblevolcano What's the point of moving Mario Kart and Splatoon to dedicated servers?

Patience padawan! ..there'll be a pre-launch announcement later this year!