Nintendo Outlines Pricing Range for Switch Online Service

This is FANTASTIC NEWS!

Ah, that's actually not that expensive! That eases one of my main concerns a bit!

Japanese pricing never converts fairly to here. The Switch is <€245 in Japan while we in Europe have to pay €330. We always have to pay more for their goods. Anyway, let's see what they officially announce.

Wow, thats a lot cheaper than I expected.

It means fabulous multiplayer reliability - great and fast servers. and it's ridiculously cheap ! Well done Nintendo!

Son, that's pocket change!

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Let me guess, you live in Canada, Australia or Europe.

At this price point I do not mind paying for the online service, but that brings me to part two: will the service itself be reliable?

Seems a great price to me!

Likely be £30 in the UK top end. That's not bad at all.

But you get nes and snes games for limited time! Sweet deal right guys! In all seriousness, it's not that expensive.

Really glad to hear. I was figuring it would come in around this range, but without evidence, I just sound like a fanboy... UNTIL NOW!!

@Torterror The clue's in the name EIRE and the colour of the avatar.

i bet the conversion for uk is gonna be horrible though like 30 dollars in us but 30 pounds in uk

Xbox is 3 times that

Even $30 a year isn;t that much

@Torterror "while we in Europe have to pay €330"
...I bet he lives in Canada

It's not much, but it doesn't change the fact we shouldn't really have to pay at all.

Ya I thought they were gonna try to charge $60, which given what you're getting for your money seemed high. But now it all makes sense.

I wasn't planning to sub. I stopped all my subs on other consoles and was perfectly content to do so here also (even though Nintendo is the one platform where I actually play games online).

But for $20 (let's even say $25 or $30 just to be safe, and if it's less then even better)... that I'm willing to do. It doesn't feel like a huge expense at this price.

This is the best news we could have reasonably hoped for regarding pricing.

$30 is acceptable, despite being the weakest of the three online offerings. If this does improve online play, it could be worth the transition.

@TheLZdragon have the price of Xbox gold

How about some VC news? And especially how digital games will be tied to the accounts rather than the systems... hopefully

That's fine with me!

@TheLZdragon half*

That pricing isn't bad by any means, but I still have yet to see a concrete reason to pay for online services to begin with (I rarely play online anyway). Most of the perks just don't appeal to me, though to be fair we need a little more info on some of them.

Perfect price for whats on offer imo, I'll still be interested to see what the "discounts" for member look like though

So probably $30 at the most per YEAR, which isn't too shabby at all. That's chump change compared to PS+ (although it probably won't offer as much). Definitely within the "even my perpetually broke butt can afford that" price range.

Don't forget to post about the new MyNintendo "rewards". Vintage discounts as usual.

20 dollars for a whole year thats quite the deal

Can I trade in those useless my Nintendo points to get it?

@biscuitsandtea Their servers were reliable even without being paid so now they'll be even more stable and reliable.

$27 for 12 months ?!
Kaching...!!
Yay...!!

If that price can make Nintendo Switch enable to streaming Online without WiFi signal for 24 hours / 7 days (Like smartphone), OMG...!!!

10 bucks says the final pricing in the US will be $29.99 or $39.99

GOOD

Ain't too shabby.

Thank God, some amazing news. This isn't terribly expensive at all. At that rate it'll come out to about $1.45 - $2.20 USD monthly.

I will believe it when it happens. The local multiplayer and portability, my favorite part, really takes away from the need for online for me. Obviously a game like COD isn't going to allow local because Activision wants to stop secondhand sales, but Splat and MKart having full-local is awesome. Unless they released Devil's Third online I probably don't need it.

I won't pay more than $20/year.
but keep in mind that I don't play online very often at all so I wouldn't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

@danielman9 and it offers 3 times as much in value.

"Kimishima says the yearly fees make it easier for Nintendo to support online features such as multiplayer or downloads of classic games."

Great, so we can assume all our Wii U VC purchases will transfer over in tact, correct?

Hmm. Twenty-dollars isn't bad! I could totally live with paying that much!

That's 62p a week or £2.50 a month worst case.
Impressive but I need to know more!

@gatorboi352 I hope so. That would be such a blessing! I do hope, however, that there will be a real Virtual Console as well.

This was one of the reasons not to buy a switch anytime soon but that's a good price. Ninty are releasing alt of info at moment so I expect VC news within a week or 2

Sounds good. Can I get a bundle deal for PS4, XboxOne and Nintendo?

If it had all the features of the other two, I would be fine paying the same amount.

I hold the same view as @Equinox.

Nobody talking about the VR? Please get a move on with that. VR Mario Kart would be irrestible to me.

"Doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't have to pay at all"

Talk about entitlement. I have to pay for someone to provide a service that costs them money? Mindblowing, isn't it?

Especially considering the fact that EVERY SINGLE OTHER CONSOLE GAMER currently has to pay in order to play online games, this is by no means a ridiculous thing.

I was hoping it would be about £20 for a year so this is great

@cfgk24 But you are not getting any games.. Its 23 just for the online..

I'm so relieved! Now buying Splatoon 2 will be actually worth it!

@ShortSleevedNook Other services give you a full licence to play the game for at least a year.. usually the price of all the games you get are 10 times more of what you pay for the whole service..

@Anti-Matter what are you talking about. Did you read the article

Probably around £25-£30 in the UK. Thats pretty good. However as long as i can accessnthe e shop and make purchases online i wont be paying. With the exception of Splatoon there likely wont be many must have online games for the switch.

This price could based on the fact the we are just paying for what we have now, and once Nintendo amass our subscriptions in the years to come they will invest in better servers and then say the subscription is more because the service has improved.

Good. That's one problem taken care of.

That's quite low, however if it's just for online play and rentals of old games that I can probably play in one way or another already, I'll still have to consider if it's actually worth it. It's not as if I play online that much, if ever beyond Splatoon or the occasional MK8 race (which I enjoy much more locally anyway).

Given we get to keep an old game for just a month, I wouldn't have expected for anything more expensive than this. Comparatively, PlayStation Plus is slightly better with it letting players keep the current-gen game for a month, and Xbox Live Gold is objectively the best with players being able to keep their current-gen game for good.
Given this comparison, it's only fair if the online service is cheaper than the latter two.

Wow. That's excellent pricing. That's fair to me.

Well, it's a bummer we have to start paying for the service, but for roughly $2 a month, that makes the news a little easier to swallow. I hope the service winds up being this inexpensive.

This is a very decent price indeed, especially considering the fact that the official price point for PS Plus or Xbox Live is still anywhere between €40 - €49,99/$50 - $59,99. So even if the price of Nintendo's service is going to be €30/$35, it'll still be the most affordable out there.

And keeping in mind that this time around, DeNA is going to take care of the online part, I'm pretty confident that the online experience will be more than on par with the competition.

And seeing as these are the official prices, chances are that cheaper deals can be found online soon after. I've never paid a penny more than €34 a year for Xbox Live Gold, and that's a BIG difference if you compare that to the official prices mentioned at the beginning of my comment...

@UK-Nintendo
I assume Switch can streaming online even without WiFi signal because I noticed from Airplane mode.

"Also states VR will be added to Switch when the experience is right"

Now this is potentially awesome news—even just the confirmation that VR is being taken seriously, but also, all things going according to plan, will actually come to the system at some point. THIS could be a system selling feature IF DONE RIGHT—and all the naysayers will finally get to see exactly why VR is so dang exciting to anyone who actually has a clue.

Also, the price of the online seems pretty good too, but it really all comes down to just how good or bad that experience is ultimately.

In regard to the recent pricing reveals I was really expecting something awful and in line with well...

Anyway, I am pleasantly surprised!!!!

And I can give or take VR on Switch. It's a sideshow gimmick in my opinion. Unless Nintendo does the Nintendo thing with VR and makes it an awesome game playing experience, I'm meh on VR.

Not bad, not bad at all. Support will always come down to a dollar amount. It just makes sense to reinvest into your infrastructure with the money you charge for it.

BREAKING NEWS: Urban Champion to be first NES downloadable title with online play from this paid service.

The same haters as always trying to turn this news in a bad thing. Pathetic.(they would be complaining no matter what was the price)

Interesting indeed. I'm waiting for an official statement concerning the yearly subscription of Switch online. But I like what's being said guestimation/ballpark wise. 30 dollars or less is a lot better than 60 dollars a year. In fact im not even going to renew my Sony and Xbox subscriptions. My Sony one ends in March, and Xbox in September. No way I'm paying for three subscriptions. Lol.

@RedeadLink servers aren't free are they?

That's pretty good, not forgetting the 12 monthly VC rentals you get as well. Even if you hate the idea, its a chance to try NES/SNES games you'd probably would not have brought otherwise.....

@mjharper I would hope to God it actually would. And, if it actually does, it could be something very special indeed, even if it's probably around Google Daydream level of VR as opposed to the more high-end VR that we're getting on the likes of Vive and Rift right now. It could be genuinely amazing having VR on Switch, IF Nintendo actually does it right.

Pricing is okay, much better the PS4 or XBONE at least.

All that matters is if the service is worth paying for.

I knew it!!! I was just daydreaming yesterday how cool a mario kart vr would be... wondering why a re-release would he taking this long.... hmmmmmm.....

If it ends up being $30 a year in the US, I will spring for it. thats $2.50 a month. I probably find that much in change in parking lots and in the sofa every month anyways.

It's ~$2 a month. If you can't afford that, then maybe you have more important things to do than buy a Switch.

@Salnax I disagree PlayStation is the best next to Nintendo.Xbox sucks bottom line.30 bucks a year deal.and besides that Nintendo hasent said a whole lot about there online.

If that's really what the price is then that's nothing. I'll easily fork over $25 a year.

US $40 (max) is a reasonable yearly price.

@impurekind really...since Nintendo pulled off 3d with no glasses.

@Yorumi So it's all a big scam? I'm not very tech savy and I don't really play games as often as I used to, but if it's actually a scam then I'll just stop buying online from them.

@Anti-Matter "If that price can make Nintendo Switch enable to streaming Online without WiFi signal for 24 hours / 7 days (Like smartphone), OMG...!!! "

wut.

"I assume Switch can streaming online even without WiFi signal because I noticed from Airplane mode. Modern electronic"

Um, you may want to google 'airplane mode'.

That's a reasonable price. Way less than what I pay for Netflix or Amazon Prime.

@Joestar- I hope so, MK8 was fine, but I don't play many Nintendo games online.

Last Mario Kart I tried online besides 8 was on the Nintendo DS 😅

Woah.... Iwata approves.

@Anti-Matter you shouldn't just assume. Anyway. It's like a wifi only iPod touch. That also has airplane mode which just stops all the signal

Awesome! I was afraid it was going to be 60 dollars like the other (superior) online services. I'm willing to pay 30.

I fully expected the Switch's online subscription to be $50-60 per year, given how overpriced the Switch's accessories are, so to see that it will likely be around $30 per year makes me much happier.

Nintendo still has to fully detail what features and capabilities are included with the online service, so I can't say that the $30 fee will be worth it, but at least Nintendo isn't copying PSN and XBL's pricing while offering what will almost certainly be an inferior experience.

The price is reasonable, but I still want to know if there will be in store cards as alternative payment methods, since a credit card is pretty much out of the question for me.

@Yorumi Infrastructure isn't just support for online games. Support for the overall Nintendo Online service requires servers that Nintendo needs to operate, and they're choosing to offset some of the cost to the customer. Assuming Nintendo sees through and upgrades their infrastructure as time goes on, I think the cost is worth it.

That being said I understand how you feel. Hopefully Nintendo will improve the service over the trial point they're providing when the Switch launches so that the price they're asking for is worth it.

I'll take it. Low pricing eases the blow a bit. Let's hope they use actual exchange rates and don't artificially inflate the prices outside of Japan.

@walrusballs
I'm not into VR but I'm not critical to those who want it. The only reason why I don't play in VR is to avoid headaches nausea and vomit reactions. But a Mario Kart VR would be close to a rollercoaster experience imo, which would be really cool to those who could stomach it.

I'm not going to break out the champagne until we have official confirmation on the price of the service in the U.S., but $30 per year is significantly more reasonable than I would have imagined. Considering the limitations of Nintendo's service as compared to competitors, it only makes sense to price it lower.

If they had confirmed this stuff during the Direct, they'd have avoided plenty of criticism/bad press. Not all of it, sure, but that sort of price range would have turned off many an alarm from the get-go.

As usual, Nintendo showcases little idea about how to make the best first impression.

@Anti-Matter The Switch will not have the capability for a cellular data connection (it would have been in the tech specifications released recently). Plenty of devices without that still have an Airplane Mode; it just cuts off all wireless connections (e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth). Turning off the 3DS' Wireless switch is the same thing as the Switch's Airplane Mode.

I'm guessing the price range depends on whether you pay monthly or yearly, etc.

@remag Here, enjoy that video right here on this page, along with other NLife members:

Nintendo Switch - Hands-On Reactions - Nintendo UK

@Slim1999 Xbox Live has better online connections, better online communication and party system, you keep any games you get forever. Xbox Live Gold is much better than PS Plus.

I wonder if you have to pay both this fee and the Pokemon Bank fee to use Pokemon Bank on Switch. It could hypothetically become a "free" service, since all online is paid by default, but somehow I don't entirely believe it.

@Mellor2000 I paid the same for Xbox live every year

I will gladly donate $30 a year if it leads to a healthier online system for Nintendo. Hopefully they get their act together and forget the smartphone crap for voice chat.

Now that monthly NES or SNES game that you don't get to keep actually sounds like a nice gesture!

@idrawrobots Correction, you keep the Xbox 360 titles permenantly. Xbox One titles (and beyond, since Microsoft is touting forward compatibility with every new system from here on out) require a gold subscription.

That being said, the 360 titles almost always make it a better deal than PS plus because of backwards compatibility.

Off topic but a new game SNAKE PASS coming to switch from Sumo Digital. I just watched the vid on Nintendo Everything. It looks cool. or maybe this is old news

Well, $30 is far more reasonable than I expected. I fully though they would price it right up with PS+/XBG.

Its a bummer that free online is gone, and I'll only subscribe if there comes a game I really want to use online (like XCX's squad missions), but $30 a year is something I can pay.

Kimishima's comment on VR makes it sound to me like Nintendo is still having Virtual Boy nightmares...

Holy crap that's cheap!

@Yorumi what are you talking about? Nintendo isn't charging anyone to use their online store.

@Firelork Not that expensive?! @ About 19.99-24.99 a year for online is practically change.

Did not expect it to he that cheap so yeah good news

@redd214 XD You better believe it!

Well that's still $17.50 - $26.50 too much (for something that should be free), but it's way better than I expected.
At least it makes it a bit more bearable when I'll finally bite the bullet and subscribe just for Splatoon 2 and ARMS.

Still, I wouldn't call it cheap.
0,99€ would've been 'cheap'.
20€ are still too much for what is essentially a paywall.

That's way less than what I pay for an annual subscription to Crunchyroll and Microsoft Office. People have no reason to complain now.

@Yorumi "Does amazon charge you to use their store? Or steam? Or gog? Or gamestop? Or any other online store on the entire internet? No. Oh but consoles they're special, they can't do what everyone else does, you have to pay for it or you're just an entitled hater."

What are you talking about?? Nintendo/Sony/MS dont charge you to USE THE STORE!!?

You can use the actual store all you want without paying anything but the cost of the games.

@danielman9 I have never paid more than $35 for a year of Xbox Live.

$30 not bad for it, but I will still try and find better deals online for it just like I do xbox live and psn. I don't really play that much online anyways.

@kamikazilucas judging by other Switch JP/UK prices it'll most likely be £40 in the UK. This is the same price as PSN.

@Yorumi Do note that I wasn't talking about the online store. Sorry if I worded that incorrectly.

Secondly, I was talking about overall infrastructure. Their new account system and system features will rely on this infrastructure and it doesn't come cheap for Nintendo.

Admittedly you are right, paying for online, especially Nintendo's service is hard to justify. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate 😄 They'll need to do more if they want me to remain paying for the service.

I was expecting $90 given how they price their plastic dock, so this is good news; you pay less for an inferior service compared to ps+ and xbox live. VR on the switch however, does anyone really want VR on a 720p screen? Screen door effect anyone? Even my s6 at 1440p, there's still some noticeable screen door effect. I did read online that the psvr has less screen door effect than vive or oculus due to having more subpixels despite having lower resolution.

I'm glad to see the $20-30 price range. I feared $50-60 and had little intention of paying that. $20-30 I may keep. I'd love if that included cloud saves. I do not download the "free" games offered by Playstation and can in no way justify paying their huge premium when I only want to use half the service.

@gcunit My interpretation of Nintendo's stance on VR is "Dear investors: Of course we're working on VR, I mean, who wouldn't? It's the next big thing! (snicker, giggle!) - We'll re-issue this same statement in 5 years after announcing Switch 2 after everyone else has long abandoned VR (again.)" I just don't see Nintendo selling $400+ VR goggles, or having a Galaxy VR style Switch holder where you strap a 720P screen to your head. The resolutions just not there for VR. It could "work" but the experience would be a little off. Even Sony's big push on VR is little more than a splash in the pond now despite the E3 pomp around it.

(I say this as a red-blooded Virtual Boy owner.)

@Yorumi I don't disagree with you regarding the statement about the fees making downloading digital games doable....you're right. I still disagree regarding "there are no servers" - ban all of nintendo's IP ranges on your router, and see how well you can connect to those P2P hosts. There are Nintendo servers. They are not hosting the gameplay (on the WiiU) however. And we do not know about Switch.

Like I said before, you may turn out to be right, that's absolutely possible. But it's just wrong to go around stating "facts" as you assume them to be before we actually know the details on a per-game basis. Many a Splatoon fan will be equally frustrated along side you if they are not improving the gameplay infrastructure. But we don't know anything about the details on that at all yet.

@redd214 In fairness to Yorumi, Kimishima did say something very odd about it helping them deliver retro game downloads, which implies the fees pay for the store....which doesn't make sense at all, purchases pay for the store.

So those HMD rumors were true! The best 10 minutes of gaming in my life was Sony's Playroom VR platformer. Pure joy. Nintendo VR is going to be gaming nirvana.

You can snag a one month membership for $9.99. PlayStation Plus: Sony's online service is a tad cheaper when it comes to a 12 month or three month subscription. A year membership retails for $49.99, with a three month membership retailing for $17.99.

Xbox Live Gold is a carry-over from the Xbox 360, and Microsoft has said that the service will cost the same amount — $5 a month, or $59.99 a year for a 12-month subscription, $24.99 for three months, or $10 a month on a month-to-month basis.

Nintendo Switch will be $30.00 or less.

@Mega_Yarn_Poochy The old its's only $ a month line! Well all those only $ a months add up when everybody is charging them and some.

@Yorumi if you are fair to Nintendo, their online efforts for Wii and Wii U suck. Many game work well but even when they do they are so devoid of options to keep things simple. If paying 30 or so dollars a year to make the online experience better and give us more control over how we play online I will gladly do it. I know on PC everything is either free or practically free but I prefer console game. I would expect almost everyone in this community would agree with me on that. In many ways being gaming on console is like paying a premium for ease of use and with Nintendo and their games they make it worth the premium.

Nintendo: making asses out of u and umptions.

I am glad to hear the pricing is low, if for no other reason than to allay the fears of some that I have read here. I'm not sure if I will pay, I have a few months to see. I have literally never played online on my PS4 on anything other than FIFA. And not often on that. So we will see, I have been recommended Splatoon by many here, even though I have frowned at every online shooter I have seen my roomie play.

Is it weird that I actually am more interested in the Nes/Snes loans? I always wanted to play super Mario 3, and I played a bit of river city ransom on a friends ds, and would also like to play it on the switch.

So just 80 bucks Canadian?

@Mogster please can you go somewhere else and leave the people who can read properly here

People are willingly deluding themselves if they think this the Japanese price is going to be directly converted to pound/dollars. It doesn't work that way for any other Nintendo products (Switch included) so why would that be the case here?

It'll be £40 here which is same as PSN.

WE NEED a Nintendo Direct. NOW.

@kamikazilucas excuse me?

@CapricornDavid If he was in Canada he'd be paying $400 for his console with the added despair of almost no price competition at launch. I know, first hand experience as a Canadian.

@Torterror I thought that was obvious since it's in his original comment.

That's a very, very good price. I'll pay that.

@Rumncoke25

The "loans" are super exciting! the internet commentariat at large is completely missing the point of this secret killer.

PSPlus and Xbox GwG are, for the most part, backlog cloggers. Very few people play these games immediately unless they're multiplayer, and often those are ghost towns. Rocket League was the exception.

Also, this isn't a dumping ground for underperformers like the other services. Nintendo is tweaking these games specifically for this. Imagine everyone doing speedruns with internet leaderboards for Mega Man 2 in July. Youtubers posting strats. Iwata asks style interviews with the original team. Polygon and giantbomb doing features. Kotaku publishing Brooklyn hot takes and cosplay articles. It's more of a monthly celebration of heritage and classics than anything. And really who's playing these games for more tham a month? People who find enough value to spend a few bucks I imagine.

If done right, it's brilliant. It's everything the Virtual Console tried to do with it's drip-feed with zero success.

That's... actually great news. I was thinking before that it wasn't going to be worth it since it offers much less than PS+ and XBL but would probably be the same price. But the fact that it's much cheaper means the lack of features and free games is justified.

@Mogster you said it would be the same price as psn even though psn is 5000yen probably gonna go up to 6000 soon and this is gonna be 2000/3000

Metroid vr

Not a bad price point at all, however these are the Japanese price points, which means it won't be exactly the same in every region as everyone is raving about, but Nintendo should make the price cheap enough, so those who want to use the service can use it, without their wallets being sucked dry. Although I won't be using it since the games that i'm willing to buy on the Switch are only single player and i'm already paying for PS+. But a cheap price point is key.

@kamikazilucas I'm talking about UK not Japan. The two aren't even directly comparable. Yen does not equal Pound. It will be £40 in UK which is same as PSN as I wrote in my original comment.

Perhaps it is you that needs to learn some basic comprehension skills.

If they charge $30 US a year then that is very fair, especially if they use that money to invest in a good backbone for their network. It would be even better if they provide the option to sign-up for 2 years at $50 allowing them to get more money up front when they really need it.

@Yorumi Normally I just read the comments, but reading all your uneducated comments got me to made an account to respond to your comments.

You keep mentioning p2p is used in so and so AAA title so why should we pay for online service and etc. Then you mention about how accounts are in a database just like the website like amazon and other retailer. You might not realize this but everything on the web is hosted on way or another, Amazon's website and your so call database is on their server farms for example. These all cost money for upkeep, and if you use some common sense you then realize that amazon gets their customer to pay for their servers also. It might not look like a but they actually charge a premium for their servers such as costing $0.99 + %fee on top per item sold or maybe you should look at Amazon prime for sec. With that said everything on the web requires a host from either a server or your own computer.

As for the AAA titles that has p2p, I don't think you know what you are talking about. Games with dedicated servers sure cost more than p2p, but what p2p is actually a method to cut cost comparing to using full dedicated servers. I say this because you won't have match making or friend list or even voice chat if you don't have a dedicated server behind supporting these so call p2p connections on big titles. I work in the I.T. field and I can tell you it cost thousands for companies to keep their data center up and running.

As for the comment about the online store, it works just like any other retailer as they do get money for their servers. You might not notice the fee but they most likely get a cut from the profit from the other publisher just for per sale.

I realize you have your own opinion but I just can't stand people ranting about something they are not even fimilar with.

@Mogster the two arent directly comparable yet your comparing them, please shut up and look at what i said, if playstation plus is 5000 yen which equals 40 pounds then why would something thats 3000 yen cost 40 pounds aswell, dont say stop comparing psn because you are comparing it too

@Yorumi If I where you I wouldn't buy a Switch. Doesn't sound as if you see any value in it which is fine, you can spend your money on what you like.

@Yorumi Nintendo Life relies on advertising revenue add their main source of income (as far as I'm aware). Nintendo doesn't have that luxury, and even Microsoft uses their advertising zones to advertise other games on their storefront.

Once again, Nintendo believes that their database, part of their infrastructure, is worth charging for. It's been proven that PC players do not pay for these services (GFWL and Onlive) but console players do. Why should Nintendo deny themselves an area of income? To their private service no less.

I understand your stance but I'm afraid the numbers don't lie. Revenue from online services is in the billions, and Nintendo wants that on their yearly earnings.

But to my original point, if your connecting to any service, your connecting to a server that is being hosted by someone. This holds especially true for PC games that provide users dedicated server tools to host their own games. If it isn't p2p, typically there will always be someone paying for you to connect and play.

I'm happy your keeping your stance, though. It's important to have a fire lit under these companies so they don't go about cheating us out of dosh pointlessly 😄 keep up the good fight, my icy friend!

@idrawrobots I have both and I agree that Xbox Live is more stable. Playstation seems more vulnerable to attacks and stays down longer. However, Playstation's is still very good for the most part. Party chat is great.

@ThanosReXXX #122 "Kimishima's comment on VR makes it sound to me like Nintendo is still having Virtual Boy nightmares..."

And they should be.
VR on a 720p/60Hz screen wouldn't be that great.

Oh man, I hope it doesn't turn out to be outrageously priced in Canada.

So that means in the States it'll translate to somewhere between $20 and $30 if we base it on how the Switch was priced in the US and Japan. Hm...that's interesting the minimum was the same as what I was predicting. I'm guessing they want to gauge the price level that consumers are willing to pay after having owned the Switch for a couple of months (since they start charging in Fall).

@Mogster Sounds like Europe gets the raw end of the deal if that's the case. If we go by the actual prices of the Switch in the different regions the Switch fee will be half (at bare minimum as it can still be lower since 30,000 yen is the max price) of that of the PSN fee in the US. Sounds like more of an issue with NoE pricing.

@ElementSponge Probably be a bit more expensive since our pricing for games generally reflects the exchange rate at the time when the game was released. Unfortunately, our exchange rate is pretty bad right now though. Looking at a PSN 12 month membership, that costs about $7 more here than in the States.

That is one of my concerns on the switch alleviated, but not yet enough to make me buy a Switch.

@kamikazilucas if you're the kind of person who tells people to shut up in a discussion then you aren't even worth responding too.

@Mogster atleast im the one with a sensible argument your just spouting nonsense

Well, shoot. If it's half the price of XBox live then I may not even complain about the gimped voice chat--assuming the servers are good, of course.

@Moshugan That's not how that comment was supposed to be interpreted, but thanks for twisting it's actual meaning...

And knowing Nintendo, they will work something out, so don't be all judging them purely based on the numbers on paper. Apparently, they don't mean much in the bigger picture, as shown by the extensive previews and hands-on reviews of not only the NLife crew but also many other sites and game reporters, who have almost unanimously come to the conclusion that this "only" 720p screen is actually much nicer and crisper than they would have previously expected it to be, so let's wait and see first before we drop the axe on it, alright?

I think Nintendo should have charged $40 per year and let us keep the VC game, but I'm perfectly content with this price point and arrangement.

@NEStalgia Yeh, I'm inclined to agree. VR is quite probably just a bit of bait that Nintendo will swing every now and then to drum up Switch interest, but it will most likely go the same way as the quality of life stuff.

@IceClimbers yes this is true, but your not getting any movies in this subscription.

So probably $49.99 CDN a year, roughly $69.99 AUD a year? Fu@# you Nintendo...

Not too interested in online gaming really for most games, no time and all.. I will get it surely if they give me games I want or other perks and cool Nintendo stuff though (I miss Club Nintendo ), but will not pay if it's the awful mentality of others of "you get these games but they disappear once you stop paying". No way.

The price is wrong. I'm sure they will charge higher than PlayStation plus. It's Nintendo

@TwilightV option 1) I imagine the subscription will be paid through the app. From whom you buy it. Eg apple or android. So this would be an option to use gift cards.
Option 2) it's available through the EShop which also has gift cards as payment.

I'll echo what everyone else is saying. This price point sounds better then we all expected and great in comparison to the competition.

But, I'll call it now, they increase the price 1-2 years in to be $49-$59 per year.

....price it cheap and make everyone happy now, then increase the price once they already own the system and are hooked on the service.

@Yorumi
Honest question: You seem to greatly dislike Nintendo, Nintendo products, Nintendo prices, Nintendo's business models, and now Nintendo customers. You seem to very passionately love PC gaming and the structure around it.

So what is it that makes you want to spend time on a website dedicated to customers of a product of which you hate? Surely not just to tell everyone all day how much you hate the product they like?

It's a shame, because you raise some good points and you could be interesting to debate/discuss with, but it's always just wrapped around combative argumentativeness.

That aside. Let's ignore Steam and Nintendo for a moment. How is Activision and EA paying for their servers in the absence of a fee? They wanted to charge a fee years ago, before PSN+ was mandatory etc. They were planning on it. There was outrage. This was for PC.

Do you think they suddenly decided to eat the costs? Or they decided "you know what, Dan? Let's just realign our pensions, sell off our 401's and just run the servers from the box sales!" Of course not. They found new ways of nickel and diming people that "seem" less offensive. Selling DLC, selling season passes, all for content that at one time would have been on-disc or free. For online games, you generally need the DLC to be playing "with everyone else", so might as well get that season pass! (a.k.a. an annual subscription per individual game! - But oh, no, you're not paying to play! You're getting the content they removed from the disc for one low price! ) And lets not forget their abusive mobile revenues, pay real cash to repair your fake car for every race! Helps fund those servers, doesn't it?

They got everyone paying one way or another. Even on Steam. Yes, now Nintendo does the DLC. But we'll see when and were and how they do that on Switch now that they have fees. Splatoon, for example has never had paid DLC, but has had free DLC. Future (not MK) games will see how that goes. Time will tell.

Of course I know you don't want to believe others are subsidizing the services for Steam users....no, the services grow on trees for free, and it's paid for neither by customers, nor employees giving up rewards and the company having a high turnover rate as a result. No, of course not. Free is free because sharing is caring!

@biscuitsandtea Good job on that response. I'll never get the "free is free and x company doesn't charge me so everyone can give it to me free" thinking, as though someone, somewhere isn't paying for it for some reason.

Especially when compared with the "Nintendo is a terrible value and x product is so much better" mantra....then why are any of these folks on a Nintendo site if Nintendo doesn't hold desired value to them?

@Yorumi Sounds like PC is the way to go for you for now on if you're that adamant about your feelings for the 3 companies online services.

The PS4 already has trouble with VR, so I hesitate to consider the Switch even being capable of much. At best it'll likely just be for small, mobile-style VR experiences.

@gcunit But they're still doing QoL! Honest! Kimishima said so!

That's a lot of money for crappy online.

@Yorumi Hang on a moment there, I don't think you understood me regarding the "other people paying for you" part. Back then if it wasn't an MMO, PC games being released had to rely on the community for functioning servers. I fondly remember Battlefield 1942 had very few EA servers set up and as a result had to fall back on a server a friend and I made of old parts the university had left over. Administration weren't happy about a game server eating up quite a bit of bandwidth either. 😄

Do understand that PC games have grown on that and custom servers have been a pride for PC exclusive titles. These days you'll find AAA games still relying on P2P, whether it's using Steamworks or their own protocol. Valve would be painted as a burning devil if they were to add a subscription to Steam now, and even back then! Steam was hated for a good while when it launched and for good reason.

If anything you should be clamouring for DRM free titles. As a former PC player I do not like my games requiring anything more than the disc and/or CD key.

And please keep the rightesneous to a minimum. It doesn't make for good arguments. 😅

Breaking news! The switch vr will be called...

The virtual boy 2!
Can't wait to see the sales on that!

Dude, if its that cheap, I'd just go ahead and pay for 3 years or so. Great price point. I'm also very hopeful for VR. It could be great!

@Yorumi Amazon & Skype get a huge amount of money from paid advertisements which goes to cover their costs, the payment is not upfront but they are getting a considerable amount of money over & above their sales to cover costs. Nintendo follow suit & run adverts before their games if it makes it easier for you?

There are costs to cover from the online store to servers hosting matchmaking, voice chat, news services, console updates and multiple other services including any possible non-p2p games... but even p2p online multiplayer games use non-p2p servers for some aspects.

As for paying for the services through the game, considering that games have only risen in price by about $10-15 in about 20 years yet development costs have increased a hundredfold... how is the money from a one-time purchase meant to cover a potential 4 year service?

Almost no PC games have completely free internet, many of them include microtransactions, adverts and other ways of making money & some of them just flat-out charge you for servers (such as Minecraft and WoW).

~$30 bucks for online? I can deal with that.

Lol, looks like somebody in here should have been hanging out in pclife instead of nintendolife, keep fighting the good fight my man...

I think the price is pretty decent, a lot of the Nintendoomers were arguing it was definitely going to be the same charge as Sony & Microsoft or even more... but Nintendo has always been free. As internet related services are getting more & more popular it's only natural costs would increase while people are unwilling to pay more for the games themselves.

Let's not also forget that Nintendo is relying on a partner (DeNA) to help with it's online services, this likely means Nintendo does want to improve the quality and scope of their online service and know they're not equipped to do it themselves.

It's a shame the online can't remain free, but costs always increase and life isn't that way. I'd love to move back in to my mum's house and pay no rent... but it's not going to happen. She'd probably charge me more than I pay for my rent now.

Not that bad for the price of a paid online service. Espcecially compared to the competition.

Not bad. $20-$25 sounds fair for what they've stated they'll be offering (e.g. voice chat, but you need an app; VC games that are only good for one month, etc).

This price is quite reasonable. It will probably come out to about $30 USD per year for NA.

Whilst yes the price is less than most were expecting, it is still a bad deal compared to xbox live gold and ps plus when you consider ps plus can generally be bought for around £33 and xbox live as low as £25. The xbox comes with 4 games every month you can play on your new console and generally 3-4 that you can play on the ps4.

A genuinely interesting development n Switch news. Cool.

Not bad though I really hope Nintendo learns from Microsoft and Sony by there being prepaid cards (like Nintendo already does for eshop credit) available in stores. Seriously, really don't want credit/debit card details on their servers (never forget PSN 2011).

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Blame the EU for the VAT charges. That's why everything is more expensive in Europe.

Relatively reasonable, to be honest if I need to pay a fee I'd rather it be low as possible. Hell if they could lower it even more I'd prefer them removing the monthly NES/SNES game and making the fee lower.

If I have to pay for online, then let me pay the lowest possible for online. Don't make me pay to rent games that I don't want under the guise of a "bonus". Though I think they should consider making Pokemon Bank free if you have this subscription, that would make it more enticing.

@NEStalgia Thank you for the thoughts! It's admittedly easy to lose sight of who pays for what these days. You can't blame them, especially for the many folks that have jumped onto PC gaming very recently. It's become the norm, and understandably so.

it's reasonable but they need to improve the service beyond what we've had in the past or you can't justify asking people to pay. As for VR? Can't see it happening. The PS VR won't be around very long before Sony just forgets about it. Microsoft will likely not see any point in entering the market with one and Nintendo won't either. Unless Nintendo can make something from VR where no one else could, it's just gonna be a passing fad.

Good !! So very good !! Nice done Kimishima !!

Oh god now even Nintendo is spewing the "easier to provide online features" garbage. Even if you're going to support it I hope most people know that it's not actually going to make it "easier" for them do to anything.

So about £30 to play Slatoon 2 and Mario Kart online? They better offer good reductions and sales, otherwise I won't be bothering. I can count on 1 hand the count of times I played online on my Wii U.

They really need to change the policy on the monthly VC game, LET SUBSCRIBERS KEEP IT!

£20 annual is pretty cheap

Dude... that's actually pretty cheap! To me, at least.

The price seems more reasonable as let's face it, Nintendo gamers will have less choice of online games compared with Playstation 4 and XBox One owners as they have better third party support.

I'd rather have a low annual fee and none of the 'free' games which I probably don't want anyway.

@KickButt_Gaming 10-bucks would say that. All he ever thinks about is money.

@shinpaku Online was free for the Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, PS3, Wii and Wii U. PC games also allow you to play games online for free with no cost. Servers are paid for by purchasing the games which need them.

@kamikazilucas whatever gets you to sleep at night kid.

$30 isn't bad, I just wish we didn't have to pay in general.

@Yorumi you make a lot of interesting points. I don't pay a penny to play online in my PlayStation 3

£30 a year max I would of thought that still cheap I might, as I don't have internet at mine I can always go ovah mates and play there lol

@kamikazilucas @Mogster well, that 'conversation' was cringeworthy. How exactly did you fail to get the point? We know for a fact that Nintendo's yen pricing does not translate 1:1 to western currency but is more expensive. This will probably lead to a 40$ price tag which makes it cost almost the same as PSplus. This is strictly comparing the western prices because yen doesn't matter at all for us. I don't see how you have trouble understanding this.

Seriously, how does this website attract THESE PEOPLE!!!!

On the subject, I don't play online so it could be $20 or $60 for all I care; but I'd prefer lower prices for the sake of those that do like it. Although those prices being fairly low are a good starting sign; though they still need to scrab the supposed "monthly VC rental".

@RedeadLink @Yorumi Well, that's the funny thing about "free online" everyone wants it to be free but it never has been. Proponents want us to pay for it in different ways. (It's built into the price of the game, some percentages of gamers have to succumb to vanity and buy hats to support it, etc.)

An online service is nice because it supports games having online that couldn't afford to otherwise. Especially indie games. If you have to build server costs for matchmaking and other services into the game, some types of games can't swing it. There are many trade offs though, I don't know the best way.

I do know that this is a decent price from my point of view at least and seems a perfectly viable completely non-evil option.

@MajinSoul 40 bucks is not almost psn price

I doubt it'll translate to a fair price. Don't get your hopes up!

...and at this point, it would need to be VERY cheap to win people over, and there also needs to be something VERY exciting that they've not shown us yet.

Paying for online, being forced to use a mobile app, having VC rentals... it's all shaping up to be disappointing... Even if it's 'only' £30 a year, I can't see many people biting.

@FX102A Why scrap the VC rental? I don't think it's raising the price much if any. Just a nice bonus. Dip your toes into an old pond every once in a while. What's bad about it?

@kamikazilucas well, I'm paying 46,99€ for PS+. If 7 bucks isn't close, then what is?

@Grawlog Maybe you didn't intend this, but am I supposed to compare the price you get by shopping around for a lower cost to the basic price Nintendo is offering? Shouldn't I guess that I could shop around and save money on that too? I mean it makes it look closer but it's disingenuous at best. Maybe it wasn't your intent but I've seen other people do this.

This is pretty awesome considering it's going to be lower than what I expected and instead it's at about $20-25 yearly, I know some will still be annoyed but this is pretty great compared to the competitors

So cheap! YEAH BABY

@MajinSoul well 40 bucks is psn price and psn price in the us is 60 so i dont see how 60 is the same as 40

@Yorumi I'm happy to hear that Valve has laxed on their DRM, though I'm more comfortable with consoles these days, I do use my PC to play the occasional niche title and CRPG. I have used GoG in the past and do appreciate their service.

All in all, however, I'll stick to my Xbox and 3DS primarily until the Switch hits.

@FX102A "These people"? You mean the one that actually offer criticism? Without people like these the Xbox One would still be online only and require kinect to work. Nintendo getting rid of region lock also only happened because people complained for years. Just bending backwards and saying "thank you Nintendo" is an unhealthy attitude in the long run

@Yorumi For different pieces of the online puzzle. Matchmaking, chat, storage and digital distribution etc. will be handled by Nintendo servers, right? Then, it's peer-to-peer for many indie games that don't rely on a client-server need during the game.

@aaronsullivan Its mainly the "1 month only" thing that vexes me. Of course if they then say "thats it for this month but if you give us £1.50 you can keep it forever" then its all good. I like to replay the classics and not be forced to play certain games when they say so, so a month isn't long enough for me.

This is much better than I had feared. I can see them charging $1.99 a month and $19.99 yearly and having no problems whatsoever. The yearly price says "Thanks for your dedication, here's two months off" and both prices have that "make the price look lower than it really is by dropping a cent" that everyone likes.

@Link41x 70 bucks!

Switch VR? Cool.

Wooooo! I was hoping for pricing like this! Now just more details about said online service..

@MajinSoul There's a difference between offering criticism and barging in and giving it both barrels like a tiger high on taurine calling everyone out who seems okay for this morons and falling for a "scam" whilst extolling the virtues of other platforms or digital economies to the point on whether they're actually here just to stir up the pot. It basically makes any attempt at mature discussion impossible, not to mention you have to wonder how they can have so much free time to spend it writing an entire thesis worth of comments on a freakin gaming forum.

I like my gaming but thats all it is, gaming. A hobby and a pastime. Nothing worth wearing out your keyboard over like your trying to rescind someone's death penalty.

@Baker1000 Microsoft has already confirmed that VR is a big reason for Scorpio's existence.

@ElekidDude
Ooh... I see.

@kamikazilucas One British pound is worth about $1.27 in US dollars, so 40 British pounds is about more or less worth 55 or 60 US dollars, depending on taxes or currency exchange rates.

Better price than I expected
Still salty about renting Roms for a month (how stingy can you be Nintendo, sheesh)

@TreasureFan which is not equivalent to 3000 yen

Was expecting around $50. This is great!

@LinkSword Not really, if they just said online will be 30 dollars instead of free the response would've been negative. By not telling people the price they've made it seem like a positive.
(Free > $60??? > $26) Instead of (Free > Pay $26)

@Grawlog yeah I used my one month PS+ trial to get Jackbox Party Pack 1 and 2 on sale, and I only had free giveaway months of Gold for my Xbox One (which I have traded in all my games for and I'm about to sell entirely).
I would be happy to pay for Switch online to make sure it's done properly this time - I had issues with Wii U online after Wii online was amazing,even with slower Internet speeds, until the company running it went under.

@ThanosReXXX Sorry to misread your comment! But I don't know how it was supposed to be taken?

The bit about doing VR on such a low spec screen was my own view of course. And I do stand by it. Expensive PC VR headsets are blurry as it is!

But I'll believe when I see it!

@kamikazilucas 3000 yen would equal to about US $30, depending on taxes and currency exchange rates.

But I was giving an example why the PS+ in the UK is worth 40 pounds, while the US in worth $60.

@TreasureFan i know, i think it will probably be around 25 pounds in the uk

That is completely outrageous and I amazed at how any Nintendo an can can defend this. If people want easy real change at Nintendo then stop blindly supporting everything they do. This online service offers pittence in comparison to the competition.

@Moshugan Switch is a bigger screen, so it could be further away from the eyes, which should help stop the pixel toon and blurriness.

@LeRaposa Hence why they are charging a pittance.

@kamikazilucas Yeah, that sounds about right.

@Moshugan No worries, maybe I should have been more clear, but I perhaps wrongfully assumed that most of us know what the problem with the Virtual Boy was: most people got headaches from using it for longer periods, and Kimishima's current comment on the matter seemed to echo that concern, as in: "we don't want to make another headache inducing device, so it needs to be user-friendly".

To quote Keaton; That's pretty OK!

@Moshugan And remember: Nintendo is the same party that made low-spec, glasses-free 3D work, so apparently they've got a knack for making things like that work.

I'm definitely not saying that they WILL make a VR device, or that they will definitely be able to pull off what others have, except with more modest hardware, but I'm just not ruling them out from the get go, because we simply don't know...

Well I guess I was right about Nintendo reasonably pricing this.

if you dont play online with others i dont see what im missing.
im sure it doesnt mean im missing out on any one player features.
so it breaks down to id be missing a free game?
if i want that game ill just buy that game. but all this doesnt apply to folks who like to play online with others therefore im in the minority...

VR was just announced and everyone's talking about the VC price. 😁

@JaxonH

You know you would sub for Monster Hunter regardless of price =)

@Grawlog There are discounts on Nintendo eShop cards at retail from time to time. Just have to shop around. That's all I was talking about. So you were just under the misconception that wasn't possible, I guess. No biggie. Just annoys me when people misinform intentionally and I'm feeling strangely salty tonight for no particular reason I can pinpoint. Sorry.

@Equinox It certainly wasn't a selling point to the people that didn't buy Wii Us and kept paying for PS+

@zionich
You got me 😄
I know I say I wouldn't have, but you're right. With Monster Hunter I lose all manner of fiscal responsibility...

@Yorumi
I recall Reggie saying they would be using servers for their games going forward, in an effort (I would presume) to improve their service and reputation for online.

So it seems that while in the past it's been free P2P, going forward it will be paid with dedicated severs and the voice chat app.

Whether you feel that's worth paying for or not... well, completely up to you of course. But at least it's not as expensive as expected (I think most people were expecting a $60 blow, or even $70 given their propensity to squeeze an extra $10 on additional purchases lol- I had written it off almost completely expecting a $60-70 asking price)

Okay, I'm feeling better about getting the service, but I'd like confirmation they'll actually acknowledge accounts and ideally preserve e-shops past.

Wow... 1/3 the price of PSN or XBLive for a year, and it won't even offer much more than the Wii/DS WiFi Connection or Wii U/3DS Nintendo Network... Bad move, Nintendo. Especially considering there won't be voice chat with randoms... I'll pass.

@ThanosReXXX "I perhaps wrongfully assumed that most of us know what the problem with the Virtual Boy was: most people got headaches from using it for longer periods, and Kimishima's current comment on the matter seemed to echo that concern, as in: "we don't want to make another headache inducing device, so it needs to be user-friendly"."

That was exactly what I was referring to with the resolution/refresh rate comment!

@DanteSolablood I have tried to make this same point to @Yoryumi . They all have their revenue stream wether it is obvious or not.

Nothing is free, just marketed differently.

@ThanosReXXX Headaches? More like broken necks! I remember trying it when it first came out in a store... After 20 minutes of using it, I felt like if I had kept using it for an hour, I was going to be hospitalized in a neck brace!

@RedeadLink Why shouldn't we pay for online services on consoles ? People are working hard to maintain the servers and users, and why is it horrible for them to demand a tiny sum for their efforts ? 30$ a year is nothing.

@Torterror Why, can't you tell from his name? Sligeach Eire => Irish/Gaelic for Sligo, Ireland. To be fair though, he may have named himself for reasons other than living there.

@YeshaYahu5417 I feel ya, I was skeptical at first... But I would just try simple vr games or videos to work your way up to the more intense vr stuff so you can get used to the nausea ;D MKVR FTW!!!!!

@Yorumi
Oh I get your argument, and honestly I'm inclined to agree. I've never been a fan of paying for online. It's not so much a matter of supporting it in excitement as it is just accepting reality for what it is. Despite disagreeing with that fundamentally, I accept this is the way things are and it's not going to change.

Once you reach a place of acceptance you start evaluating options. Is this service worth it to me ( irrespective of whether I agree with it in principle)...

With that said, if they are going to use dedicated servers, that combined with the voice chat and more of their games integrating online (I remember a fair few complaints about games last generation people wanted to play online that weren't, or games for which people wanted voice chat that didn't have it) seems to be a fair return in exchange for $20 a month... to me. I feel like, "at least this extra money I'm paying them is giving me something extra I've never gotten from them before".

So yeah, I've always agreed with you on this, but I've just accepted it as part of console gaming (along with other things I don't agree with like $50 season passes and microtransactions in $60 games, even though I've been known to indulge in season passes from time to time as well).

My view is, "like it or not, this is what it is, and since it's not going to change I'm just glad to know the cost is only going to be $2 per month, and on the bright side at least they're finally improving their online via more games with it, voice chat and (assuming what Reggie said is true) dedicated servers to mitigate lag and provide a better experience".

Really happy to see this news! I only hope they change their thoughts on "monthly renting" games for NES and SNES. I would be willing to pay a bit more just be get access to these games for as long as I pay for the service, like Sony and Microsoft are doing. This way, I'll finally get to play some of those VC titles I just couldn't justify shelling out money for.

@Moshugan Well, low resolutions can't give you headaches, or at least not most people. The Virtual Boy gave headaches because of the red on black colors, the low refresh rate, and something with the lenses for some people.

But like I said: let's first wait and see IF they make a VR add-on, and if they DO, then let's first find out in person if it is really as bad as some people seem to think based purely on a couple of numbers on a piece of paper. It may very well have some nifty trick again to make it look better than you'd actually expect, much like people think of the screen of the Switch itself, which is getting quite a lot of praise from the people that have actually been hands-on with the device...

@PlywoodStick And there was that too...
But I was obviously referring to the most common denominator of why the device got so much flak.

This is great news for serious online players, but I'm still not sold. I play local only, and I'm fairly firm on limiting the monthly bills I have, so this is a no-go for me regardless.

I'm happy to hear the price is lower than I expected. Splatoon is the must-have game for me on the Switch during the early months so I need an online subscription to play it. $20 is quite reasonable for me and I will gladly play that. With that being said, I still think Nintendo is making a mistake by taking away the classic game they give you each month. If you got to keep that game and play online, $20 would be an incredible value.

Hey, that actually sounds reasonable.

@Yorumi Both Sony & MS use servers for their online. Sony has famously had to apologise when their servers were hacked & all online services were suspended for several days. Microsoft occasionally does maintenance on their servers which also effects all online services.

@Yorumi That's terrible.. then what are they decomissioning?
https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/gameservers/

As for Microsoft, here's how their 360 network worked... $500m worth of servers. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/xbox-live3.htm

@Yorumi
And I'm glad there's people in the world willing to take a stand, but personally I'm just not that much of an activist. I wasn't into gaming when the 3DS released and I bought one just as a casual consumer and never thought twice about the price being too much.

With Xbox that's something that actually mattered enough to me to not buy one. Forcing online connections to the point you can't play any game on the system without a connection is enough that I lose interest in the product. Paying 20 bucks a year for online when everyone in the console industry does it... just not high on my "turns me off" list I guess.

I got a parking ticket at Madison Area Technical College not long ago, for parking in the teachers lot, which they didn't have clearly marked. I know some people would fight it to the bitter end, no matter how much time or resources they would have to sacrifice. But me, even though I don't agree with it in principle, I'd rather just pay the 20 bucks and be done with it. The hassle and sacrifice required to fight it just isn't worth it to me. I'd rather pay the fee and go on about my business. I kind of see this in the same way. No I don't agree with it in principle but it's not going away. Maybe if Nintendo was the only one doing it, but since everyone's doing it on consoles now there's just no possible way this isn't gonna happen. And like the ticket, I'd rather just pay the 20 bucks and be done with it. Enjoying the online experiences and having the voice chat is worth more to me than the sacrifice required to vote with my wallet. Not at $70 or even $60, but for this price it is. So maybe I'm voting for it... I guess I am. But if I'm willing to vote for it... maybe it's not all that bad. To me at least

@Neocloudzero Many PS2 games back in the day would say otherwise... (SOCOM series, Capcom games like Resident Evil Outbreak, various RPG's and sports titles, etc.) There were no opportunities for extra costs to the customer beyond paying for the game, once the console and broadband modem were connected.

DNAS authentication and third party company game hosting for P2P connections does require smaller servers somewhere along the way to process the game's network traffic files, but determining whether it's worth keeping them running used to be just based on user traffic and game sales. The servers themselves wouldn't actually have significant ongoing costs for the company, provided enough people used them.

Other than physical game sales, money would be raised for networking equipment by doing other things than nickel and diming the player base. Only MMO's would charge monthly, of which have a greater server load than most games. (Except Phantasy Star Universe, that one was a bust!)

As for comparing prices to XBLive... Well, they're Microsoft, so of course they're going to overcharge you. It's a fairly recent phenomenon for PSN and now MyNintendo to follow suit.

We really need a 'Direct' Nintendo. Please.

Wow that is low. Hmm depending on the games that the switch ends up getting I may kiss live and ps plus goodbye!

@Yorumi
Your'e much more pleasant to discuss with when you actually write out your viewpoints like that rather than just argue with everyone

Funny thing is, not sure if you missed my introductions in the beginning, but I've been lurking here for years and years. The sheer number of times I've wanted to debate you (or reach through the screen and throttle you ) after a comment is one of the primary things that made me finally create an account. I noticed someone a while back also created an account just today for that very reason. You're a celebrity! But part of it is you always struck me as decent people just....frustrated rather than actually trolling!

I see, so you actually are interested in Nintendo single player experiences, then? That's good to hear, I've long had the impression you'd totally lost any liking for Nintendo. Honestly I'm primarily a fan of single player myself. Splatoon is the one and only game I'd have any reason to buy a subscription for...so I figure a year or so and then I'm probably done with it, so in terms of gaming preferences our interests likely line up.

As for EA/Activision, lets keep in mind when comparing large corporations we have to compare them to the other large corporations. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Time Warner, Sega, Capcom, Squeenix....that's virtually the entire list of first tier companies. So when we compare "what is Nintendo doing" we can't compare it to small self publishing studios, we have to compare to other large corps. I mentioned some of the reasons the other day, namely tax rate, being publicly traded, bigger risks and experiments, employee wages and benefits, etc. etc. The small indies might be very consumer friendly, and they give away the store from the heart, but they're not exactly places you'd want to work and try to raise a family.....for all the evils of the big companies, they definitely pay a LOT more to employees (ok, not EA, they've had some....issues...) including benefits (the indies often have none) etc.... So it's not really fair to compare a company that exists to make money and reward it's staff with a company that exists largely to share their art with the world, and sure, make a living too.

I'm sure there's the "I'm a consumer I don't care what they make" which is fair enough, that's just business even on your end. But still, everybody wants to work for good pay and good benefits but never wants to pay enough for products for a company to do that. It's not unfair to complain about a price being too high, but it's at least best to approach it with an understanding of what exactly is being paid for.

Cosmetic items: Yeah, Nintendo did that with WiiU too. Smash, MK both did that. Splatoon provided everything gratis. Hyrule Warriors went paid, but that was Bamco. It worked out. But the Nintendo Network...lets face it, wasn't so great. I think the great hope of many of the existing online players is that a payment system will bring server improvements, be it dedicated servers, less sketchy matchmaking etc. Maybe it wont. And then people will be equally frustrated as you. The Splatoon community has been yelling for a year "just charge use and fix the servers!" If they fix the servers, the fee will be very welcome. (Even fixing the matchmaking...but obviously especially dedicated servers.) Not saying they go dedicated for everything....but Splatoon would benefit a LOT and they seem to be willing to focus on that. If they do that, it's worth it.

Other than that, biscuitsandtea had a lot of good points in line with what I've been saying - right down to the university hosted servers (I refer to them as taxpayer funded game servers ) There's a lot of "donated" server capacity in PC that nobody will donate for commercial consoles.

Not trying to defend or attack the subscription, but it helps the conversation if we can get a baseline of what we're comparing against, what the funding pays for or doesn't, and what we can't compare it against (steam) for other reasons.

@biscuitsandtea
Was going to reply to you but if I wait longer I'll never get Yorumi's reply out - if you get a chance just reply back to this here so I get it in my inbox and don't forget you!

A smart move by Nintendo. Now the focus will be on the low price compared to the competition as opposed to it shaping up to be greatly inferior to the competition.

Sounds alright to me. It will take more than Splatoon and MK8 to make me pay, though.

I'm worried about more obscure online games. Some of them died quick on the Wii. A required subscription might make it even harder to find someone to play with.

But at the end of the day I'll still have to pay $60+ across PS and Nintendo's services to get rid of a paywall that shouldn't even be there in the first place.
Well, at least Nintendo's offer is looking to be cheaper than the competition, so that's good news... I guess.

@ShortSleevedNook How consumerist do you have to be to simply accept and shrug off the increasing price of online multiplayer? We had free online, we all did, but it's been taken away from right under our noses while PC still enjoys it for free.

@NEStalgia I'm still alive! Only 17 minutes to 1 in the morning here, and I feel larger everyday. I'll need a few winks before work so I may not respond for a few hours, but I'll keep an eye out for your response

I feel @Yorumi is an understandable fellow, but this topic needs a discussion on the forums if we want to get anywhere.

I just hope this doesn't have too big an effect on the number of players online. Of course I doubt it will have a serious impact when playing Nintendo's first party titles. But a game like runbow, for instance, would've been so great had there been more people playing online.

@Paddle1 Except they didn't say it would be free at all during the presentation Direct. They said it'd be a paid service without specifying its cost whatsoever, which had people thinking of a service as expensive as the Sony/Microsoft ones, or even more expensive. So the online fee was instantly seen as a big negative for the system up to this day by much of the game press and the public alike.

Anyone who saw the Direct and a bit of the reactions afterwards could tell you as much.

@Joeynator3000 What if it came with... THIS!?

@LinkSword Exactly. If they went straight to $30 from free (on 3DS and Wii U) it would have been seen as a negative. Waiting until today makes it seem positive in comparison.

That's actually pretty cheap compared to the competition and by cheap, I mean good.

The services seem a little lackluster, but $30 a year sounds pretty good

@PlywoodStick you might think it's a good comparison with technology from then to now. The amount of information passed along through the internet is just not comparable from the past till now, and you are talking about resident evil outbreak where there will only be 4 player in a room max at any given time, so was monster hunter as I was playing those online during that time. Basically any of these titles has their own servers running at the back with individual user account for each one of those. Thus the server and bandwidth required on the server is limited as each server can only hold I think few hundred player at once. Hence it can keep the cost lower, comparing to everything nowadays related to internet service cost more then ever which also factors into the cost of online services.

At the time when ps2 had some online games it was actually quite a hassle to get online especially when router and Ethernet cable during that time was not a common house hold product. You needed to buy a network adaptor and a harddrive that was compatible with the ps2, which cost a lot. When you are a game company you will think twice before charging for the online play as the population wasn't huge for their individual game to begin with. The increasing cost of maintaining old servers and the amount of work required also with the low amount of player on those server was the reason why it had to be shut down later on. In today's world a lot of ppl in the world is connected to the I internet thus higher traffic and games today uses a lot more bandwidth. When you need to host a server you need money for internet connection... Back up internet connection.... A lot of New hardware... Spare parts for maintenance.... Support team... Electricity... Backup electricity... Network security team... And the population online has since then skyrocketed. Also everything else in the world nowadays gets more and more expensive due to inflation, especially the manpower required for development and maintenance work. Back then there wasn't as much servers, not much worry with network security at that point... And not to mention it didn't require a whole team of people maintain just the security portion. Hardware and software was no where as sophisticated and complex as today's, sometimes one small section of the whole infrastructure requires a whole team of people to operate.

With the increasing cost of online server for gaming, this is why companies started doing more p2p with dedicated servers playing the role of a hub. Another reason for that is because of how much more advance internet has became comparing to back when outbreak came out when cable internet was just introduced. Fun Fact: Some ps2 games allowed dial up.

I can see why Nintendo online gaming experience was not great as it was free. But when the world is moving towards always being connected it is increasingly hard to stay out of touch with internet technology, which is the reason why they partnered with DeNa for mobile games and online services. With that partnership they still need to invest into better hardwares, connections, and workers to provide better service. This is why I would think they would need subscription fee to earned what was Invested back. Though I would note that all company is out for profit which even when they break even they will not stop asking for a fee. Probably they will like now still be very reasonable with their fee.

Great news. Except in Canada I assume $30 US = $50-$60 CAD. Oh well, at least my health care is covered.

@AlexSora89 Actually, playstation plus allows you to keep the game for as long as you are a plus member...it doesn't go by a month. As long as you add the free game to your library (you don't have to download it), it's always there to download and play while you are a member. I still have plus games on the PS3 since the service came into effect, and the PS4 is the same way...I never bought Oddworld for it, and I still play the game. Microsoft is the same way too.

Well, why not. I already pay for Plus (granted I got a bunch of one-year cards and redeemed before the prices went up), so I guess I'll wait and see if nintendo's will be worth it or not. Plus gave me free games and a boat load of discounts...so I get my money's worth...not really an online gamer, so if nintendo can put something nice with it...a boat load of discounts...I'd pay, but other than that, I won't if it's just to play online and rent a classic game per month (First month...Super Mario Bros...second month...Balloon Fight...third month...Legend Of Zelda...fourth month...Yoshi...fifth month...NES Baseball...yup, I see them giving people the same game that comes onto the systems the same way.

@walrusballs
No thanks. I tried with the Virtua Boy, which was a type VR experience. Even fps give me hard times of being that immersed in a game. Motion sickness medication works but it's not worth it. I don't like medication, and it's just a video game. I'll remain old school with a controller when it comes to gaming.

@YeshaYahu5417 Plus, doctors and scientists still don't know the long-term effect of VR, which is something else to look at. I'm curious with Sony's VR, but...other than it's still too expensive for me...it's the long-term effect that I worry about. The Virtual Boy was just plain awful on my eyes, but most was due to the darkness on it, with neon red lights...no lighting in it, which is what hurt the eyes more. These new things...fine on the eyes, but I'm wondering what people feel like when they take it off after a few hours of playing.

I am interested in seeing if and how Nintendo's plans for VR actually come to fruition. Given the Switch's hardware specs and screen resolution, I would expect Switch VR to be more like Samsung Gear VR rather than PS VR. But this is Nintendo, so anything can happen.

@Neocloudzero , thanks for lighting up that uniformed Nintendo super fan, Yorumi. Dude is out of his mind.

@Yorumi Ill agree that PC online is superior and I will add a caveat: P2p as you noticed.

If one of ya doesnt have a good connecton then you have problems.

And with regards to no servers, last I saw Splatoon used servers.

But we get it. Big scam. Its a cost people will need if they wish to play online after the trial. It wont stop store access. But it sucks to have to pay for something you dont often use. Like myself with bread and milk. Its part of life and ya get over it.

People are allowed to spend their money on what they deem valuable to them. If you dont like it then cool but that doesnt mean they are wrong and should be shamed for doing as they wish with what they earn.

Its worrying I need to explain the concept of wealth and individual value yet again here. But whatever, have a go ay me like everyone else does for being the middleground.

This is a VERY reasonable price, thank you, Nintendo!

@JLPick Exactly. VR just isn't a safe experience for me at all. It's not intelligent to endure self infliction.

Thats a good price. Also if Switch can support VR then is not that weak isn't?

I feel like it may be $30 over here in America, but that still isn't a bad price. The VR news interests me more though. I didn't think Nintendo would do VR with the Switch since it doesn't seem to be powerful enough to run it. Maybe their VR headset would have the extra power built into it though, or come with some accessory.

@Yorumi Steam doesnt provide those things. Its a storefront.

I do hope there is a direct on this soon. The discount especially, if this is a deep discount(30-40%) I can see a lot of naysayers getting a year just to buy several games. And that's profit for Nintendo, in game sales, and in the subscription for people that won't play much and therefor don't tax the system.

Let's not forget what that buys them in goodwill. Many people are already swung from how dare they charge to that's not bad. A good discount on games with this is a win-win.

Pricing seems reasonable, I'm fine with it but would like to hear more about the games and services offered.

@Neocloudzero Good points... Although Zipper Interactive/SCEA's SOCOM I and II still counters them, those had 16 player matches. Not to mention Quake III Arena and other online games on the Dreamcast...

After living through such a long period of time where it was a given for such things, I just can't accept having to pay a monthly fee to play something like Mario Kart or Splatoon online... MMO subscriptions are perfectly understandable. But subscriptions for accessing instanced multiplayer matchups? That's too hard a pill for me to swallow.

@BLP_Software What about Team Fortress 2 and the like?

Here that sound? That's the sound of Miyamoto thinking of ways to mess up franchises with VR.

@PlywoodStick Oh. Valve makes games i forgot.

@BLP_Software Well... sort of, anyways. Legends have been told of an enigmatic project called a "Half Life 3," but I think it's just another fairy tale, if you ask me...

@PlywoodStick totally understand what you mean. I felt the same way when I had to pay for my xbox live gold and ps plus =[. I grew up playing the famicom so I guess i am going to be a little bia, I feel like it's ok to contribute something back to Nintendo after they gave me such an awesome childhood. Plus the subscription is like less than half of psplus so I don't really mind. Personally I would rather contribute in a different way, as I am actually a developer just not for games. So I would like to one day create some awesome games for the Nintendo community to show my support. I like Sony also but it's just not the same. While I don't dislike Microsoft I am just not a big fan of shooter, motion sickness

@remag Interesting.

Two things

1 this is an awesome online price

2 Metroid VR grows a step closer

@FX102A well, I get what you mean. It's a bit weird scrolling through the comments, just to find a collection of essays. I'm not sure if this is the right place to do it.

I wish all u people would go away. Nintendo hasn't even detailed the service and u asses are complaining. And I think everyone here is legally stupid. Nintendo hasn't detailed the VC yet and you'll still think u know what it's gone be like and the monthly Nes or Snes game a month is going to have online MPLAYER so please explain to me what that has to do with the VC. 60 too high. 30 to cheap. U so called gamers make me sick

@JLPick
My mistake there, sorry. I own a PSP but I never used PS Plus so there's that.

@electrolite77
Stark indeed, pal. Stark indeed.

@Yorumi 3rd party Digital games prices are set by the publishers, EA, Ubisoft etc not Sony, Sony & microsoft don't use servers is that some soft of a joke?

Regardless of price, it's only worth paying for if you're actually going to use it. I used to pay for Netflix because I thought it was a good deal and I barely made use of it, so we'll have to wait for the full details I suppose.
If I need to pay to play online multiplayer, then I won't bother because I would just use the PC for those games. If I need to pay to chat with people I probably still wouldn't bother because locking that sort of thing behind a fee is rather scummy.

@Yorumi defending Steam, for having vastly superior customer service vs Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, huh?
Hmm, let's see.
The former is a glorified OS creator (that only modified Linux) that pretends to be a developer, instead outsourcing both ideas and manufacturing to external 3rd party companies.
Their pricing is dirt cheap because PC devs are morons who don't seem to give a care if they make or lose money, because 'digitally stored content being unknowingly reproduced and redistributed isn't theft'.
Their reliance on Steam OS means the hardware they 'officially' licence is severely handicapped, and unable to run 70% of all worthwhile games, unless those systems are heavily modded and additional licences purchased. Bearing in mind their most recent hack exposed and affected more accounts than every PSN and Live attack combined.
The former is a software provider whose developmental assets are a 50th of any of the latter 3.
I'd bring up iTunes, but most of Apple's users are iPhone users. On contracts. Paying money for a network service. That costs, often, 40$ monthly. In comparison, your complaints are blunted and ill contrived. I don't pay for my cell, but you seem like the type to pay for yours.
So let me ask you this, is a 25th of one's annual cell phone contract truly not worth the alternative loss of privacy, freedom, and social life?
On second thought, don't answer that.
Just think about it.
I think you'd do well to have more than one thought in your head.
We realize, everyone here, that the Wii U flopped and Nintendo's contingency plan is a subscription service to recoup any unforeseen cost or loss.
I just wanted to rant about PC gamers who defend Steam and ignore the hack.

@Cantisque Netflix is a wonderful family or friends service. Pay a fraction of the ridiculously low 10$ a month (cable and satellite costs are astronomical in comparison) and reap the benefits. I pay 2$ monthly. It's always harder by yourself. And because of Netflix's multi account setup, it's not really comparable.

@YeshaYahu5417 The expense is what drives me away the most...$400 is too steep to invest in something that may not last that long. Plus, I invested in enough add on products that didn't last too long...NES Zapper, Super NES Silent Scope, Wii Zapper, Wii Balance Board, Playstation Move, Playstation Wonderbook, Dreamcast Microphone, Genesis Mouse, Super NES Mouse, Playstation 3 Rock Revolution Drum Kit, All the Rock Band crap, The Guitar Hero Crap, The DJ Hero Crap and of course all of these figures from Nintendo, Skylanders and Infinity that take up space...granted the nintendo ones are more for display than the others. My kids use them, but it's amazing on how much you pay for it, and the companies only use them for a few games and then drop it out of existence for no reason. The Nintendo Zapper's are the ones I never got...only a few for NES, a few for Super NES, but they continue to make them. Also forgot to note that I have the Zapper guns for Lethal Enforcers 1 and 2 for Genesis.

@NodesforNoids I have netflix too. Glad I don't need Plus on the PS4 to enjoy it, but it disappointed me when I used to have the 360 that I had to join LIVE in order to use it. Hopefully, nintendo does it to where you can still access it without having to be a member of their online deal, because I'm not really into paying for services from Nintendo, just like I don't join Playstations...I figure that if no one really pays for the service, the companies will go back to 'free' again, but if the money is there, they'll continue and continue to raise the prices. If sony already raised their prices, what's stopping Microsoft from raising, then sony again and then nintendo later on. We all know the prices will go up, so even with nintendo being the cheaper version of it right now, how long will that price point last...if the system sells enough, and enough people pay for that service, nintendo will definitely want more money, and we all know that it will rise in price...just giving them a few years to do so.

@Yorumi Splatoon is P2P? Between 8 people? Must be some fancy stuff. Oh lookie here. Its both.

And yes, Stem provides those things. Do you know why? Its a store. The games run off your hardware, via your connection. Ive never had a game on Steam use it for online. All Steam is, is an account and store.

And look, thats stuff thats free on Switch. Honestly I dont care if its free or not. As stated people can spend what they earn on what they want. My issue isnt how it works or how you or I see it, its that you lambast people for having free will and doibg what they want.

I hate humans too. But i let em do as they wish so long as its legal.

@JLPick I see.
I never bought into anything outside of an extra normal controller. Never owned a zapper, power glove, running pad, or any gimmick peripheral from Nintendo Sony or Microsoft in my 34 years of gaming. The Sony subscription was worth my purchase because I played online in quite a few games, same as for Microsoft. But I'm not buying into all subscriptions at once, just Nintendo only. My humble responsibilities outweighs gaming on a daily bases, but at least with the Switch I can manage getting in a few games here and there with its portable aspect away from the t.v.

@Yorumi You wish to inform? Then I hope you dont mind a little advice.

The language youve used throughout this thread? Not the best way to put across your points of why you feel its unjust. Labelling it a scam and saying people are blind and stupid doesnt send a good message of "Hey this is something yall should really think about as it may be a net negative for us all".

Instead its calling people out, again, for doing what they do, and if you tell someone theyre an idiot, they very likely wont listen because you just insulted them, especially if you are aiming to inform them of your view and superior alternatives.

Ill give an example within context. You are doubt familiar with the concept of the PC Master Race, being a developer as you noted to me many months ago. While it is somewhat a joke there are many who truly believe it, and thats cool, they can do as they wish. I lived with many of them, who employed the method of trying to convince me to move over by using insults instead of using points. They tried to tell me something was better for me by telling me Id made bad decisions in gaming doing what I enjoy up to that point.

Now, another example. Imagine you lived in a neighbourhood, for arguments sake where online gaming was free. You believe it will benefit people who walk past the street to live there. You go about this by telling them their thick and sheep with no thought.

As ya can see, its not a good way to put your ideas across. Sorry if I come off as rude but I believe you can be far more constructive with your points and get people to listen without slagging them off

@gatorboi352 I'm pretty sure that will be the case for every classic game you buy on Switch and going forward. Wii u VC probably no.

Wow, that's actually cheap! I've changed my mind, I'll buy Spla2n!

@RedeadLink It's still very cheap, so I don't understand why you're moaning (no pun intended) about that.

"[the fees will] make it easier for Nintendo to support online features such as multiplayer or downloads of classic games."
So, does it mean that someone who only wants access to the online shop of the Switch will have to pay the online services aside from buying the desired games? ...

@Anti-Matter
A more grammatically correct version so people can understand you better:

"27 dollars for 12 months?!
Kaching... !!
Yay... !!
If that price can make the Nintendo Switch enable online streaming without a Wi-Fi signal for 24 hours and 7 days (like a smartphone), OMG... !!!

@Anti-Matter There's a reason why it's called "Airplane Mode"...

@Grumblevolcano I believe they said it would support VR but they haven't got a headset planned. They'll likely scrap any plans after seeing its unviability if you ask me.

@Yorumi Look. If they get bad I cant slap them. I just want folks to be able to discuss not argue.

Do you want to know something? I had no knowledge of those things happening to you.

Do you want to know something? If i had a button to wipe out humans id use it. Yet i try to encourage good rather than the hate you experience. Because then we both feel better

@BiasedSonyFan this is about the 4th time you've asked me and I continue to answer you with the same response. Is it that you don't like my response or is this some elaborate troll attempt on your part?

@G-Boy
Sorry for my horrible English. I'm Indonesian people. Not a Western people.

@Yorumi
That's great that you actually do like the games. IMO that's the most important part.

You raise a great point with that, and it's absolutely possible that's the case. I was cynical when XBox started doing it, and avoided the platform as a result. Then again, I was just stepping away from PC at the time, too so I had that mentality. And MS is definitely the kind of company to do just as you say. Sony, and finally N joining in could easily be "because they can" and because they're obligated to maximize value for the share holders.

While I absolutely hate Steam, and generally greatly dislike Gabe, I do have to hold Gabe as an example for one thing...he has stated he doesn't want to take Valve public because the reality is once you're public, your customers are no longer your customers, your shareholders are. I dislike him, but he's 100% right on that, and I give him big credit for sticking to that (for now.) It's true. Once you go public, your consumers are NOT your customers. That is NOT who you exist to serve. In fact you are legally bound to serve your shareholders first and foremost, and your consumers are simply your resources for serving investors. If they benefitted the customer OVER the needs of the investor, they would be, in fact, acting criminally. So that's one big reason to separate the "evil axis+big3" companies from the more indie PC devs: They're required to prioritize money in a different way. That's "anti-consumer", yes. In fact the public trade of any consumer-focused company is anti-consumer. I suppose a movement to boycott any public company in the consumer space could work, but then it negates: Frontier could never, ever have brought the Switch to market. That needs big capital, and big capital needs investors. Viscous circle, and the leadership has to always ride that balance.

So could it all be a ploy to increase their shareholder value obligations? Yep.

There's another factor though. Games, in the NES era sold for $60. Sometimes $70. N64 games sold for $70-80. It was robbery! But that's what it cost. Games, in a real money sense, have gone DOWN in price considerably, as they remain the same $60, but with inflation, that's worth much less. It's a similar, or greater part of consumer budgets, so price pressure keeps them from raising prices. But in terms of income for their company, it's actually a lesser percentage than it used to be. And the cost of game production hasn't gone up by 20-30% like inflation but by a factor or 1200-1500% PLUS inflationary costs, rising benefits costs, rising taxes, etc.

Increasing the amount of people buying the games is a major part of addressing that, thus the "streamlining" that's often derided to appeal to more people. The publishers (Note we always mean N, Sony, MS, EA, Activision, Ubi, etc. The large publishing houses, not indies...WHOLE different economic realities there.) have toyed with the need to raise prices many times. There's too much consumer push back. So they do DLC and sell you your game in pieces as though it's extra. People seemed more receptive to that than a price hike, unfortunately. How else can they recover the ever increasing costs? Well, how about a subscription to close some of the price gap? As their income from game sales falls due to inflation and rising costs, they have to find new sources of revenue to even maintain the same operating economy let alone grow it.

Now we go back to Steam, and one aspect I always assume when we're talking Steam is that we're still talking Activision, Ubisoft, etc and the Spring Sales and such. (Did EA even ever put their stuff on Steam? I know they were using their size to avoid the absurd fees Steam charges vendors. Much as I hate EA, I can't disagree with them there. Ubi tried the same and it didn't go well.) If talking indies and small PC only studios that's really a whole different thing . These are generally "artists" who want to see their work grow and will work themselves into debt just to make sure it's a success. Very different from the companies that do it for finances. Many of them are also doing it with hopes of getting hired/bought out by one of said companies.

Also, I think what BLP_Software was trying to say is that you tend to come across as very combative when you disagree which tends to make people start arguing with you rather than debating because it just kind of invites an argument. People are likely to use an argumentative tone in response to an argumentative tone. Your last response to me proves that you can really add important questions to the conversation when you're consciously trying to not be combative

@NodesforNoids
Thanks for interjecting that info on Steam. I do tend to get annoyed with the visiously pro-Steam circles (not singling out Yorumi here, I'm going all the way back to my PC days) without having enough modern info on them, having ignored them for years. If what you say is true, it's even worse than the last time I looked at it from my perspective. I know the mantra is "cheap cheap cheap", and that it certainly is, but....yikes.
@Rei
No, they released the chart a while back. Paying is only required for multiplayer over the internet, voice chat, and matchmaking app (and getting your monthly NES rental, lol.) No fee is required for the eShop, downloading patches, DLC, etc, etc. (Same as Sony/Microsoft in that regard.)

@biscuitsandtea I think where I was intending to go yesterday was with regards to the points you brought up about the old days of PC. I was talking with Yorumi about this last week, and I was PC-only for a long time, back in those ugly days of the late 90's through mid '00's. I'll never, ever be able to changing my mindset of PC as something that required new video cards, and no mobos to support the cards, and new everything else every other year, required liquid cooling (which I never ran) and froze due to overheating at least 5 times per play session. But somehow I still liked it. Steam is what pushed me away. I hated it the day it came out, and ever since. The DRM, the always-on net connections. The download sizes when I was still on dialup! Forcing me to decrypt all of HL2 online over dialup for a physical game. Yuck. I like physical, and never converted to download-only, thus part of my return to console (and the ease of use over my never ending hardware problems.)

Newer PC gamers present this image of hardware that runs and runs forever, and this magical place called Steam where all the games are cheap and it's so customer friendly, and I keep thinking "are we talking about the same platform?" Last time I as much looked at Steam was probably 7 years or so ago. Yeah they have consumer friendly policies for some things now, but that's AFTER they tried being the foerunner of every exploitative game in the book, and were beaten back by angry mobs (and international lawyers.) They were the core of evil who were forced to behave themselves like a mini-microsoft (Bonus fact, most of the senior staff at Valve are former Microsoft!)

I'm also always amazed when PC=Steam in most conversations. I realize physical is no longer really a thing (sadly) in PC, and thus PC is only available for those with tremendous bandwidth available to begin with, but nobody ever says "I'm a PC gamer and buy everything through Origin and GameStop's digital store and it's so much cheaper than consoles!" It's never about PC versus consoles, it's about one retailer (who sells only on PC) versus all other retailers.

@Emperor-Palpsy Iwata images never get old.

@YeshaYahu5417 I never owned the Power Glove either...wanted it, but never could afford it (if I remember, it was expensive, but not as expensive as anything Atari Jaguar). However, I'd love to own it now and still have it in the box...worth a lot of money, but I think it came into being popular after Freddy wore something like it in Freddy's Dead.

@Anti-Matter your English is perfectly fine. Better than most

@JLPick
Yeah have a cousin who once owned all those running pad and power glove extras as well as a friend down the block. The Rob robot and all that external stuff. I'd watch them play it but it never appealed to me. Just a normal default controller is enough lol..

@Ryu_Niiyama what games are you hoping for that would put your decision to cancel and "switch" online services in effect?

@YeshaYahu5417 I'm old school too. Stll play 64 and ps1 every day but i get it, some people just aren't compatible with vr P: but who knows, maybe nintendo will make their vr more eyeball friendly?

Melo Man's reaction guage: "I'd pay $26 a year for more online features and more classic games".
Melo Man's expectation: "I'd expect a far better online experience than what's been offered in the previous generations of Wii U/3DS."

@Yorumi You're 100% correct about the pricing being a self-inflicted would by and large. I meant to mention that in my prior reply and forgot, so thanks for bringing that up! Yeah I saw that happening back when the original XBox came out and really going off the deep end at the start of X360. I couldn't understand why they were spending more and more and more on production quality when the returns would remain the same. I knew it would lead to disaster and actually Im amazed the industry hasn't fully crashed yet, though it's certainly hollowed out. When all the small publishers folded (Interplay, Sierra, etc.) that was the end of gaming how it was.

The mentality behind it isn't new. Yokoi's resistance to the graphics arms race was right along the same reasoning, citing that the demand for ever better graphics would never be satisfied and you'd have to keep increasing it and it's a losing proposition. He was very right and way ahead of his time. Between studios giving customers what they want with ever better graphics whether it meets the budget or not, and artist-driven studios who what to see their dream realized no matter the cost, it's not in any way sustainable as-is. It's a big shell game, and the pricing schemes plug the holes as they appear.

Complete agreement on that front.

Nintendo has a tricky proposition with their (intentionally) lower powered hardware. How do you sell it to a market that predominantly has been trained to value power above all? I thought they were targeting price originally, and I don't think switch is so packed with gimmicks (HD rumble and the IR camera are really the only gimmicks other than they hybridization itself) The IR camera costs pennies and HD rumble could turn out to be very well received (imagine COD with realistic recoil sensations catching on with the kiddies.) It probably needs a gimmick or two in there to give it a hook somewhere. PS4 has that rediculous light and trackpad. X1 has the force feedback triggers. I'm amazed Nintendo kept the gimmicks to a minimum!

Content/budget, heh, yeah I was shocked at that statement it was not AAA. But a lot of that makes sense in contrast. I remember games like Baldur's Gate and Fallout...those were not AAA yet are far, far bigger in scope than most AAA. What goes into AAA? Far more VO and sound capture. TONS of motion capture (and purchasing or renting outrageously priced mocap hardware.) The endless pouring over the frame by frame animations and artwork (XBCX has a lot re recycled textures etc and some pretty wonky animations at parts.) I miss games that were crude on the surface but endless in content. Today we get games that are nuianced to the tiniest detail and are over in 7 hours. Racing games, I realize are their own animal and it's hard to compare what has to go into that to other game types. MK is a quasi racing game, so the physics has to be pretty specific. But yeah, it's a valid point. Did both games really require the same funding, did one waste more money, or is it just profit? And if it's profit, should it be sad that the overpriced one outsold, by huge numbers, the underpriced one?

Arenanet: To be honest, I don't understand their business model. I really don't, something doesn't add up and has never added up for me, and I'm not sure how they do it. They're pretty much the lone exception, and I don't know how the NCSoft buyout does/doesn't play into it (could they be pumping money into Arenanet using funds from their subscription based MMOs to gain market footprint?) MMO servers, in particular, are expensive to run, and no matter what they say, $50 a copy can't be paying for full development AND MMO servers, unless it's some distributed server setup they're using that's really P2P without central servers. They came from Blizzard/Battle.net so anything is possible. But I've never understood how GW stays afloat. They're a pretty unique case if they're really pulling it off without an unorthodox funding setup. As for Ubi, EA, etc. half the costs are just corporate bloat and debt payments. EA went around buying everyone they could 10 years ago, closed half the studios. I think they're up to their eyeballs in debt to pay down. Ubi...they really are spending fortunes on their games, and to be fair, though buggy, they're by far the most ambitious and experimental of the "major" publishers. I wish their games were better put together (along with Bethesda) but it's easy to see just how much money is being poured into those worlds they build. Even the skiing thing that's coming to Switch.

Now if you called it wasteful spending and too much attention to graphics, I certainly wouldn't disagree.

They've all built a monster they can't slay. They told customers to demand bigger worlds and shiner graphics. Now the public demands it and they can't afford to keep making it. The DS and 3DS were created with pushback on that in mind (it was famously introduced as a console for developers) and I'm hoping that Switch can roll back the clock a little bit on costs as well in the primary market, but it's, out of necessity, but even the Switch will get sucked into that mentality.

@walrusballs I am a Fighting Game fan and they lead me to my online homes. I bought my 360 when VF5 online came out and bought live. So far this gen I alternate between PC and PS4 based upon what I want to play. I have SFV on both so my PSplus sub has lapsed since I can play on PC. I am holding out hope with the HRAP coming to NS, that I can go Switch/PC for the majority of my fighting game needs.

@NEStalgia So it seems I'm not the only one that dislikes Steam. Valve has shown me over the years that they are comfortable not making games anymore, especially given that they still want me to access their poorly made DRM-client that has gotten more and more bloated over the last decade.

I fondly remember the days where Steam would crash, relaunch, update, crash during the update process, relaunch, update again, and eventually give up! Those 4 disc of Half-Life 2 were useless as no matter how many times I tried to install off the disc, Steam was determined to use all of my available bandwith to download from Valve's servers. And if the client crashed during download? Gone, all gone. I do not like Steam, and despite the improvements the only reason I have the client installed on my main PC is so I can play the few games that force it on me these days.

Like you, I weened off PC gaming as the original xBox launched, providing easier methods of gaming as well as actually using my surround system! These days everything is plug and play but back then if there was no driver I either had to figure out whether I could force a similar driver to work or try to write my own (hardly ever worked out!).

Things have gotten easier, and I love it. But my titan of a machine isn't used for games. In fact I have it set up for Plex media serving. I prefer my consoles to handle all my gaming, with the PC being used for work and internet browsing. Sometimes I wonder why I upgrade this thing in the first place, but the truth is I love computers (and my job reflects that), but I still get nightmares of customizing every little setting to make sure the lighting actually working or to get the game to detect my hardware.

Ultimately, and like you said, a lot of gamers these days think PC = Steam, not actually being a personal computer. The way I've seen enthusiasts set up SteamOS on their top of the line machines controller and all is baffling to me. It's hard to see people spend thousands of dollars on hardware only to turn it into a glorified console. Not to mention, many a new PC gamer doesn't actually know what they're buying, much less taking care of their machines properly. There's a reason why I recommend consoles to everyone, because if folks can still struggle with iPhones, possibly the most fool-proof devices, how can I tell them to spend a good pence to build something they won't ever maintain properly?

Apologies for the rant, but IT work can get rather troublesome sometimes. ;P And sorry for the late response.

@FreakFerrett Er, I have plenty of games!
I was paying a lot more for my (now cancelled) XBone subscription but that was jus tot play Gears 4 online. . . . .

@biscuitsandtea I also don't like Steam..

Hard to tell exactly how good this is until we know the exact details of the service... it still seems a little vague for me to judge.

@Ryu_Niiyama Ah! A true fighting game player you are. There is nothing quite like the feeling you get landing your attacks with a fight stick vs a regular controller... Makes sense to stick with PC as the majority of Fighting Games are supported forever. Although, I am VR-Y curious to see what Tekken7 has in store for their VR mode and the game already looks so good! Oh and I was on NeoGAF the other day and there were some leaked documents about a hori fight pad for the switch in the works. Hope that gives you more hope. https://www.google.com/amp/s/gamerant.com/nintendo-switch-accessories-fight-stick/amp/?client=ms-android-att-us
( n _<)/

Seems reasonable but we won't know for sure until more details emerge. Hoping this is a good decision, Nintendo!

Boy... had to scroll for ages to get to the bottom of the comments... what a shame I don't have anything interesting to say.

Meh, I don't care about the "old games" that I can lend for a month, on the other hand if they opened a WHOLE library of the old games, that would be interesting. Most likely I will keep Switch for local multiplayer and single player, I have Playstation for multiplayer games

@YeshaYahu5417 Imagine if they still had them, with boxes and items that went with them...they could sell them for a lot of money. I used to have the old board game 'FIREBALL ISLAND'...wish I would have kept it, because that thing goes for a lot of money right now!

@biscuitsandtea Haha, I think we're pretty much on the same page regarding PC gaming. I do think there's a divide between the old school PC gamers and the newer ones that think Steam is awesome. The way I think of it, if you remember the site when it was a sewage treatment plant, and you watched them build the 4 star restaurant right on top of the old plant, you're never going to be able to eat the caviar there and feel like you're not sitting on a sewage treatment plant, convinced you're catching whiffs of the old "pools" as you eat. Meanwhile the folks that just moved into the area sit there talking up how high society the place is. That's Steam and PC gaming in a nutshell

Ignorance is bliss and if you've seen the good without the bad, it must seem like a dream. If you remember the bad, and just HOW bad the bad was, you never quite get over what that company views as "passable" and you know that they'll at some point view it that way again.

Nothing is as anti-consumer as what Steam was when it got started. It was the worst of the worst of DRM, it was broken, and the rediculous discs that had to decrypt online. It didn't download the whole game - it downloaded a key for each block of the game....so 1/4-1/3 the volume of the game was transmitted online just to decrypt it. I was on dial-up. That was NOT fun. That's why I bought physical discs! They maybe better now, only because they've been forced to be. But that's kind of like saying "oh, he's not so bad, he hasn't tried to kill me in years!" of someone in prison.

And yeah, beyond steam...the endless hardware upgrades. Oh this needs a new video card, but the new video card needs PCI->AGP (or AGP to AGP Pro, then AGP 2, then PCI-e, then PCI-e 2.0.....insert favorite era here) which needs new mobo which needs no CPU which needs new PSU, might as well replace the drives and case then....) Then the cooling issues, the freezing. Constantly. And who can forget the joy of mandatory OS jumps for new DX versions, and terrible DX performance on your old video card until you upgrade everything again. And the random BSOD every time you get to level 5 of that new game, that has you upgrading your BIOS and chipset driver, then reformatting the HD because that rendered it unbootable, and your video drivers (and now you're in SVGA mode because "something" broke and it won't uninstall) only to find out the real culprit was that driver you installed for a scanner 6 months ago. And my personal favorite, installing logitech joystick drivers would render the system unbootable and require a reformat. Took 5 reinstalls to figure out which driver was breaking it. Rage does not begin to come close to describing that.

And like you I always built my monster machines as work machines + powerful for games.....and it would end up crashing, driver failures, freezing, drive corruption. I figured out much later the other "PC gamers" were building dedicated gaming machines so it didn't interfere with work....glorified consoles as you say. A Switch and PS4 fit on my desk much better than another beige/black box and don't require hours and hours getting everything working and troubleshooting. That used to be a fun hobby....that was cool for a decade or so. Then it just becomes a chore in the way of enjoying the entertainment software you're trying to run.

Hardware aside, I still blame Steam, largely, for gutting what PC gaming WAS, and replacing it with what it IS. This odd hive mind formed among PC gamers at the time.

Of course Yorumi and others tell me now the hardware lasts forever, and PC gaming is so cheap. I can't wrap my head around that. Heck my last gaming rig burned through 3 video cards a hard drive and a PSU, and it was used for a grand 10 hours a month or so (I believe the PSU might have been faulty and quietly taking out the other components for years before it itself failed, but also those series of video cards had known failures. They WERE going to fail in x amount of time.) Meanwhile my WiiU and PS4 just keep on going....

Kids today....they just don't understand how good they have it

Edit: Forgot to address Valve as a game developer. They were NEVER a good game developer. Half-Life 1 was groundbreaking, true. It's world was very unique as was it's 1st person storytelling. The gameplay went off the rails about half way through, but nobody noticed because the 1st half was so breathtaking. But the code behind it and the Source engine was just the GPL'ed Quake source. They heavily modified it, but it ran like trash, and half a dozen free projects wrote better modified engines in half the time from the same source that ran far superior. Then they started licensing the thing. These were a bunch of ex-MS guys. Real innovation was not their strong suit. HL2....I'll catch flack for it, for some unknown reason it's this praised holy grail....was an average at best game with a meandering, incomplete storyline that never made much sense of anything and the great innovation of the story telling itself around you as you play meant missing half the important story points. CS is their most successful product outside Steam which they bought into from when it was a free mod for HL before they turned it commercial and was a slap in the face to a lot of people involved in the mod. Their best actual game to date has probably been Left 4 Dead, which despite its zombie theme, the gameplay actually feels extremely Nintendo. In fact it would be perfect for Switch's local multiplayer. But when a game developer settles in and gets comfortable as a retailer instead....you really have to wonder about their priorities in game design.

@NEStalgia Looks like I've found a clone of mine

There's a lot you've addressed that are basically opinions of my own, and I'm very happy for that. Friends and strangers that I played with long ago have either long stopped playing games or switched over to console games. Whenever we do feel like playing PC games, we all opt out for much older games like SWAT 4 and Quake 3 because todays games rely on Steamworks and rarely have local coop support, and we've struggled to get those games working properly on our machines as well.

In a way Steam did save PC gaming from fully becoming an Strategy/MMO/Simulation only platform. Who would have thought to see typical console exclusives end up on another platform? Certainly not me, but it seems we've come full circle in a way. Even Microsoft knows this, hence their Xbox Play Anywhere and OneStore programs.

Don't get me wrong though, I still don't like Steam, or Valve for that matter. I actually intended to type up my dislike of Valve as a developer but somehow that got lost in my thoughts. I think I'm getting a little old

Regardless, what I meant to say earlier was that I did not like Half-Life 2 in the end. I'm one of the few who do not like that game, and I much preferred Half-Life 1 at the time, mostly because as you said it did feel like Quake, but much more grounded. Still, props where they're due, I much prefer the original than the sequel everyone clamoured over.

I did enjoy Team Fortress 2 as well, it was a very unique game. Though once the community was able to add their own creations to the game ruined the artstyle, as well as the balance of the game. Real shame how that turned out. I don't like the rest of Valve's games except for Portal 2, which I thought was an excellent game despite the game's humour consisting of throwing paragraphs of dialogue at you.

Valve hasn't done much else these days. Last I checked Steam has become the equivalent of Facebook for gamers and effectively finding out new ways to generate income from the client itself instead of making new games. If today's PC gamers want me to consider the platform again, while carrying around the Steam = PC mentality, then Valve has to show me that they do care about their platform. Bloating the client with pointless, poorly made additions like Big Picture mode will not work. At least Microsoft still produces games :/

Anywho I hear you about the hardware failures. Back then dead on arrivals were common for me, but these days every part I purchase seems to have no trouble. Though I did have an issue with a RAM stick I bought not too long ago

PC may have its advantages, that I know very well, but the mindset of your average PC player these days is enough to turn me off completely. I just wish some folks would understand!

Edit: I forgot to mention, I've omitted a lot of my thoughts here. I'd love to continue this discussion in a forum thread if you don't mind. Much easier to list out my thoughts, especially since this comment box is too small for my eyes :/

@cfgk24 Join the club! More the merrier, I'd like to hear your thoughts on Steam, too!

@biscuitsandtea Ok I've started a thread in the forums titled "Blowing Off Steam" - seems like an appropriate title for the topic at hand Posted my response there, and anyone else following the thread feel free to tag along:
https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/other_gaming/blowing_off_steam

@NEStalgia Wonderful! I'll drop a post as soon as I can! 😄