Splatoon 2 Producer Discusses The Potential Impact Of Paid Nintendo Switch Online Service

$20 for a year , get over yourself, its nothing

Given the hackers currently spoiling the game are also the sorts of people that tend to crack consoles to run pirates ROMs (ie they are cheapskates) I think the sub might improve Splatoon 2.

I wonder if Fortnite will require it though?

@RadioHedgeFund Fortnite's page makes no mention to it on the eShop jnlike other games so seems not

Maybe it will decrease a bit, but overall, it shouldn't be a problem. The Splatoon 2 community is very loyal. I expect that they will play the game even if they have to pay $20 a year for it (or less with a family account, if they're smart).

@RadioHedgeFund I thought Fortnite doesn't require PS+ and xBox gold, so it probably doesnt require Nintendo Switch Online, but not 100% sure.

All it takes to be able to afford it is to not eat out a few nights for one week, twenty bucks isn't a whole lot to ask for when some people spend more than that for a single meal.

$20 is a pretty tiny wall, but it is a wall nonetheless. I'm hoping it doesn't sweep away too many newer and younger players.

I predict the introduction of paid online will barely affect the top level of the game, but Splatoon is about more than its upper echelons. It's a beautiful example of Nintendo's knack for throwing players of all ages and skill levels into a joyous colourful world and having them all get something out of it.

The B- players waving their hand-drawn Splatfest flags around in the plaza are every bit as important at the X Ranked elite with their god tier reactions and intimate knowledge of each map and game mode.

I really hope this doesn't affect the game's celebratory atmosphere of openness and playfulness.

@Knuckles-Fajita On Xbox Fortnite requires Gold to play online, but on PS4 you don't need PS+, so who knows.

@Hughesy Well on Switch the eShop tells you if it will be needed for each game and it doesnt for Fortnite so...

@jockmahon With the amount of hacking going on why would people want to play? On PC there is the same issue, but you aren't paying. Hacking on XBL and PS+ isn't a issue as its pretty secure, if you have to pay to play online then you expect a premium service.

@Knuckles-Fajita That's still not confirmation though, it could just be the haven't added it until the time comes.

"This appears to be confirmation that the online subscription will go towards further funding for the game...."

How exactly does this even appear to confirm that?

The base game isn’t worth owning if you aren’t going online with it. So if you are a splatoon fan you kinda have to get the online sub just to get anything out of the game.

@Hughesy No its not.

But why would every other online game released BEFORE Fortnite mention it...but Fortnite doesnt, if thats the case?

@Knuckles-Fajita Just an error! Like on PS4 mentioned earlier. On both PS4 and XBOne you have to pay for online multiplayer. No exceptions!

They have to be very consistent with this or they will be in a heap of problems.

@Jeronan "On both PS4 and XBOne you have to pay for online multiplayer. No exceptions!"

Not the case at all. There is lots of exceptions. On PS4 you don't need to subscribe to play any Free to Play games. Dreadnought, Fortnite, War Thunder, Warframe, and many more are all playable without subscribing. Xbox does the same for several Free to Play games too, although not for Fortnite for whatever reason.

Nintendo Life's latest method of writing articles:
1. Take ONE sentence of an X person saying something.
2. Rewrite and rephrase the same sentence FOUR TIMES.
And... voila! You have a whole article with 3 paragraphs and 20 lines in total.

If they don't use the cash to seriously buff their network infrastructure, they will have a player uproar on their arms. If SSBU is remotely as much laggy as was Mario Tennis (and still is at time), they are doomed.

@Lumine sadly your ISP doesn’t contribute to Nintendo’s server costs and updates.

$20/year isn’t a lot of money for anyone who can afford $300 for a Switch itself.

I will be paying $20 a year because I'm rich and handsome, but the service is still terrible and overpriced.

There just aren't any good multiplayer games on the Switch, so you end up paying $20 just to play Splatoon and Smash.

While on the PS4 you pay a bit more, but you get free games every month and have a ton of competitive games.

The thing is that basically 90% of my xbox games have online features. My switch though really is the complete opposite. Mario, zelda, Dk, my indies, aca neo geo don't use online. So basically I'm paying to play Arms (I don't own) splatoon 2 (no voice chat) and mario kart. The price on the surface looks fine but for how few games it works with it starts to feel more than its worth.

@jockmahon
Its $20, not nothing. There isn't that good of a selection of games to play online, also hackers and lack of basic communication features that the Wii U had and charged nothing for.
Playing on PC doesn't cost nothing and you get plenty of features for playing/communicating with friends and randoms

It works out as less than 40 cents a week....that is insanely cheap.
Turn your lights off for an hour a day when not used.
Put 20c less diesel in your car twice a week.
Put one of those packs of biscuits back on a shelf once a month.
Have one less topping on your pizza each week.
Pay for an item with cash instead of your card twice a week and avoid the card charges.

Like if you can't cut 40c from your weekly budget to invest in this subscription how are you buying video games at all?.

I'm not being insensitive to people's circumstances.
I'm just pointing out 40c a week isn't a lot for a well maintained online gaming environment with added perks.
If someone can't scrape 40c together a week how can you even afford to play video games. shots fired

@BigKing lol

There are good games to play online.

You mentioned two after you said there were none.

And whether you like it or not fifa, fortnite, minecraft, paladins etc. All have major audiences and online presence.

I have 36 switch games. I can afford 20 easily. I'm basically spending that much weekly on games. Just because I can afford it doesn't mean I want to burn it.

Fortnite, minecraft, paladins? So now the campaign is pay 20 because it's basically nothing for the privilege to play fre to play games found on basically every platform including my smart phone which I have for my splatoon app. That makes sense.

@Lumine The money you pay for your internet connection goes straight to your internet provider.
They don't give a portion of that to nintendo to build and maintain servers, to staff development teams to create online modes and features; nintendo has every right to charge for it.

Gamers are demanding more and more online features. They want every game to have competitive online modes, even mario party!! Implementing those modes and creating the infrastructure costs money.

You want the features. Pay for them. You don't want the features? Don't pay for them.

@Knuckles-Fajita Fortnite probably doesn't require it. I don't think free-to-play games require a sub at all. You could play Paragon on PS4 without PS+, I imagine the same is true for Fortnite (and also on the Switch in that case).

@Xaessya its $0 .05 a day to play online, play selection of games and back up your saved games, servers cost money. if ur to cheap to pay 5 pence a day then maybe you should stick with ur pc then

I'd happily pay to be able to voice chat without an app. Can I message my friends directly from the switch. How bout invite them to private games. Couldn't do that on fifa.

@Sidon_ZoraPrince @RadioHedgeFund You don't use Nintendo's servers when you play Splatoon 2 for example. Maybe the connection is made through their servers that arranges the matchmaking, but the gameplay itself is P2P. So you're essentially already paying for that. $20 isn't a lot, but the costs per user for Nintendo are far less than $20 a year.

@sixrings yeah on other platforms which charge to use online features.
Mobile phones being an acception but the numerous in game ads fund that.
Again infrastructure needs to be built, staff need to be paid to create the features and maintain everything that the consumers are demanding need to be in their games because "its 2018 nintendo; everything needs to be online".
40c a week is not a lot considering.

Except that my wii u had better online features. At least I could voice chat on it. The switch went backwards not forward yet is asking money for it.

@Octane They're a business; they're not going to sell you something at cost price.
I don't think it's expensive.

I do however think if they sell games like splatoon where the meat of the content is online they should bundle it with a 1 to 3 month free subscription period.

No matter what argument someone puts forward i can't see 40c a week being expensive. And like everyone else i don't want to pay for something that has always been free. It's just not a big deal (right now)

I'd just like to see some resistance from Nintendo loyalist to encourage Nintendo to actually use the money to make online better. Messaging, voice chat, party rooms, game invites should all be standard. Yet it seems because it's cheap most of us are thanking Nintendo instead of demanding Nintendo to do their best. I wish nintendo online had the same hate campaign that smash got for Waluigi. At this rate nintendo has no motivation to do anything rather than give us free urban champion.

@sixrings personally i find the switch to be far more stable. I'm rarely disconnected from matches.
Also the wii u had a smaller audience and a smaller selection of games, many of which didn't have online features.

@sixrings the waluigi hate campaign is shameful. So if that's what you want it shows bad character.
Its been apparent for a long time that Masahiro Sakurai poors his mind, body and soul into his games, to the point that it jeopardises his health.
The people who throw their toys out of their pram over a character not making the cut don't understand how much time and effort goes into designing a moveset, balancing a character against 40 others, the modelling, the feasibility and everything else. The man literally makes himself sick trying to please fans. Yet it's never enough. You got Ridley.....but no now we have to have waluigi or we riot.

Back on topic i imagine the costs will go into improving everything you just mentioned.
Also i don't think anyone is thanking nintendo for the extra cost.

Families can take advantage of the family subscription, and if it's just the child who plays then £1.70 a month isn't going to break any parent's bank. Can't see it being a barrier.

I'm on the fence. I can afford it. I have a nephew in another city who has a switch. But he also has a xbox. We never play switch online because we can't talk to each other. Yet we play xbox every few days. Honestly I much prefer my nintendo switch. But xbox online is in a different ball park. It may cost 3 times as much but it's easily 100 times better.

All I'm saying is that nintendo is getting a pass from their fans because the service is relatively cheap. Playstation started charging this generation but they didn't skimp on features. The price is so "cheap" though that those who oppose it must be irrational.

Listen I'm a life time nintendo fan. I own every system. Own some nintendo arcade cabinets. Own all the smash amiibos. Have a closet of Nintendo clothes. I've given them my monies. At the very least I should be able to voice my opinion without the "you're cheap" comments.

I can't wait for them to implement the online fee so I have a reason to stop playing games so much. I'll never subscribe to it unless Nintendo stops being weirdly vague about it and commits to what they're actually offering.

@RadioHedgeFund. Ive seen alot of owners say they got it as a christmas or bday pressie, so likely got it from their parents..and didnt use own money..

I assume if the parent buys the system they will buy the service for the kid as well.

@RadioHedgeFund. Yes. 20 bucks in nothing for me, actually it might be more, not sure, sincw im in Canada. The switch was 530 here.

@sixrings nobody said you were cheap. And nobody said opposing it was irrational.
I simply said I, that is me, find it to be inexpensive and worth the asking price. And i don't have a problem with it.
Also you don't need to tell me to listen, i was listening and responding with respect. You don't need to list everything you own as if i was questioning your status as a nintendo fan, you were the only one that mentioned nintendo loyalists, lol.
And you are voicing your opinion without being personally attacked. Disagreeing with someone doesn't equate to being victimised.
This conversation has derailed, Have a nice day.

Saying something is inexpensive doesn't necessarily mean anyone should pay for it and shut up.

I will gladly pay $25 a year (I'm in Canada so I know it's a bit more, my amount may be off) if the service is good or improves (voice chat for example.)

If not, I don't have many pals with a switch anyway so online play with randoms is all I can do and I don't like it. I'll stay away and use it for single or local play. $25 Isn't a lot but it's still $25 and I would rather spend it elsewhere.

I'm not sure what all the complaining is about. It's not as if Nintendo suddenly announced that you're going to have to start paying for an online service. We've known even before the Switch was released that this was going to happen. We've enjoyed a year and a half of free online play, but the free ride ends in September. Let's also remember that your $20 isn't just buying online play, we're getting a number of games with it as well. And that number of games will grow. Nintendo isn't forcing you to pay for the online service, so stop complaining before it even starts.

I mean, Splatoon 2 itself is quite literally worth more than its current retail price. And while I can understand some people being upset that they have to pay for online, for no features - the features will come. If you hadn't noticed, the Switch is getting updated all the time and Nintendo has been surprising us again and again with some new features. It might not be an immediate change, okay, but remember we've been playing all the games online totally free so far. If Nintendo, a games company, is asking for more money, it's for a reason. What do you think they'll spend the money on? Drugs? C'mon guys, the money will go to more games/the service itself. And this is the first time in Nintendo history that they're trying this. Wouldn't you rather get that little bit extra towards improving things for yourself and others rather than worrying about paying for that extra pizza one Friday night?

@Cosats Huh. If that's the case, this article is not an example of your reductive description. Every paragraph has a different idea and only one acts as a reaction summary of a quote. :/

We own 3 Switches and 3 copies of Splatoon 2. I will be buying the $35 family Nintendo Online account so we can continue to play Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart online.

I think it will happen impact but not as drastic as some will think. I imagine the $20 will mostly turn off people who game online too little to justify the price and people who don't care for it to begin with. Also with the way those same people currently game, they likely won't be online that long for other to even match make with them, in a probability sense compared to somebody who play online games a lot.

Also it will give parents more control over what they kids do online since they will need to pay for the service. If they don't approve of the kids being online, they can't play online, unless you have to type that are smart or disrespectful enough to go behind their parent's back and do it anyways.

Splatoon is the only online game I play regularly despite it’s costs :3

@sixrings Understandable, but is there really no other way to talk to your nephew while playing? There are so many free and cheap ways to do so, now. My son uses 3 different free methods to chat with his friends: Skype, FaceTime, and Discord. They can all work on cheap smartphones, tablets, or computers and can work before you start playing a console and during shutdown, etc.

Progress. For better or worse.

For me, it’s not a lot of money but I hope that they actually use things to improve online play. If they don’t it dosen’t really justify charging people for pretty much nothing.

Nintendo could use the money to rewrite the network code of Splatoon and Mario Kart to a host based system.
This - by the way - would make the existing hacks obsolete. Or am I missing something?

@Cosats no crap. They get some new people or something, click bait, shallow reviews, non news and misleading articles lately. It's disappointing

@Yorumi Fear not, once all games are delivered like cable via monthy streaming subscriptions from 20 companies, or one bundle through Comcast, you won't have to fear the pesky online fee anymore!

@Maxz Don't let the B-'s enthusiasm fool you. Most of us are just S's from Splatoon 1 that can't stand solo queue and just played it enough to unlock league

Splatoon 2 is why Nintendo needs to an Online Service. It’s being updated mostly for free (as is Arms), and although it does boost game sales and there has been some DLC success, that increased engagement is not being monetised in any meaningful way. Microtransactions is how you usually justify Games-as-a-service titles. Nintendo doesn’t like doing that so is introducing a subscription system instead.

It’s because of the subs system that Nintendo can do all this post-release content for free

@Sidon_ZoraPrince Two games. That's it.

Nobody takes FIFA Switch online serious.

@aaronsullivan Of course there are work arounds. You know when work arounds are acceptable? When things are free...

All these comments of discord/skype, i hate playing with randoms(install a mute button) its so cheap so be happy, do is not motivate Nintendo to make a proper online infrastructure... Instead here's some Urban Champion and Donkey Kong Math to go with your subscription.

@BigKing I desperately want Fifa especially with the sale... What is the point when I can't even make friend matches?

@Yorumi The discussion of Fortnite brought up an interesting point. Fortnite online requires no XBLG/PSN+ sub (and presumably no NO sub. ) So some third parties can do online on console without being locked behind the paid sub wall. Makes me wonder, Frontier for example, do they actually get a kickback of that money and opt in?

Well I feel vindicated. I've been concerned with the bite paid online's going to take out of the community for months now. Of course paid online alone won't be enough to kill the game, but combined with competition from Smash and Fortnite, hackers going mostly unimpeded, competitive players quitting in droves, and a metagame that's pretty stagnant? Anyone who isn't at least a little concerned is living that "this is fine" meme.

You can’t afford everything in life. Anyway. The important thing is nintendo gets rid of peer to peer.

@mgnoodle Not going to happen. At all. Period. Maybe for specific games like Splatoon they might. Maaaaybe even Smash. But not overall. MS does dedicated on select first party games like Forza and Halo 5. Sony I don't believe has dedicated for anything. Ubisoft is currently adding dedicated for For Honor.

@Yorumi It's possible it's as simple as "if your game produces no revenue you're exempt" (skins cost, but the core game is free.) Or, "20% discount on UE4 license for Smash if you let us in for free"

But it does seem clear that there is some route that 3rd party isn't locked behind the wall, yet either most choose to be, or most are forced to be. I suppose it could be an issue of how much of the platforms infrastructure you choose to utilize, I.E. maybe Fortnite runs 100% using Epic's servers for everything from matchmaking to chat, and can opt out, but other companies that use platform services are in the wall. I'm definitely curious about that .

@Yorumi You mean games that have microtransactions? Not sure you’ve contradicted anything

@BigKing fifa 2019 will be out soon. Apparently that will have better online support

@Yorumi Maybe forced, or maybe most 3rd parties need to use the platform infrastructure and aren't as independent as Epic itself. (or big ones like EA that almost certainly get kickbacks.) Figure: The game taps platform services (and doesn't care if you've paid), the platform services check if you've paid. But if Epic bypasses all those services, nothing checks if you've paid. We'd never get anything out of Nintendo or Sony, but with Fortnite we can interrogate Phil Spencer.

I'm really on the fence about NSO. Since getting a Switch I have to admit Fortnite has become a bit of a guilty pleasure (something I could not get into on PC). So $25/year isn't too bad. Otherwise I don't play online or multiplayer games so it seems like a waste for me

@jockmahon

"$20 for a year , get over yourself, its nothing"

I love this. From the same fan base that once swore up and down they'd stop gaming altogether before they paid for any online service. Or participated in achievements. Or pay to play. Or, or, or....

Throw a Nintendo logo on it, feature Mario in it, and the stories start to change drastically.

@Yorumi this guy gets it.

The price is basically nothing, but I refuse to pay on principle. It's just another way the companies try to con money out of players. Mark my words; the Switch online will not be any better after people have to pay, than it is now.

@RainbowGazelle I'd argue that things actually became slightly worse (if you can believe it) once DeNA came aboard.

@Yorumi Either of Microsoft or of Epic, I'm really hoping someone asks while the Fortnite iron is hot. I doubt Epic got special treatment specifically because they're Epic....important but they're no EA in terms of power and influence. But I do wonder what the difference is.

To a degree, in a case like Frontier, they may well use platform services...not being huge they may not be able to handle the entire console customer base on their own, and may want to focus their efforts on their PC core first and foremost. The thing is supporting the console online structures has got to come with a lot of proprietary junk to build in compared to PC "just open the socket and do it". I doubt small studios would want to put time into their own implementations when they don't have to just so their customers can bypass a paywall on the platform they already bought into, while for Epic, it's no big deal, they already have it all for every platform.

It's really all I can think of. then again, Fortnite gets to use headsets on a jack that apparently DOES have a 4th hardware pin after all......Fortnite just has magic I guess?

@Yorumi One exception I'd throw in on that is small companies like Arenanet and Frontier are very doubtfully paying employees the professional wages and benefits companies like MS and Nintendo are, so the costs of keeping the staff to run things and add on are much much smaller for them most likely, at the cost of most of their employees not having real sustainable careers (granted, EA's even worse, but that's EA....I've known enough people in "the industry" to know how it goes....much of it operates as a sweat shop.) That is one major flaw with the modern world....as consumers we always want to pay the bare minimum and have maximum value added to our purchases.......so long as it's that OTHER company, and not the one we gain our livelihoods from that cut corners and extract all value from employees to maximize value of the product. We're caught between two leeches and no symbiosis.

@gatorboi352 No! Say it's not so! A mobile games company making networking worse?! Never!

@Yorumi I think that kind of "inside baseball" was more common in the retro era overall. The nature of proprietary systems led to it. I'm sure Nintendo does some degree of that today, but, the Switch is a Tegra machine....it's not like there's too much secrecy surrounding Tegra what with nVidia evangelizing the thing like crazy. XBox is basically a PC anyway. If anyone's holding back system features for special partners, it's Sony....1st party seems to do things with the hardware nobody else does, and that plays into their model so well. But yeah, in terms of business/licensing/favors, I'm sure they're all doing it heavily. (Then again, nVidia's pulled stunts on PC not so different...their driver downgrade shenanigans...) But yeah I think Fortnite may open a can of worms due to it's rise to prominence.

As for the costs of living...yeah....so...why is it the companies situation in areas it's expensive to pay labor? Because they get kickbacks, subsidies, arbitrarily low tax agreements and virtual ownership of the city. And most importantly large volumes of young labor willing to work for relative cheap, in a neverending supply, effectively trapped in their own world with them. I.E. it's not actually more expensive, it's cheaper for them. Cost of living doesn't matter when the young workforce accepts living in dorms with 5 other people as normal life. (Then they'll complain about lack of population and low birthrates and the need to import more kids to solve it.)

The tech industry overall is horrid, and the games industry is typically worse. People will work for their "passion" for no money until they realize that won't pay the bills forever and they give up and become a regional sales manager for an oil company or something.

@Yorumi But it’s not what Nintendo want to do with concerns around the business model and children. They have challenges around it in mobile free-to-start games already, but at least those are free games. Charging microtransactions in games that have a £50 price tags is not what they’re comfortable with.

So instead, they’re showing year-round support for their games, extra digital content for Odyssey/Zelda/Splatoon, server costs, community management costs... it is getting to the point that to justify that investment requires funding. And they’ve deemed the best means to do that is via subscriptions.

Elite and Guild Wars generate significant revenue from their microtransactions. I know this because I was in Frontier’s offices only last month and they have almost a floor dedicated to Elite. And as a public listed company, that is going to need funding.

@Yorumi The kickbacks are both monetary and tax related. The tax related ones especially are the big ones. Intel said a while back in relation to offshoring, it wasn't the labor costs, it was the taxes that kept them out of the US. Significant tax shelter is worth more than anything to a megacorp. Access to large number of young, stupid, but well-trained obedient workers who live to serve the company is a plus.

I'm envious about the rest. I live in a place into which the cesspools have drained, and it's now become one of the top 20% expensive places to live....I watched it happen. It's gross. A normal income now puts you close to real, but not numeric poverty....if you're not a 90+k financial analyst or medtech researcher, you're kind of screwed. It gets to the point you actually want to find a way to make less so you can just get on the other side of the line and get welfare.....for doing the exact same work you felt practically wealthy doing a decade or two ago. It's a story repeating in many places around the country though. I gave up on the game industry a long time ago, though.....a good friend of mine was deep in the industry....worked for a lot of big names....real genius kind of guy who could have been one of the big names in the business....even he finally gave up and went to plain old corporate (the big 4....because of course....) Kind of lost touch with him after that though, because frankly I assume every communication with him is monitored by them now

@Dringo I think Yorumi's point is that Frontier and others do the core game, online, for free, and sell only optional cosmetic items for the game and keep it running, while the console companies insist on a recurring non-optional fee to do the same, while also having more revenue streams (more games, hardware, merchandising, etc.) On the surface it's gouging. But you also have a point, that microtrans, cosmetic or not, is a choice you either make or don't. But do note how much money Sony boasts of making on that model. There's tons of profit in it for certain.

@Yorumi the books fund themselves. They’re merchandise that cost money to produce. Books called ‘Docking is Difficult’ are not about pay for a 35-person team’s annual salary. You’re right, merchandise is a way to capitalise on increased engagement (which Nintendo does with Amiibo), but they’re expensive to produce and therefore come with added risk.

David and Jonny at Frontier explained to me their business modelss around their games, and it’s not surprisingly. In-game cosmetics are big business. And it is for Frontier. It also contributes to recurring downloads. It works very well.

A subscription fee is a one-off costs. The concerns around microtransactions is in relation to Nintendo’s young target audiences. How proactive do you become in encouraging young people to buy virtual items, and how do you meet parental restrictions and worries about that? How do you avoid becoming one of the numerous stories about kids racking up large credit card bills of their parents due to uncapped microtransactions? Nintendo is taking some controlled F2P risk (mostly in its mobile games, where the model is widely accepted and understood), but is still very wary and is limiting it to free games at the moment. This isn’t some theory. Nintendo state their issues with the model in their own financial Q&As (see its decision around Super Mario Run).

Nintendo isn’t blocking the games out. They’re charging for the online service that they provide and the digital updates and support that come with it. A cost that is spiralling upwards as the number of players increase. It is why Xbox and Sony also charge for their online service. If you want a good, reliable, online service and products that are supported year-round, you can’t expect a publicly owned company to go “That’s fine. We’ll just eat into our profits. Our shareholders will be cool with that.”

The truth is, Splatoon 2 is still in active development and being continually supported beyond its launch date. Arms is. Smash probably will be. Online tournaments. Server costs. Development time. Community support. Customer service. Localised... tested...

We have to expect to pay for it somehow

@NEStalgia I understand. But comparing a third party developer that operates 3 live games to a platform holder that operates hundreds is not a worthwhile comparison

@Yorumi I think you’re confusing ‘what I’m saying’ with ‘Nintendo’s strategy’.

Splatoon is not completely unplayable without online. But I know what you mean. Regardless. The subscription is not just about Splatoon. If it was just for Splatoon and Smash, Nintendo wouldn’t need to do it. Yet because of the online pass, Splatoon 2 can live for longer. It is one of the many benefits of the revenue it should bring in.

@Yorumi I don't know about anything else, but you are making me glad I spent $30 on Elite Dangerous Deluxe for like $26 on the big XBox sale last week If only I could figure out how to dock my #$@ ship in the tutorial. Do you think a subscription would help?

The native college grads are relatively cheap. More importantly they'll work all day, every day, live in groups with coworkers, and never, ever demand not to be constantly part of company activity. They're desperate and willing to do anything, and are ok with a 24/7 work day. They expect to be treated as sub-human thus are not resistant to being treated that way. Like captives but you can save money on iron bars.

But the kickbacks....the tax shelters.....for their global operations, are a big deal. You fund the politicians, guarantee them retained power, they make your tax burden go away, and then put it on the employees instead. Location, access, pool of talent that will burn themselves out believing they're climbing the corporate ladder (before being pushed off the roof), and tax shelter and manipulation. Look at the states falling over themselves to be amazon's second HQ. "We'll rename the city "Amazon" and give you your own zip code and legal jurisdiction over it!" And there we get to it: They get to become citystates, autonomous from the rest of earth. And their leaders are the emperors. Meanwhile big tech is gathering in a joint meeting to collude on "privacy" today. Fun times!

When we get back to the cesspools draining....it's an all out invasion in the areas they move into...they replace the local populations, replace the economy, culture, and miserable attitude with their own, and 10 years later when you look up, you realize you live in NY/LA/Seattle/Chicago and don't remember having moved there....of course you didn't....they conquered your area and displaced the population. Were war a viable option, I'd be the first to lead the front driving them back to their borders. It's war and conquest, legalized. Enjoy where you are.....they're on the move, marching ever south and east and westward. When they arrive it's over a few years, you don't notice it's happening at first, and before you know it, you're living in their civilization (if you can call it that), and you must keep up with their way of life. Your stores are replaced with theirs, standard of services are expected to keep up with theirs.....by the time they take over local politics it's mandated you keep up with their spending, and before you know it a $12 hamburger with arugula on avocado buns is just the normal price for lunch. So I retreat into the mushroom kingdom, where an Italian plumber from Japan removes mushroom people from pipe dungeons built by a goth s&m turtle every moment I can. At least there, the world still makes some sense. Even for $20 a year. That's like a little more than an avocado arugula burger!

@Dringo Don't try, I've been down that circular argument with Yorumi at least 5 times. His position is absolute on this one and he won't back down

He's not entirely wrong, and neither are you. Most of the points you're making I've also made in the past. However, he's also not wrong that plenty of PC games manage the exact same online level of service on the game's sales alone, without subs. Play CoD on PC? Use Activisions servers free. Play CoD on console? Pay the console vendor yearly for the privilege to use Activisions servers. Yorumi's a bit extreme in not seeing the full scope of the equation, but he does have some merit to his argument. For that matter, play Halo, Forza, Gears on PC? Play on Microsoft's servers free. Play Halo, Forza, Gears on XBox? Pay $60/year to play on Microsoft's servers. Same game, same servers, cross-play is active, same publisher, same platform holder....they charge annually on console to do the thing they charge nothing for on PC. Either the charge is superfluous "because they can", or they're just using XBox players to subsidize PC players.

@Yorumi DeNA runs the platform, even if the servers are external

@NEStalgia You cannot compare a third party publisher and developer to a platform holder. The economics are different. These companies are building a platform, online and physical, to distribute its content and build a system of services that it maintains - games and otherwise.

It’s not just about a piece of content that has multiple monetisation routes.

I have no concerns with the online subscriptions, it's ok if it means to improve the quality of the games and service

I do understand that people have budget issues and if you only play online very sparsely that you might have little to no use for the subscription. But honestly, if 20 dollars a year is too much for you, then gaming is not a good hobby for you.

Though I do agree, with the paid subscription we should see some quality of life improvements, not just a handful of NES games and a "sorry VC died for this"

@Yorumi The problem with your argument that I'm seeing if you're chalking up the entirety of the paid service to just the online. Not to mention how do you even know if Nintendo will stick to P2P when the service launches? Nintendo's paid service isn't just for online, you get a free game every month some of which have an online built into them, you get cloud storage which requires servers to keep running, and apparently a bunch of member-only deals we don't even know about yet.
If it was JUST the online, then I would be skeptical but it's not.
Besides, £17.99/$19.99 a year is chicken feed, if you're really going to bail out because of a price that's lower than the milk I buy in a year, then man you have way too high standards.

@gatorboi352 Oh my gosh, how do you come to the conclusion that an entire fanbase says the same thing? I got news for you, even within a fanbase you're going to have conflicting opinions, not all Nintendo fans have been against paid online the entire time and if you think they all thought the same thing and then simultaneously changed their minds when paid online was announced, then you sir have 1 very unrealistic mindset.

@NCChris Just an FYI--when you point out any of @gatorboi352 's illogic he doubles down on his claims and concludes that he has wrecked you, whatever the eff that means. It must be the closest English translation of a Trollese word.

My guess is a small portion of players will stop playing the game, but that will just make servers run that much better

No point in the Online service if there are still games available that can run without it...

@sashj
Unfortunately that isn't the case as the games are played P2P rather than through a dedicated server.

@Sidon_ZoraPrince All FIFA players own a PS4.

@Snaplocket I have the game. It is mostly fixed yes but not 100%, and I had a terribly laggy tournament finale just yesterday... Such things will become unacceptable once we pay for them.

@Yorumi Tell me this; How confident are you that online gaming via P2P really does cost nothing on the companies part? There has to be SOME sort of cost for it because sending signals out to interact with other people always costs money, even mere phone calls to other people costs money so actually playing a game that has more data going through it must have some sort of cost. Not to mention then there's the price for patches and maintenance.

@Yorumi I highly doubt Splatoon 2 runs on just 1 matchmaking server. Splatoon 2 has literally thousands of players, 1 single server wouldn't cut it, they would need a few at least. Besides, again, the problem with your argument is you're only focusing on Splatoon 2. The Nintendo paid online includes ALL games and some of them are bound to use servers, especially games like Smash Bros Ultimate. And that's not counting all the servers the Nintendo Switch console itself uses for things like the eShop, updates, and so on.
This is the issue I take with a lot of your posts, you only seem to focus on what's beneficial to you and anything that is not convenient you blatantly ignore.

I would normally agree that £20's a year is nothing and its a price worth paying for what you get. This certainly will be the case for anyone old enough to pay the £20.

But parents who bought the console for their children for whatever reason will not fork out the money, i know this because i have worked in subscription sales for the Times news paper and i can tell you first hand that people will be faced with a huge saving by subscribing as apposed to purchasing the paper, they will get additional online benefits and they will get free gifts every 3 months... we actually lose money when they subscribe but we gain money through advertising... with allllll the benefits of taking a yearly subscription they will still opt to pay more money and forgo alllll the extra benefits they could get simply because they do not want to "set up another direct debit".

Nintendo has NO CHANCE to convince those people... and those people are the ones who hold the purse strings over Nintendo's heads.

neither will children who have the means of asking their parents for (mid teens), but wouldn't want to risk losing their PSN or Xbox live subs as this could be pushing their luck...

end result of this will more than likely be a wake up call to Nintendo on who their demographic is and my guess is that they will later allow users to play games for free online like they currently do but pay the sub for any other benefits that will be provided like Netflix, Youtube, actual browsers, VC games ect... as these are the benefits that most adults seem to be asking for.

there will be some level of back peddling here but how much will remain to be seen.

@Yorumi Alright, for the sake of argument, let's say you're right, who cares? Like I said before £17.99/$19.99 is chicken feed, if Nintendo want to charge for a service they offer, regardless of whether or not it can be free, that's up to them. Personally, I think you're blowing this into a way bigger problem than it actually is, £17.99 for a whole year is like £1.50 a month, I spend more on fudging milk than that in a month so if you're really gonna miss out on online, cloud storage, and free games because of something so tiny, then like I said your standards are way too high.
Nintendo is a business before anything else and if they can make money, they will, if you don't like that, then do as you've said you will and move on and don't buy, just don't begrudge people that do buy it.

@Yorumi "Rip People off", yeah cause a price that's less than what people spend monthly on things like eggs and milk is really ripping people off. And yeah of course that's the attitude companies want, they are a business! They are out to make money! Why the hell would they make something free when they can make money off of it?

The VC was always a paid service, only difference now is instead of paying for the games you're paying for a subscription. Also, comparing the VC of the Wii U is a bad idea, the Wii U in general was a massive failure so of course it's VC is also going to be lacking. As for the new VC on the Switch, well we'll have to see on that.

Okay, you took my words completely out-of-context here, I never said you would be missing out on games, I said you would be missing out on online for specific games, cloud storage, and free games every month. I never said you would be missing out on the rest.

Again, I wouldn't call less than £2 a month be ripping someone off but when someone has standards as BS as yours, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

It is 20 bucks. If you can't afford that...gaming likely isn't the best hobby for you. It is still the cheapest option of the big 3; Nintendo held out for as long as they could. I still don't understand the melt downs over this.

@Yorumi The argument is totally ability to afford. On both sides. Nintendo can't afford to keep the service free (business not a charity, remember?). If the user finds the price to be to high they are more than welcome to not partake.

Nobody is stopping a consumer from taking their business elsewhere if they so choose. However whatever stand a consumer wants to make on principle doesn't change two things. This is the price and it will not change and if you want this service you have to pay the price.

So if you can't afford it again, time for a new cheaper hobby (or just go single player) but if a consumer is boycotting on the principle that a company has to eat costs because the consumer is cheap (that is what a good value boils down to because as we don't know the overhead costs only our side we can't objectively determine a good value, only what we wish to pay. which really still boils down to you can't afford it/justify the purchase. ) ...then you don't actually want the product.

I say "well whatever I can afford it" because I want to purchase a service/product. People do it all the time. Netflix, amazon prime you name it. Service issued and payment given in exchange. I don't bank any argument on a customer's view point of a "good value", because that will always be free first and foremost and solely in their favor. Which is unrealistic. However again it is the customer's prerogative, but the those that want the service will pay the asking price and will move on with their lives. People get up in arms about a consumer product but we don't rally half as much when our utility/living expenses companies gouge us.

Before you try to run with something I didn't say, I'm in no way advocating that any company gouge the consumer. However without access to their financial data that is more of a factor of "do you personally trust the company and the price that they set". Sounds like you don't, so vote with your wallet. I'll be online this September. And before you go NDF (which is just means you don't want to have a conversation, you just want to dismiss those that have different view points than yours.) I take this view point with everything I buy. Do I want this service? Can I budget it. Done. I'm way too busy to do otherwise.

@Yorumi For the record, I've actually criticized Nintendo many times in the past, I would prove it but linking to my YouTube videos here would likely get me banned.
However, the reason why I'm criticizing you is because you're argument is so laughable. Sure, you may be right on online not having to be paid for but to me you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
Ryu Niiyama is right on the mark, people pay for services that they want, if you don't like it then don't buy it but just because you refuse to doesn't mean everyone else is being ripped off. You also claim that the paid service gives you nothing which is 100% garbage because clearly they do. You're accusing people of fallacies but you have no problem using the fallacy that I'm only defending this because I'm a brainless Nintendo fanboy which I definitely am not.
If you want to present opinions, present opinions, but when you go around doing it the way you do, you're just asking for belittlement.

@jockmahon my problem is they're going for a quick buck, not improving their terrible app or removing it altogether, and that it is simply a wall between me playing games with my friends that I don't like it.