Pre-Orders For Nintendo Switch Online Subscriptions Go Live On Amazon

Well perhaps that means that this time, it wont be delayed again. Then we should be hearing more about what it will include soon. I do hope there is a bit more to it that what we already know...

"Exciting news" you say? It's unfortunate that there are people who feel that way.

Preorders for a subscription service?! I need a minute, that's so dumb! VC is being locked behind a paywall and we should be able to handle our own save data! Heck I have no reason at all to buy into this since I don't play online multiplayer!

@TromboneGamer Well as long as they include dedicated servers for all games, make cloud saves actually work, give valuable discounts on highly sought after games and not just shovelware, and release it with a massive classic library that makes all those pesky VC lovers shut their gobs...

It'll be fine. If not, well I sure hope Nintendo stocked up on fire extinguishers.

Maybe we're due a Direct right about now. Seems like a good place to cram in some details and other potential game news...

Why would anyone pre-order an online subscription? Will it sell out?

I wonder how they're going to bolster their subscription service, if at all.

Might wanna get that subscription sausage out of your mouth when your trying speak, can't hear you properly from all the slurping. Honestly, the concept of pre-ordering a subscription service is beyond ridiculous.

@TromboneGamer Why is that?

I don't think Nintendo really planned on having a pre-order for the online subscription. I think Amazon just wants more attraction to their website. ( That and I bet NintendoLife gets a little pay for mentioning Amazon of course, not hating just saying )

@Old-Red Well, when you are worth 150 billion dollars, I'm sure you'll get your chance to explain why it's beyond ridiculous. Heheh. To be fair, Amazon are doing nothing outlandish by trying to be the first people to take your money. Doesn't matter what the item is really.

Sucks that you have to pay to backup your saves.

@AhabSpampurse I'm still betting on one within the first week of August. Just a gut feeling I'm getting.

@S4ndm4n I have to wonder, could someone in the UK get a US code and just change their region to use it? Or find an even cheaper region to get it from?

@Heavyarms55 Basically any time a company like Nintendo asks you to pay to play online it's a scam. It's true that it does cost some amount of money to maintain servers, but as far as I know not nearly enough to justify an additional paywall. There are many people who are either indifferent or are under the illusion that paying for a subscription service will make things better. Things might get better, but it's not like Nintendo or any other console producer lacked the resources to "make things better" before subscription walls.

@GameOtaku VC locked behind a paywall? VC has always been locked behind a paywall, what on earth are you talking about?

$20 = £15 + 20%VAT = £18. Nintendo as usual, screwing UK customers. Classy stuff.

@GameOtaku You aren't interested in paying £20 to play Balloon Fight again?

Only Nintendo can get away with a preorder for an online subscription that force VC to be behind a paywall, the only way to save your games and not to mention not explaining how the VC console truly works

@S4ndm4n You can change the region of your main account, and people have done this to buy Japanese games. I'm just unsure of how this would work if you got the subscription and changed back.

Why would any sane person preorder a subscription service that sofar is sketchy at best, even assuming they will need to book it eventually because they are going to use it purely for online play no matter what. Why not wait until it actually materializes?

I can’t wait to pay monies to play mario kart 8 online. Exciting times

I love how people are blaming Nintendo for Amazon putting up a preorder on their website. Makes perfect sense to me.....not.
It's simple wait till launch date and purchase. Send your complaints to Amazon for a shameless money grab 2 months before the product is supposed to launch.

What we know so far about this online service is an absolute joke. If they screw UK customers at £19.99 ($19.99) that’s also a joke. The sad thing is I will have to bend over and pay the money to feed my Splatoon and Fortnite addictions. So I guess to summarise, I’m a joke.

I'll probably have to stump up the cash as I'm enjoying playing Splatoon 2, Mario Kart and Mario Tennis online. But I think it's a real shame that we're having to pay. And having dragged out the launch of their online service it feels even worse to suddenly have to pay for something that I've been enjoying for free. I just hope it doesn't have an impact on the amount of people playing online and make it hard to get an online game.

Will wait to get early reactions to the service once it launches rather than preordering though

@Spectra I’m confused about this too surely when it’s available it will be easily accessed from the eshop not sure why anyone would do this

Find it kinda strange that people complain about the price it’s peanuts compared to PlayStation and people can defend psn all they like but you only get 1 or 2 games a year worth downloading

Can see myself getting the most out of the online games while there free So that's Splatoon 2 and Mario Tennis and i haven't played fortnight or paladins yet lol. Then when i get smash for xmas i will subscribe.

@Gs69 The price isn't the concern with me. It's what you get for that price and the unknown qualities of the service. I'd rather pay more for more if you get what I mean. Plus the meagre NES games on offer (vs modern) and locking cloud saves behind subscription (only current gen console to do so without offering alternatives). The price is great, but so is the price of a Happy Meal.

I am going to be buying an online subscription. But what I am not happy about is save backup being locked behind a paywall. It is not acceptable. We need SD card save backup to be avaliable.

@Shellcore They should add SD card save backup in a system update. It isnot acceptable that they do not offer an alternative method of backup when all other consoles do.

@TromboneGamer Lacked the resources? No. Lacked the motivation? Yes. Without charging for it, any effort they do is purely a cost. Adding the paywall makes it a profit. Nintendo is, like everyone else, a company out to make money.

So Nintendo wants us to:
1. Pay for online multiplayer.
2. Pay for access to 30+ years old games without option to buy them.
3. Pay for cloud saves.

And we live in 2018 not 1998..

As much as I like Nintendo games I am afraid that company doesn't follow changing times and people's needs.
How long can you base your business plan on loyal fanbase and newer versions of old games/ideas from glory days (Mario 25, Zelda 15 etc.)?

And instead allowing people to get what they want (like full library of NES/SNES/N64 etc. games for 3-5$ each) they prefer to stay locked and sue ROM sites and take legal actions.

What is interesting from sociology point of view there are people who will defend such dinosaur corporation no matter what it does.
It is like saying 'women have no rights to vote in 1900 and it is illegal for them to vote'.
Pressure is important
Times are changing and Nintendo has to change.

@Shellcore hey a happy meal is just enough sometimes 😀
I agree with what you are saying putting things behind a paywall is bad practice but online servers cost money and maybe it will go towards improving some games I don’t know only time will tell

Uhh Guys...... this is Amazon making the pre-order not Nintendo themselves. Amazon just jumping on the sales before we can purchase them anywhere else.
And I don't see why people are saying Classic games are behind a Paywall..... They have always been a game you had to purchase to play.
Now they are letting you play games unlimited in a Netflix style? Download for a certain time? until they change up every month or so (not really sure about)
But I do agree a Direct to let us know more about the service and how it works.

@Heavyarms55 I think the typical $60 price tag for their games more than covers the cost of their servers. I'm not sure to what extent they could lack motivation and certainly more money can help provide that, but there's no guarantee a paid service would make things better. Even if they are a business the products they make need to justify their price tag. Online paywalls at this point in time are simply not justified other than the fact that people will buy into them due to marketing and sometimes the extras that come with their subscription.

Why would I preorder a subscription from amazon? If I want the thing why don't I just buy it directly from Nintendo? Then at least all the money is going to invest in the company who's going to provide me games.

@ramu-chan £20 is the Amazon price, it's £18 directly from Nintendo.

@Gs69 Wrong you get more than that just this year so far I got bloodborne, ratchet and clank, Rayman legends, Rime, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, heavy rain and more no matters what you say those are top quality games not only that you get access to amazing deals that are gonna save you a lot of money
And btw not always you have to pay 60 you can find it for cheap elsewhere or they themselves lower the subscription during certain times like a month ago

Ahh, good! I can pre-order a service I know so much about. For instance...! A cartoony thought bubble appears above him as the the quick plucks of a dreamy harp are heard... but there’s barely anything in said thought bubble! Ah, crud. I still want to know more details.

@DannyBoi 💯 agree with you, not having the ability to save backup your games to an SD and only offering cloud saves behind a paywall it's the most anti consumer thing ever

When will NL report on Amazon Prime stopping the £2 pre-order discounts that I alerted you to by forwarding the email I received just after midnight on Monday?

Or is NL’s policy to only report positive Amazon stories as it’s become too dependent on their affiliate links?

@tjhiphop
At least I can still play my vc on my 3ds and not have to be out any more money for said titles when the service goes down.

@ramu-chan
Nope. (Not interested in Baloon Fight anyway but that's beside the point)

@GKO900 I know I got mine for £35 but my problem is the games are not always top quality and coming from the ps3 to the PS4 it seemed massively expensive considering I could play online for nothing being suddenly forced to pay to for the service which was free if you didn’t want the monthly games was a bit of a shock and the other problem for me was storage I had to by an external hdd cos 500gb wasn’t enough so I can see myself buying an expensive micro sd when the service arrives

They've already said they have more to reveal about the service. Whether it will be anything substantial remains to be seen but if they are holding the info back then it must be something worthwhile.

Really this service should have been there since day one, with each Switch coming with 3 free months.Expecting owners to plump up cash 18 months after launch isn't one of their smarter decisions. It could also harm the online community they've built up.

Another scam proudly presented by Nintendo, They know that they can get away with pretty much anything, thanks to Nintendo fan boys...

Yay, how exiting. This hypes me more than Smash Ultimate.

@Gs69 Well the pay service it's all thanks to Microsoft and the sheep player base of the Xbone community that started to pay for online obviously Sony and now Nintendo saw the potential of more money and here we are

I don't understand why people talk about a 20€/20$/20£ for the online subscription ?

Nobody point out how Nintendo tricked the price perception.

1_ Everything start with the price of the system and accessories which is higher than what they should cost.

2_ The games have a "SWITCH taxe" compare to the price that you get on PS4/ONE, generally between 10 and 20€/$/£.

3_ To play online, you need at least "20€/$/£ + new games" or sometimes "20€/$/£ + new games + accessories".

4_ Don't forget Amiibos too in some cases (Smash Bros 4.5 will be a good barometer)

5_ It's easy to understand that the way Nintendo handle the price of the online service is really smart, not really ethical but smart. They just hope that people are gonna see ONLY the 20€/20$/20£ without asking too much questions...

I already know that I'm not gonna give 1 cents to play online on a Nintendo system. Nintendo is always late on that kind of stuff that's WHY IT WAS ALWAYS FREE and IT WAS FAIR !
Ok it's not competitve like the others are BUT IT'S FREE ! It was perfect the way it was, espacially the way it was on the Wii U (great Eshop/great Virtual Console/great free Online).

What's the rush? It's not going to sell out or anything...

As Nintendo doesn't host all online services, will people who only play third party games online that have their own servers still have to pay for Nintendo Online?

I'm thinking Fortnite, Rocket League etc. Presumably, there won't be cloud saves for those games either.

@GKO900 100% agree Xbox owning friends have always told me how superior their online service is but I’m not so sure all consoles were bound to go this way I just think Nintendo could have come up with something better and more concrete details from the beginning would have been a good idea it almost feels like Nintendo are scared of online and are only doing this cos they kinda have to

This tells me a direct must be incoming shortly, so actually hyped!

@GameOtaku,

100% agreed!

Eh, I’m only subscribing for the cloud save feature since Nintendo won’t allow us to backup saves in any other way. 🤬

@AhabSpampurse they did mention that there were more games due for the winter than have been announced. Surely there has to be a direct soon about the online sub? Will Fortnite require it, for example?

I’m still hoping for some GameCube games to pop up too. I’d happily pay £15 for Blue Storm or Luigi’s Mansion.

This reeks of bingo card...love it.

All you gotta say is "Nintendo" and "online" in an article and folks start to lose their collective carp. As if Nintendo sprung this news on everyone an hour ago....

@RadioHedgeFund You and me both. It seems people are largely unhappy about the sub and what it offers. Personally I've got no qualms about paying for it, and as an avid retro gamer I'm looking forward to playing some NES games (and maybe more) on my lovely Switch.

@UmbreonsPapa If people actually read the article and realised this has nothing to do with Nintendo. It's about amazon taking preorders for something that hasn't even got a definitive release date. Instead it's just turned into a thread for people to moan about the online service and anything else that tickles their fancy. The usual and how they don't like it, its too expensive, they don't want NES games, they want to play online for free, they want cloud saves, its not like PSN or Xbox live. All the while, there is more to be announced between now and September. It just gets tiring the merry go round of bile on these forums.

so you can pay up front for a service you know next to nothing about? awesome, thanks to the actual dummies that will get this "preorder", such unfriendly consumer practices will never die off

There's a certain place where you can stick your subscription, Nintendo.

I suppose you wouldn’t want them to sell out...

@nopainjustgame we all are, friend, we all are.

@Hyrule this crowd.....

I’ve been saving $0.05 a day for the last year, so I have my first subscription covered, but the point I really want to make is... LOUD NOISES!!!

@UmbreonsPapa @Hyrule Honestly, I just came for the comments. The level of outrage is amazing. I've been paying for Xbox Live for 9 years, through two price increases. It didn't always give free games and discounts, large releases would still knock down servers sometimes, and any voice chat with friends was locked behind it. Meanwhile, Dreamcast had internet that was free and that was slow and not dependable. Since the Wii, folks complained about the stability of online play for Nintendo, and signaled they would gladly pay for a service so that money could be used to develop and maintain. Now that it's finally here, the gnashing of teeth is so loud, you'd think there were a plague of rodents. Nintendo is just slowly following the path forged by Microsoft, and then Sony. Folks wanted Ninty to play with the 'big boys' for online features, but somehow though it should be given freely due to some loyalty or undying love.
@GameOtaku VC titles have always been locked behind a paywall, i.e. a wallet. I've got no issue paying $20 for the online service and being granted 20 games while subscribed, as opposed to paying $5 for a game I've likely purchased at least twice in 25+ years. And true, with the sub lapses I don't have those games any more. Just like Microsoft.

@bimmy-lee HAHAHA I love this comment.

Oh, my gosh batman $20 dollars a year the nerve. Preorder? WHAT? I hope it comes to my house on time. After all, I am a Prime member.

I Hope They Don't Lock Rocket league Behind The Service

@HobbitGamer - Thanks friend, and #76 is pure truth. Well done. When will Nintendo ever get the credit they deserve for providing the faux outrage seekers with their daily fix?

@bimmy-lee Nintendo: Providing rage to players since 1889

@HobbitGamer - Yep, it all started with the anti consumer practice of hiding Hanafuda cards behind paywalls, and it’s been all downhill since.

Let's be clear, there is no need to preorder a digital subscription like this. Nintendo is just allowing it so it keeps "you're gonna have to pay" in the news cycle. I certainly welcome cloud saves — it should have never taken this long, but it's still ridiculous that this is the only way to backup your saves.

@HobbitGamer Preach man, preach. And always the same usual suspects, shouting the loudest from their invisible pulpit.

Pre-order for an online service? Who would do that?

Holy cow! I already save up enough eShop funds to buy a 12-month membership for the Switch's Online Service. Cannot wait. I know it currently has NES games at launch, but I hope we get to see more classic Nintendo console games like SNES, N64, Gamecube and more in the online service soon.

@WiltonRoots I know mate, I know. Foaming at the mouth like rabbid animals.

Pretty much sums up some of the comments on this thread and many others on this site, when the word Nintendo is mentioned.

I hope that's an indication that it will actually launch in September. Not necessarily because I want to start paying to use the internet I'm already paying for to begin with, but I'm kind of tired of Nintendo's lackluster online attempts.

At least with it being a payed service people will have the option to vote. If it's crap, hopefully less people will pay and Nintendo will be forced to improve it in some way, which is something I'm happy about. Because there will be a LOT to improve upon.

@Hyrule Haters gonna hate. I have no problem with the Nintendo Switch Online Service since I saved up my eShop funds for it. But no matter what good business decision (Or not) Nintendo does, people will find a way to complain and try to change people's minds about buying things from Nintendo.

How about a lifetime subscription offer for a one-time price of $50?

Regardless, this whole thing still feels like a slap in the face to me, so it's a good thing I care so very little about multiplayer.

@Mountain_Man
Remember when LotRO did a lifetime sub option at launch? I think it was like 200 bucks. Good deal, looking back. I've probably spent 5 times that much on WoW by this point lol

Wow, the cool thing with those last posts, how easy it is to point who works at Nintendo as PR. Wow, I thought they'll be more subtle...

@Hyrule Yep I wonder how these people actually cope in real world scenarios if they burst into tears over something as small as this, especially as they're freaking out before we've even got the full picture.

@WiltonRoots Agreed. They either have mental problems or act like arrogant douches who want to bash the latest hippest thing made by consumers.

@HobbitGamer
At least the old way I could pick and choose what was in my game library compared to just renting games

Built-in voice chat and messaging system. Please Nintendo.

Those who are expecting an influx of classic games, post NES, are likely setting themselves up for a pretty crushing disappointment. At $20 a year, you'll be lucky to see even NES releases be treated as something more than a complete afterthought. Forget SNES, N64, GBA, DS, and Gamecube. Nintendo isn't going to simply give those games away, especially since they were just recently charging $8+ a pop for them.

It's disappointing, especially considering that you've been able to download PS2 games for the past ten years, but it is what it is. At this point, I would honestly settle for a remaster of Super Mario Sunshine, a game that deserves to be reevaluated!

@BanjoPickles We don't know that yet. Aren't people jumping the gun about this? I'm pretty sure we'll see more than NES games on the Switch's Online Service. I saved up my eShop funds to purchase it when it releases, so I don't mind NES games, but I am also almost sure that we'll see more than NES games on the service. So we'll see SNES, N64 and more classic games in the Online Service soon after it launches.

@AhabSpampurse at the end of the day it’s half the price of Xbox Live and PS+. For all we know Nintendo could be about to update their Switch app with messaging and eshop access, Gold points included with the subscription and offer voice chat like Fortnite across the software range. There could be an OS update with some UI changes, Video apps may launch alongside the sub (offline access, please Netflix) and the eshop May update too.

As mentioned in the article, we know very little about the actual launch beyond the price and NES games.

I can understand why people are mad about having to pay for online, but the argument I don’t understand is that “VC is locked behind a paywall”. Sorry to break it to you, but it always has lol there’s never been a point in time where those games were free on a Nintendo console. Now instead of having to pay for each game separately, you pay the $20 yearly to have access to all of whatever they add. If you want free classics go use an emulator.

@ninty let’s say they make 10 NES games available day 1. So if they were at $3 dollars each that’ll be a total of $30 dollars if you were to buy them all. Ok not many people would buy all of them so it’s not much of a saving but more games will become available and you get to play all of them for only $20 a year. I’m actually looking forward to how this new subscription form of VC is going to take shape. We know so little about it. The beauty is we can try out retro titles and if we don’t like them, move on. In the past, if I made a regrettable purchase would have felt obligated to play it because I’ve spent money on that individual title. Now we can try all the games available which hopefully next year or so will be a massive catalogue. I’m excited about this. All for a small $20. No one else? Imagine in a few years the whole back catalogue for $20 a year. £&@? me that would blow my mind!!!

@Katelyn1223 Don't forget the added online multiplayer to those NES games that Ninty is doing. That is pretty nifty, too!

@HobbitGamer I am also eager to try out online multiplayer on NES games. Who knows? We may even get online multiplayer on SNES, N64, GameCube and more in the future.

@beazlen1 Yup, I'm also viewing it as a $20 game collection. With added online play to the titles. I think that's a tidbit the gnashers forget to complain about. I believe there's 20 at launch, and they only named 10 so far, too. $100 dollars at VC prices for only $20.

I’ll get it for the cloud saves

So... will the classic games only be available if you're connected to the internet? Meaning you won't be able to play them on the road?

VC was always locked behind a paywall. Instead of $7+ for 30 year old games you get to keep until your WiiU dies, it's $20/yr for access to a bunch of them. Sort of like Microsoft GamePass, but without Halo 5 and Forza Horizon 4, but with some games that, let's face it, Mario 3 is worth more than some of the indie junk on GamePass.

I see the polarizing comments in both directions and such little middle ground. Both sides have a point. Paying for online is just plain stupid if there's no dedicated servers. Not being able to locally back up saves is just plain stupid. Putting that behind a paywall is indeed a slap against consumers.

OTOH, cloud save storage is a legit feature, and using server space & bandwidth does warrant some payment. Sure Microsoft gives that out for free, and that's their prerogative, but it's not unfair to expect payment for selling server space. Web and email hosts are cheap these days, but never free (other than in exchange for ad revenues.) Access to custom modded versions of NES games to support online (pretty sure my toaster-slot NES doesn't have a NIC, but I can check if you need proof), is certainly not free, and $1.80/mo isn't exactly a huge amount of money to be paying for cloud storage + a library of newly modded retro games. And with the family plan the price $1.45 a person if you do a family plan with one other person.)

It's a mixed bag. For people that want to play Splatoon, it's forced payments for really nothing. For people that actually want cloud saves (even if I could back up locally I actually have need of cloud saves even at a small fee. I wouldn't pay Sony's $60 just for that, but $20 I might) or want to try those NES games online, it's not for nothing.

Also, it's very likely that F2P games like Fortnite (and Paladins, Warhammer?) won't be behind the paywall. On PS/XB I believe those games are outside the paywall, so it's very possible that applies on Switch as well.

So there's a middle ground here. Being upset at paid matchmaking is fair. Seeing value in a low cost for cloud storage and a Netflixed' retro library with online services retroactively added, is also fair.

If this were more than $20 it would be pretty unfair though unless it included free games and deep discounts like PS/XB offer.

@Sinton Actually on Amazon, it might. They run out of PSN digital codes for various dollar amounts, and PSN subscriptions non-stop. It makes absolutely zero sense....but such is how it is. (I assume Amazon buys a bulk quantity of pre-generated keys from Sony, so they do have an actual inventory to run out of until a new batch of keys is generated by Sony, rather than them just being generated in real-time per-order. Not sure if everyone does it that way, but at least Sony seems to?)

@EpicGamenator Rocket League is locked behind PSN and Xbox live paywalls so why wouldn't it be locked behind Nintendo's paywall?

This is a good thing. When no one pre-orders maybe Nintendo will realize how serious the issue is of the fact we still know nothing about this actual service and how disorganized they've been regarding it.

The simple truth of the matter is we need a direct to tell us more. We’re all making uninformed comments. No-one sane will preorder something that they know next to nothing about.

IDK what's wrong with you people. This is way cheaper than rival services. Do you not have jobs?

I don't really play online multiplayer that much, the retro nes games doesn't really seem worth the sub to me since I already own the nes games that I would actually want to play on other consoles and a nes classic edition. Cloud saves should either be free for everyone to backup there game saves or Nintendo should have to have a alternative way to backup you saves to either a Micro-SD Card or External HDD instead of being locked behind a paywall. The only thing I would actually purchase it for would be if they have some great discounts like PS+ and Xbox Live has on there AAA games for the Switch and not just discounts on indie only games.

Another regression in the industry that Nintendo is embracing because the masses want Nintendo to be Microny/Sonisoft.

And people will be all over this like necrophiles to a corpse.

@gutsack

Before it was cheaper too, so cheaper that it was free !

@mowerdude I Still Hope It Doesn't Do It,

No family plans up for pre-order. Not that I think a pre-order is nessacary, but why not have all options available?

I don't want to talk out of turn, so please, someone correct if I'm wrong, but if Nintendo is offering this "anyway", to be purchased "anytime", then why would I get this through Amazon? I'm not being funny, it just seems like an extra step for an extra step's sake, but that's just me...

All I care about is the cloud back up... only reason I need that is because Nintendo is blocking me from local back up. Something I have on both PS4 and VITA for free.

Just give us local back up for the people who do not want/need this "service"

@HobbitGamer The 360 games remain yours to play, even if you do cancel the sub.

@GameOtaku @TromboneGamer @Spectra This Pre-order or "Code" Whatever you want to call it ....very simply.... it's so people can gift subscriptions easily to Kids, Grandchildren etc. It's a good thing but htis particular way paying for your subscription in't for everyone

@Yorumi So you don't have a job.

@Cobalt It was also really horrible. Assuming we're gonna be dishing out money for a more premium, put together service... that also comes with games. We didn't get free games on Wii or DS.

@MeloMan Well I have tons of credit from returns, gift cards and Points from my Amazon Prime Card (you get 5% back in points)

On a good month I can get $30 in points to spend on games and stuff like this 🙂

@Yorumi EASY to SEE? Don't be ableist.

@Agramonte You have to pay for psn+ for cloud saves. You get them free on xb1 though.

Pfft, pass. Until the online infrastructure is no longer substandard, yeah..

@Richnj I just need local save.

I don't have an opinion on the service. If someone plays Splatoon for hrs online and likes retro games - it is a deal I guess.

I just want to back up my 150hrs of Xenoblade

@Yorumi True, locking the online behind it is still a scummy aspect. (I'd still be very curious the kinds of deals the big publishers get/expect out of subs, even if it's just "authenticated, verified data mining") I still feel there's more than meets the eye in subs behind closed doors. I thought it was revenue with the other two, but then they give out so many discounts and freebies, they're not making as much money off it as it looks. Then Nintendo does the family plan for $35....there is something else going on with this beyond just the revenues. Subs are the holy grail of business, but these game memberships have some other kind of back end we're not seeing. Nintendo's practically falling over themselves to make it as close to free as possible while still demonstrating they're doing it. I'm not sure it's for us. I'm not sure it's for them. I still believe it's for demonstrating it to some other party.

Local save games.....that's a hard one. I know what they're doing. Save scumming was a crisis on WiiU. I can imagine them round tabling the discussion, someone came up with not allowing local restores and only Nintendo managing the save files, probably planning it anyway for the online service like Sony, and decided that's a fast, efficient, effective way to solve the problem. I don't think they're blocking local saves to push NO. I think they're doing it as a failproof and simply do-nothing solution to solving an actual problem WiiU had.

Not saying that's not idiotic for a multitude of reason. But I'm quite sure that's what's going on with that.

@8-Bit_Superman While I don't 100% agree with Yorumi's stance no this topic, and we've debated often in the past on it, and I do somewhat agree with what you say, Yorumi's not all wrong either. His point is that PC games don't charge for online, and PC is the most online eccentric platform there is. Online gaming survived with the matchmaking as part of the cost for 20+ years now without problems, and plenty of profit. There's nothing special about console that should require it. It's not free, to run the matchmaking servers, but the business model idea is that's a cost of doing business, like developing the game itself and fixing bugs, and is covered in the purchase price of the game. (Heck, Fortnite is the biggest game there is and charges nothing for the game, or the online, and still made a billion+ dollars selling nothing but costumes (and one optional game mode)) So it is kind of charging for nothing for these online subs.

Now for Sony/MS they charge even more, but for digital buyers it's also kind of a discount memberhsip club like Amazon Prime, or Costco. So there's a lot of angles to view this topic from. Yorumi is kind of singularly focused on one element too much, but he's also not really wrong about that element either.

This is fun reading all the hate comments. It's like; 60 dollar games? no problem. 2 dollars per month? They'll have to take it from my cold dead hands!!!! lol

@YorumiTheUnemply

Free games ? You mean free roms, isn't it ?
The stuffs that 100 000 000 people in the world have by zillions on their mobiles, raspberry Pi and PCs ?

Sorry but just no, no and again no. ^^

What about voice chat ? Still with that smartphone application ?
What about AA/AAA games ? Still MS and Sony or ?
What about the games that you can play online right now for free, we will have to pay ?
etc...etc...so PREMIUM, I don't know... ^^

@8-Bit_Superman @Fabicom Gameplay will still likely be P2P as it is on Sony and MS. (Some games, Forza, Halo, MS provides real servers. I'm not sure sony does for anything. There's a rumor for Splatoon 2, but at $20/yr, I doubt it.)

@8-Bit_Superman True to a point. The issue is the online subs tend to include the worst of both worlds. Take the worst of terrible examples as the example: Battlefront II on X1/PS4. You pay your $60 to Microsoft/Sony for online services "to fund the servers", for a game that costs $60+ (versus Free for Fortnite), and still have lootboxes, season passes, and DLC, (like Fortnite but worse.) (Meanwhile on PC, no monthly fee.)

Now shift to Nintendo, and we don't have an example yet. We know to play BlazBlue: CTB or Dragon Ball Fighter Z, you will have your online fee to Nintendo, plus costume packs, character packs, etc, just like Fortnite. For a $50 game.

I see your point on one hand, but it also indicates a budgeting problem the consumers are paying for on the other hand. It's not like Nintendo is losing money currently without charging. They're making a heck of a lot of money. That's where the costs argument goes out the window. They're already showing enough profits that indicate that servers as a business expense baked into retail cost is already successful. Thus this does become simply profit maximization they rightly believe consumers are willing to bear. As a business they're entitled if not encouraged to do so, but it's also fair to call it for what it is.

That said, to be clear, I'm also slightly more in your camp than I may appear here, having already raised, myself, most of the very points you're making going back over a year ago But at the same time I can't deny there's truth to Yorumi's point as well.

@Yorumi Not $1 per player. The cost of the server hardware perhaps. But the cost of the real estate in which to run it, taxes, (taxes on taxes) (tarrifs on the taxes for which taxes will have to be paid), electricity/heating/cooling, staff, staff benefits (taxes on paying staff), etc. etc. The server is by far the cheapest part of that equation. Arguing it should be, can be, and is a cost of doing business is fair, but the cost of actually running it isn't close to as cheap as you imply.

Indeed the discounts encourage buying on the digital store. And yet, as a consumer, just like a business, cost-benefit analysis easily can prove that to be the most economical/highest value route. It's not all psychological. Both my XBL and PS+ memberships more than paid for themselves and into the next year's in savings this year (did a lot of buying this year.) I basically got paid to take the membership. That won't happen every year,but it's a possible perk. I actually bought my first PS+ sub in 3 years because the amount of savings on what I was buying on a sale with the membership was worth more than the cost of the membership. Adding the sub to the cart actually reduced the subtotal.

As far as Ron Johnson's spiral toward insanity and his taking JCP with him, that's an example of how disastrously one can run a business. The "full but fair pricing" strategy was anything but, and wasn't even the crux of his failure there. He marched in with a head full of ideas from his time at Apple and tried to treat JCP customers like the hip and trendy Apple audience. He rejected many products and brands customers valued, tried to stock up with trendy brands, leased space to trendier store-within-a-store layouts (e.g. Sephora), not aligned with the JCP market, and decided to make JCP stores into "hangouts" like Apple stores and believed that "full but fair" pricing (read: Not the actual retail price, but an "Apple tax" version of pricing) would work if everyone wanted to just hang out at JCP. Meanwhile in cutting sales, it cut a significant part of advertisement and promotion, dropping the store from visible radar. At the end of the day they were less present in public mind, were not fun to hang out in, offered no loss leader to lure you into the store to save, alienated existing customers preferred products in favor of another market that never materialized, and ultimately, set prices to be higher than the equally pretty store at the other end of the mall hallway that still ran sales. Why would anybody shop there? "Not having sales" is fine if you're actually cheaper than the other guy. If you're selling the idea of being stylishly more expensive.....you'd better be Apple.

You're right about department store sales being fake/exaggerated, but in that case the problem was they were just straight up overpriced, with full price items slightly cheaper than the other stores and sale items from the other stores always being more expensive in JCP. Anyone watching for the lowest price, a big part of JCPs existing customer base, just left. "Full but fair" didn't mean actual discount retailer pricing. It meant launching a crusade against the very notion of discounts below premium at all. After all, it worked for Apple....

I'll agree with you on all fronts of GaaS though. As well as it being self defeating. Ubi for example I tend to buy a lot of games. If they lock me into just "AC: Infinite" or what have you, that's another 5+ games from them I'd have bought but won't. I do hope that theme won't last long. Fortnite worries me. Maybe it's just kids that are into doing "what everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it" so much.

@ramu-chan You completely ignored US taxes. One of the reasons I dislike such comparisons-- our European friends conveniently forget to take the fact that one price includes tax and the other does not.

As such, your comparison and criticism are invalid.

@TromboneGamer If things get better, it may be just because of less traffic due to the paywall.

why do i need to pre-order a sub? when i can just save my 20$ and get it the day it launches.

I don't see myself pay for online play (which I hardly ever do), BUT if this "family deal" makes it so that you can download online co-op games (and all others as well of course) to multiple systems and play them simultaneously without paying twice for the games, I'll consider, because my partner and I each have our Switch, and co-op games is what I hope to see more, without having to buy them twice. No promises, as I wouldn't want to pay subscription for playing either, and like I said, I'd want to download to multiple systems at the cost of buying the game once. That means NO EXTRA CHARGES, and subscription fees are a never ending extra charge, unless you cancel it and lose all its "privileges" in doing so...
Tough one, though I swore once that, when Nintendo hopped on the paid online service train, I'd stop buying their stuff.

I'm going to hold off and see if they actually fix online. I only play Splatoon 2 online.

Paying for online, when I already pay Time Warner makes no sense honestly.

@ninty this is soooo silly. Are you really trying to compare Nintendo’s pricing to a human rights issue?

Nintendo may have the worst online service ever but it’s hardly a right that you get something better. Yes some people defend Nintendo no matter, they are called fanboys and are generally pretty harmless in the overall scheme of things.

If only you could add a Nazi reference your silliness would be complete.

There’s not enough whining here. I’m sure if we try we can build up the fake outrage even more.

It's amazing what people think they are entitled to for $1.66 / month.

Getting the family subscription. So I guess I’ll wait. Nintendo eShop will probably have all at once on their site when ready.

A lot of salt in here. It's funny because people were complaining ever since like 2013 that they didn't want to keep rebuying VC games, now we have this new ala carte deal and people want to go back to how things were.....? And yes, VC games were always locked behind a paywall, lol.

People also saying "Nintendo gets away with it" well yeah, maybe that's partially because Microsoft and Sony have been getting away with the same thing for YEARS. People want Nintendo's consoles to be almost like carbon copies of Sony 's and Ms's, well there you go.

@YorumiTheUnemply So lol. It is a lolol

@Spectra

It is very strange and nonsensical. But whatever they wanna do I guess.

@Heavyarms55 Not sure about the delay thing, Amazon US says: This item will be available on December 31, 2018 at 12:00 AM PST
Pre-order now!
Sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC.

Guess is just an internal error, will be expecting this on September. No need to preorder since there’s no advantage at all to do it.

@KryptoniteKrunch The complaint about not having to rebuy VC games would have been solved by purchases transferring to each successive console. A subscription service doesn't really address that issue at all, it is a different kind of service with its own complaints.

In the past VC games were locked behind a paywall that I could determine. I could purchase specific VC games that I want, and not have them tied behind some recurring subscription fee where I lose them all if I can't afford them.

With the new service, Nintendo gets to pick what games to put on there. They can add and remove different games at any time they want. Much like Netflix. Funny a lot of people have compared to Netflix favorably, but it's not a favorable comparison since Netflix rotates movies and shows all of the time. You want that one game on your Switch to keep? Too bad. It won't be there forever. If you had to put it off for other reasons and were going to come back to it, oops, it's no longer available on the service. Too bad!

And how long will we have to wait to even get past the same ol' bare-bones NES games that they've been cramming into our faces for years?

@Agramonte Yes, localsave definitley needed.

@Francema There is no need to pre-order for sure. I just wish so many people weren't complaining. They are entitled to their opinions sure, but I don't agree with the vast majority of them.

@WiltonRoots Ah you can easily tell mate, the trolls roam in packs. Just look at the join date of some of them and the number of comments they have made. The most recent addition to the troll brigade joined in Jun and has made over 500 comments already mostly negative. This site is like catnip to them.

@Cobalt Yeah, it be a shame if they lock F2P games behind a paywall like Microsoft. We have no idea what will stay free.

@Richnj While you need ps+ for cloud saves on ps4 what @Agramonte was saying is that you can just use a external HDD to backup your games saves locally. That is what Nintendo need's to do for the Switch in a system update, that way you could have options to be-able to backup you game saves locally also instead of forcing the service on everyone.

@Heavyarms55

"Without charging for it, any effort they do is purely a cost. Adding the paywall makes it a profit."

Multiplayer has always been included in the price of the game before. Pulling it out and charging more is simply a way to charge extra. Nintendo's models show that the way to maximize profit is to charge us more for the same game so they made this business decision. But it's certainly not been a pure cost to them in the past just because they've decided to take a core item out of the game and charge separately for it.

I mean where does that logic stop? Some digital Switch games cost $19.99 and the physical variance costs $29.99. Have they always been providing the cartridge and box at a cost to themselves? So the only way for them to make money on a boxed game is to charge more for those in the future? What about DLC? Did Nintendo give us an end boss at a pure cost to themselves? Gotta expect to pay for that final boss fight in the future, lucky they've given it to you free all these years.

"I just wish so many people weren't complaining. "
This is providing less value than you were getting before for the $ you were paying Nintendo. So I think it was pretty obvious why people would be more negative on this topic than something like free DLC for Mario Kart, Odyssey or an instance where Nintendo is providing more value to their games.

@Nehalem
Nazis. You mean Germans? It is not silly. My grandfather had to escape and save his life when they destroyed his house and burned everything and killed many people. Not silly topic to me really so probably not best to continue such discussion.

Human rights. At that time vote rights for women, afroamericans etc. were not considered human rights. This was supposed to be an example of how time and law can and should be changed and follow trends.
Unfortunately law is not always fair. It is very often created to suit lobbies interest.

Message board isn't probably the best place to discuss this matter and it is complex one. Such discussion like here demands shortening messages and it is sometimes bad and lead to misunderstanding.
I am computer science guy and also manager and businessman. I also do some science research in these areas.
Sales and marketing and obviously money is what is important for Nintendo. And it is ok. But from sociology and science point of view (and adding technological possibilities nowadays) what is happening right now with games industry, distribution and business models is very interesting. There are many interesting science articles in this matter and I suggest reading them. But basically Nintendo (and others) wants to control you, your behaviour and buying/gaming habits. Is it ethical? I think people are more and more aware of such things and in my opinion this model is not the way for the future but I can be wrong obviously although I hope that people can and should put pressure on huge corporations (larger than countries nowadays) and control them, not the opposite.

If you like you can start with this article (a bit old but very good explanation) which refers to intellectual property and emulation but shows how business model of Nintendo looks like.

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njtip/vol2/iss2/3/

@ninty

It's true that Nintendo has many anti-consumer policies. But I think you overshot the response on this one. At the heart of the online policy is a price increase. Consumers obviously hate price increases. But Nintendo is not necessarily unethical for wanting more $.

Let this be good advice and a message to Nintendo. I think the online service is good and is cheap(compared to PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold) and they will be getting a subscrpition from me. What I do not like at all about the online service is that for people who are not interested or do not want a subscription, they will be unable to backup their save files because Nintendo only offer cloud save and it is behind the online subscription. So for those unfortunate people whodo not have an interest in online gaming or the subcrption, should anything happen to their console, all their save data could be lost,which should never happen to anyone. If Nintendo think cloud save will stop people complaining it will to a degree. But there willstill be people who complain because there are noalternative backup methods, I being one who willkeep complaining. It would be soeasy toadd SD card save backup, it would only take a sytem update and everyone would stop complaining. There are actually a good number of people whowant this Nintendo.

I'm going in on the family plan. It's 7 ppl and $35 for the whole shebang. I'll probably only use three or four and probably give away the other three. (If possible to do so) still more details needed though.

if it's by yourself its 1.67 dollars a month