If you've been hesitant to sign up to Nintendo's new online service, there's currently a free seven-day trial offer available from the eShop. This will not only allow you play your Switch games online, but it will also provide you access to the NES game library and cloud features.
If you do decide to sign up, you'll need to add your payment details to your main Nintendo Switch account. Just make sure you turn off the auto-renewal so you don't get automatically charged when the free trial period does end. Here's exactly where you can terminate the subscription auto-renewal:
Automatic renewal can be terminated from Pass Settings in your Account Information.
1. Select Account Information.
2. Select Pass Settings, then select Terminate Automatic Renewal.Please note that you cannot change the country/region setting for your Nintendo Account if automatic renewal is enabled. In order to change the country/region setting, you must first terminate all automatic renewals.
Receipts and any other notices regarding your automatic renewal will be sent to the email address registered to your Nintendo Account.
The automatic renewal feature is unavailable for Nintendo Accounts under the age of 18.
Are you taking advantage of this free trial? Have you bought a full membership yet? Tell us in the comments.
Comments 41
I’ll probably just pay straight up when I get to it. I don’t think I have to trial to know I want to play my Splatties online.
I think I'm going to stick with my trial for now. Even for the cheap annual price compared to Amazon Prime and Netflix among others, I can't say I'm walking away impressed with the service at all for reasons we've all heard a hundred times. Personally I can live without the online until maybe Smash so eh
No trial for me i brought the year subscription.
How long is the 7 day free trial available? For example do we have to activate it today or could we start the free 7 Days in a months time?
Reason I ask is that I've barely touched my Switch lately, I've a pretty big back log of PS4 games that I'm working though so activating now would kind of be a waste of time.
If not for the NES games under new releases on the Eshop and the extra tab that's appeared for purchasing a membership you wouldn't even notice anything different. Even the phone app, is exactly the same after updating. I thought more games had been added to 'Game-specific services'? Even when opening voice chat and selecting 'Supported games' it's still only Splatoon 2 showing.
I've no complaints about paying for the membership, we knew it was coming but this update is frankly pathetic and not really worthy of a 6.0. More like 5.2.
I just purchased the 12 month subscription straight away to avoid the recurring billing at the per monthly rate. I probably would have forgotten to purchase the 12 month sub after seven days was up anyway.
Splatoon is the only Nintendo game I play online. Arms gets a look-in when there's a party crash, Mario Kart has been a local multiplayer game since the SNES days for me, and (admittedly, weirdly) I've only ever played Smash in single-player mode. Unless Splatoon 3 comes out next year, I'm only keeping this as long as I'm still playing Splatoon 2.
@Marios-love-child It can be activated whenever. (Either now or several months from now) You just have to enter your credit card info.
I've skipped the trial and went straight to the family 12-month subscription.
Now can anyone tell me how to include a friend in it?
(Bold characters used in order to make the comment pop up.)
It not great but will pay the fee as soon as possible. So will likely take the free week for splatfast this weekend. Since I either get my paycheck this Friday or next week.
Still hope we soon get stuff like themes,apps and other stuff as I don't get why certain apps or basic features aren't on the switch yet. Not worried about the snes or other games being added for free as I figure that get announced next year
@AlexSora89
I'd also like to know if you can add friends after purchasing the family membership (I guess you can but this is Nintendo).
@AlexSora89 account settings > family group > add a member > invite to family group. Type in the user's email (while not spelled outright, logic suggests it can only be the one they used to register) and they'll receive an invitation. Also, "you can't invite someone who is a member of a different family group".
@patbacknitro18
Cool — Thank you
Might actually grab it for now, but I hope I would be able to stop the trial and subscribe, say, on Friday - as in, not have to wait a full week instead.
Paid the 17 quid so I can forget about it lol
I don't play games on line and I have played nes games plenty of times before and since no offers have been forthcoming I don't need the service.
So I will put £18 towards a new game.
@Marios-love-child the idea of the free trial is not to see if you like it, it's to get your bank details set up in the hope you for get to cancel after seven days and just carry on with the subscription. If you don't need it now leave it.
Mario Kart is now trending on Twitter thanks to Donald Trump... great timing too, on the same day Nintendo Online launches.
Nintendo must be celebrating and 19th Sept will be known as Toadstool's Day.
@zool
Nice tinfoil theory. Too bad, you donˋt need to enter any kind of bank account details.🙁
@MrBlacky You're wrong. You have to enter them.
Started out with the trial but will continue with a yearly family plan once it runs out. Currently enjoying some of the NES games I haven't played earlier. Mainly sports titles but they can be fun too with two players.
@Alber-san
You can, allegedly.
@nhSnork
Can I do this on my Switch or is it a browser thing?
@Moroboshi876 You don't. You can start the free trial using 'Funds Only'. And if your eshop balance is zero they can't auto-renew even if you don't cancel.
And regardless of that you can cancel the auto-renewal as soon as you sign up - no need to remember in 7 days. Or sign up to a longer subscription to avoid the per-month billing.
@chardir OK, then the news article was wrong. They said you did have to put your payment method now.
But it's true that many people forget to cancel the autorenewal in these things. And companies take advantage of that, even count on that.
@Moroboshi876 Every single NintendoLife Switch Online news article has been wrong in some way or another. They are not fact-checking anything, just making assumptions.
I have joined the trial. Buyer beware, I am sure it says in small print you have to cancel 48 hrs before subscription ends as they take your payment in advance. I only had limited time to play this morning so I might have mis-read it. Just to get it out there.
@AlexSora89
Nice. Guess I'll pay for a year and then worry about adding others.
Been trialing the online for the last 18 months. No thanks. Not paying for it.
I’ll be canceling. Not much of an online player right now and the NES stuff doesn’t do it for me. I grew up playing those games, but I have the NES(and SNES) classics and prefer to play those games that way. I tried playing a few last night but the controller scheme feels off for me(I’ve been playing those games for thirty years with their respective classic controllers). I’ll sign up when I can get multiple back consoles games all in one place.
Has anybody signed up for the service outside of their region. I'm in the UK but the cost of the service is much cheaper on the SA eshop but don't know if there's any restrictions ?
@Alber-san
Yep, but I'm still trying to figure it all out.
Can anyone help?
@AlexSora89
Go to the MyNintendo page and select family group. Then add people by typing in their Nintendo accounts.
@MrBlacky according to NL you need to enter payment details. Who is the tinpot now.
@Alber-san
Then it is a browser-only thing! Okay!
@zool
But I bought a 1-month membership with 4€ from my eShop prepaid card, so... And I never had any bank account details entered, so... Besides, like mentioned above, some details in this and other articles are wrong, so...
Just bought a yearly family pass and all 8 of us only paíd $5, good stuff
I got the trial and after an hour or two of playing NES, I'm already a bit bored of it tbh. Shame there's no killer app (YouTube would do for me) to entice people to pay.
Tried it and cancelled it
@AlexSora89 a browser thing, it seems. Switch user settings even outright say that "you can configure your Nintendo account using a smart device or PC". No such options in eShop or on the console itself.
@Alber-san @nhSnork
I did it! Thanks, you guys: as my friend allows me to share his Xbox account, I was looking forward to find a way to do the same for him on a Nintendo console. Despite him reassuring me that everything was cool, words can't describe how good it feels to give something back. So, thanks again!
I signed up for the trial then immediately paid the one year subscription. I almost just paid for the membership without bothering with the trial but stopped myself so I can add an extra week to my membership for free.
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