Video: Here's How Nintendo Switch Online Handles NES Gameplay Over The Web

Can only play online with friends. I'm out.

@Scottwood101 Lol i was never in.

arent many times i play online and as a 'offline gamer' there is nothing special for me.

Is the emulation good? That's the most important thing. If not, I'll stick to my NES Mini.

I wasn't going to play with friends, by the way. I use the Switch in handheld mode 90% of the time.

@Scottwood101
Then why is two player separate from online?

Yep, only being able to play online with friends makes this pointless, at least for me. I'm sure we could arrange some thing in the forum here but still. Most of those who want to play these games online are dinosaurs like me. How many 40 year olds have real life friends of a similar age with a Switch, an online subscription and have nostalgia for NES Tournament Golf or Ice Hockey? My guess would be not so many.

@OorWullie
I am not quite 40 but getting rather close and in my office alone there are 5 switch owners. I also know 3 more not from work.
Playing online will be pretty common, Dr Mario is a big attraction.

@OorWullie

"Ice Hockey"

ME, ME, ME! Lol!

Although I'm 27, but man did my brother and I play the hell out of Ice Hockey as kids...

@StevenG local two player.

I was playing with a friend online and was constantly getting lag.

@JamesR That was what I thought, but the comment I was replying to was complaining about it not existing.

I am looking forward to some Super Mario Bros with my son.

Friends only? Well I don’t call that “online play” in the full sense of the term. Thanks Nintendo! You are brilliant!

I guess I'm just sick of NES titles at this point. From the Wii to the Wii U to the NES mini, enough. How about N64 games? Maybe a Gamecube title or two?

I know Nintendo likes to do the bare minimum but rereleasing the same 20 games for the past 10 years is losing its luster. NES online is neat but I've played those games to death already.

Why are so many people surprised by only being able to play with friends? That’s the Nintendo way. Did you really think they were going to match you with randoms from an online lobby? And I find it funny people act like they have no friends to play with. If your the type to own a Switch and be active on a Nintendo fan website, I’d assume you have some like minded gaming friends. Between personal friends & family I can think of 10+ people I could play with at any time. I actually HATE playing online games with ranfoms.

@StevenG local two player is certainly working. The 'One Player' / 'Two Players' entries in the app are just there to drop/attach controllers. Everything also works with single joycon play (in case you feel the urge for some Balloon Fight with a stranger on the bus)

"What? I can only play with my friends? That's outrageous! (Because I don't have any friends.)"

Isn't that what everybody is basically saying here? Haha!

Agree about CRT Filters Alex. Just Horrible.

I've never understood why people hide beautiful pixel art with a crappy blur effect, or much worse with those terrible photoshoppy pixel merging filters (SABR etc), and really disliked how 3DS VC Gameboy titles looked at the full height setting.

However I have to admit, on this occasion Nintendo has done an authentic looking CRT filter that is more than the 'just blur it' effect I've seen by Nintendo and others before. I won't be using it - but it's a well made filter effect.

Each to there own as always of course.

So yes I appreciate some like to make game look like they did on an old monitor - but I just don't get it - modern monitors can let you see those carefully laid pixels with gloriously clarity. I do however like non-blurry filters that give a feel for the scanlines and handheld screens of yesteryears without the blurring, but Nintendo never includes them. I wish there was a fuller range of effects on offer but at least, thank goodness, on this occasion we can have our pixels super sharp on our wonderful HD portable.

I’m gutted that this is friends only when Capcom Beat Em Ups (for example) isn’t.

I obviously misinterpreted it when Nintendo say on their Switch news channel “play with friends and rivals from around the world”.

They should have just said friends perhaps.

Sometimes I feel like the only person who only plays online with real life friends. I don’t see any allure in playing with people I don’t know.

For these NES games, I’ll just send out a message in a group chat, and see who wants to join in. I dig it.

So far I prefer the NES Classic. Controlling NES games with the Joycons is inferior to the NES controller. Nintendo should release an adapter so we can play with the NES Classic controller.

What a load of trash

I want to play Balloon Fight with randos!

I was dissapointed that you couldn't play with randoms. The co-op games I wouldn't really want to play with random people because it can be hard to find someone who will commit to playing for more than 10 minutes. The competitive games however would be fun playing with non-friends though.

@brunojenso It isn't the blur that attracts folks to the crt tvs, it's the phosphor glow....and it in effect tamed the jaggies and gave a "glowing" character to the picture vs. a modern monitor.....Not to mention the latency is WAY better on a crt. I do NOT like crt filters as none of them have replicated the phosphor glow. I don't care about scanlines. NO ONE has gotten crt emulation right. I still play my classic consoles on a dedicated tube tv, and have hi res for newer games.

The sad thing is we’ll have to go through all the NES games AND SNES games before we get to the slightly less played N64 games and the hardly ever played GameCube stuff. It’s going to take a long time....

@Mountain_Man in all fairness... I have loads of friends.

Two of them own a Switch... Neither are getting this, but then again neither am i (just yet). So don't matter i guess.

@purpleibby Interesting info. Thanks purpleibby. It also backs up the idea that these filters are not effective at all - and that simple blur applied is just that - and just looks rubbish.

I think I know what you mean about the 'glowing' characters effect from back in the day. I think that is what had me near hypnotised playing Tempest 2000 on my Jaguar in the middle of the night with the room lights out and my headphones on full. Good times

I'm an ageing gamer (44) but haven't got much nostalgia for CRTs, preferring the clean, if not clinically, picture only possible these days.

But I do get that the CRT image has more character and flavour in the way vinyl does for music, and I can see the appeal of the real deal.

@brunojenso Tempest 2000/Jaguar.....VERY NICE! I agree about the filters..... and a proper crt can look very clear depending on the source. I still love crts for my older consoles and arcade machines(Tempest, KI 1/2).

@OorWullie I'm about to turn 31 next week and I have zero friends who own a switch unfortunately. So I'll be playing all these games alone which is fine I guess. If only my brother would get one we could've relived our glory days but he's stuck on ps4 still.

im sorry if people cant figure out that play while you wait will start a online session they probably should take a long walk off a short pier cause they are not smart enough to replicate the species. it wasnt rocket science took me maybe 30 secs before i was like ok lets try this

@purpleibby ...older consoles and 'arcade machines'. Wow - a true connoisseur me thinks Wonderful. I just have a few handhelds knocking around these days - space is very limited.

Something I haven’t seen anyone mention that I’d like to see added to this NES games is digital manuals! I know how to play many of these games, but I never played any of the sports games and a scan of the original manuals would be super helpful and a cool addition.

Can somebody please confirm that I'm missing an option to remove the start/select/menu instructions on the screen AT ALL TIMES.

@OorWullie can always join up with me mate 36 years young !! If you thinking about getting Diablo 3 or dark souls also I’ll join up with you

@nintendobynature can add me mate 36yr old I’m in same boat !! ... will be playing Diablo 3 dark souls and a bit of arena of valor

I don't know many people with a Switch that would use this so I'll have to make do with my wife I'll probably get it just because it's the price of a couple of beers for a whole year.

@UmbrageHill Yes, that would be very cool!

@brunojenso A video of my KI 1/2 dual machine(I think this counts an awesome Nintendo collectible):
https://youtu.be/QrgXA80qnmI?t=8m7s

@purpleibby Blimey - yes I think that counts! Lovely machine - shockingly I never did own a Killer Instinct game. I basically have one small room and shared facilities - so this would be like a fifth of my space - and so machine's like the Switch/Vita/3DS are a serious blessing for me - but wonderful to see big collectors items like this. Thank you for sharing. Are you the friendly guy in the video?

@brunojenso Thanks very much:) No I'm not in the video, that's just the awesome company that I custom ordered it from(awesome folks at TNT amusements), they release videos for their customers before delivery when work is complete....it was delivered to my home. My Atari Tempest(color vector) arcade I did the restore myself however(and it was a LOT of work). Right now my arcades are in my garage, but I'm building a retro arcade in my den...I have to get these heavy muthas up a flight of stairs lol but it will be great when I'm finished(will have a retro console section of the game room with a crt in there too)...but I really want to keep the arcade feel(blacklights, neon and such). Thanks again, sounds like you have your gaming needs covered very well indeed!

@Moroboshi876
The NES Classic was basically a field test for Nintendo's new emulator they were developing for Switch. It's the same emulation with Online, voice chat, etc. added.

So all the new features NES Classic introduced should be there, with a new, snappier and more versatile user interface.

@Deanster101 I expect the only way we'll see GameCube games – especially third party – anytime soon is rereleases and remakes like Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles.

I think we all should be focused on asking devs to rerelease their GCN games on Switch rather than hope for a GCN classic collection.

N64 I see happening in a while, GCN much less likely. Particularly for third party games.

The whole issue is that it's simply more expensive to develop a GCN emulator of the same quality these NES and SNES emulators..
Maybe Nintendo will eventually do it, but it might be better to release remakes of the most popular/requested games..

@brunojenso It's a lack of understanding around design decisions made 'way back when' + preference.

To many people, looking at these games on modern displays is actually off-putting. A good many games were actually designed to take advantage of the what you would call "flaws" in CRT display technology.

Like I have a couple of arcade cabs i have built, one specifically for vertical games, one for horizontal. If you played these things in the 80s and 90s...They really look "off" on LCD displays without really high-quality filters (I use a stack that adds jitter, barrel effect, chromatic abherration) or a hardware generator. The colors are off, all kinds of things, because the darkening effect, where certain sprites are "broken up" by the CRT...it looks and feels really weird (if you were there) without those "imperfections".

-K

@MrKai Thanks, it's an interesting subject and a subject of particularly high subjectivity. I've seen the sort of stacking effect
of filters that something like Retro-Arch does - but it's still a stacking effect on a modern 'flat' LCD and could only produce an illusion of depth through pixel offsetting - whereas you'd probably agree that the technology of CRT, without choice but a natural consequence of that tech, had actual depth. Like I said, I'm not particularly attached to how I remember it back then - but I can completely understand and appreciate the love some have for those interesting consequences (as you call the so called 'imperfections') of the 'limited' technology.

My dislikes/preferences comes more from the either semi-modern or poor screen technology that developers try to disguise the low resolutions and lack of clarity (of such screens) though very poor filters (if you can even call the terrible blurring on 3DS VC Gameboy games a filter - as a particularly guilty candidate). Nintendo (subjectively) made those games unnecessarily look like s**t, unless you used the postage-stamped size pixel-perfect mode).

A worse crime is a forced filter effect on a modern high quality and high resolution screen such as on the Switch - and is a commonly increasing industry tendency and issue with recent game development.

Fortunately that is not the case for the online service NES offerings or the just release Sega Ages products - although I have seen it elsewhere... in some recent 3D games.

Such modern 3D games seem unnecessarily allergic to showing any pixelation on 3D object surfaces - like it's an inherently bad thing and many game reviewers support the view that visible pixels are bad. But I love such details and would rather see those 'uglies' over the burliness seen in otherwise great game like Snake Pass and Doom. Yes Doom is an amazing technical achievement but it does not need to be such a blurry mess. We know the details have been dramatically lowered - but anti-aliasing the crap out of such details doesn't make us believe the low details have Ceased to exist. Go back to the original Doom on a modern monitor and to me it looks amazing even with the pixelation more visible than it was on a CRT. At least it's the truth - that is how Doom looked at that render level. But modern sensibilities seem embarrassed or offended by the lack of fidelity - and thats where the arse-ugly-over-the-top filtering comes in. I just think it's a shame. Doom 2016 could look so much better on Switch by being honest about the level of rendering the system is capable of.

Here's a controversial opinion: No game has to look or run 'bad' on switch and any game could be successfully ported - as long as we are honest about the level of detail we can expect at the desired frame rates, which depend upon the game type. Hell, even PS4's Spiderman could look stunning and run well on Switch - just at a really honest detail render drop. Yes is a Sony property game but you get the point.

Even Nintendo's own offerings have been guilty of it - I've seen it recently in occasional scenes in Captain Toad and (dare I go there) not entirely occasionally in Mario Odyssey. Whereas something like Mario Kart 8 D and Donkey Kong TF never cheats like that. In fact games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Fast RMX are proof we can more than have our cake and eat it.

We know certain games can't possibly provide amazing resolution and mega detailed textures all the time (particularly in handheld mode and particularly Doom/Wolfenstein for obviously reasons) on our humble Switch. But for me I'd take visible low textures and jagged edges over a dirty-cheating-ass-ugly-double- bagger-anti-aliasing-blurry-mess any day of the week and I bet I'm not alone.

At least give an option in the menu. Snake Pass is the worst example of a recent game that really doesn't need to do that - and does (subjectively) look like s**t in handheld mode due to force filtering. A shame and the dev's won't acknowledge it).

Oops - turned into a major rant

@brunojenso LOL - I understand part of this; Those SAL and EAGLE "blur away the pixels" filters are awful.

HOWEVER...games 30 years ago were not made to "look good" on LCD displays.

-K

@MrKai Sorry btw - I just re-read my comment. Totally went over the top on that rant. Amazing how seriously we take these things sometimes.