Nintendo Switch Online Prepaid Cards "Selling Extremely Well", Says Major Japanese Retailer

Was to be expected. Nintendo doesn’t feel the need to improve it now.

Yup, people just buy it to play one or two games (Splatoon 2 and Smash for me, some Puyo Puyo Tetris). Not because it's a good service.

Do you think if I wait for them to start offering exclusive rewards and I then take out the free trial I can get the rewards?

I couldn't NOT get it. I just can't stop coming back frequently to Rocket League. And I've tried.

I paid for a year, it’s just cheaper that way.

@Matthew010 No. it’s in the print on the FAQ page, trials don’t get those things.

12 months just makes more sense. Family subscription just makes so much more sense

I still haven’t signed up and don’t plan to until Smash. RIP Splatoon until then.

I'm a proud NON-subscriber. Not because it's cheap that mean to get it.

Plus, i'm not an online guy, so yeah, they will need to do better than this if they wanted me to subscribe.

@BladedKnight but you can on 8bitdo -_^

"nationwide chain of video rental stores"

Well I'm glad they're making money with Nintendo subs as the video rental business can't be too hot in 2018!?

@HobbitGamer @BladedKnight I'll get the trial around Christmas, for Smash and then I'll get the year family subscription, if my sister wants to play online, too.

Plot Twist: Nintendo expected to sell 100, they sold 105.
SELLING EXTREMELY WELL!

I'm yet to sign up. That will change when Smash hits however....

@1UP_MARIO The family sub is the only reason I'm getting it at all. At £18 I don't think it's worth it, but I have at least 5 friends /family members willing to chip in to this. Just told them to pay me £5 each.

Even though there's much to be improved, gotta play Splatoon so I couldn't skip it. Hope all this revenue will go towards improving it. As reggie said, they plan on implementing dedicated servers on Mario Kart and Smash so yeah, half full glass I guess.

@Dahn_ same. Pretty much only online game I play

I got the Family option for a year. Covers myself, my son, two nephews and a cousin of mine. Free was better, but I'm over it. My son was playing and enjoying various Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online games over the weekend, and we even had a few fun games online with each other. Looking forward to it improving over time but so far so good as far as I'm concerned.

I feel like a black sheep. I bought it for Mario Tennis Version 2 Because if I missed those Boo Hats Id be so sad Xd

It's a shame Nintendo has taken so long to delve into online gaming but I'm glad they're finally taking the initiative and although it's a bummer we finally have to pay, if we ever want to see an online service that can rival sony's or microsofts it has to start somewhere and it needs support.

Why can’t online with ramdoms be free? If you want voice chat, virtual console and cloud saves you have to pay for it. I think that would keep everyone happy.

@Richnj best way to do it

I picked up the 12 Month subscription. I knew I'd get plenty out of it, and frankly, I just didn't want to think about it. Ironically, I'll probably be cooling down on the Online for now, but that's just because I've played a few hundred hours in both ARMS and Splatoon. I need a break. Smash is the only other online title I'll be digging into, though I'll hop into some other things for fun here and there.

Curious to see how many people grab the service. I think a good chunk of people used their free subscription for the online events. Splatfests, Party Crashes, Tennis Tournaments are done, so we'll probably see it stabilize after Smash. No notable differences in the games I play, but that could all change.

@JamesJose7 When did Reggie say they want to implement dedicated servers for MK8D and Smash? I can't find a statement anywhere..

By the way, dedicated servers aren't the holy grail people make them out to be.

@LittleLion "The amount of servers we need to support Smash Brothers or Mario Kart — these big multiplayer games — is not a small investment"
https://www.google.com.ec/amp/s/wccftech.com/reggie-switch-paid-online-investment/amp/

Dedicated servers, specially for games such as smash, do solve many problems. Since P2P relies on one guy hosting the match the entire experience will be dependent on the quality of his connection. Thus, if he doesn't have a stable connection, which is very common since not everyone has access to a good service, the match will be ruined for both players. Try playing a Smash WiiU online match with a guy with a poor service and the match will be ruined for both players. Dedicated servers remove the responsibility of the players to do the hosting and has regional equipment that not only manage the hosting service exclusively, but also have a very decent bandwidth allocated. Image having a game like Dota 2 or LoL where the hosting relies on one guy. He wouldn't say I'm lagging on the chat while everyone else is playing flawlessly, the rest of the nine players wouldn't be able to play as well, imagine that nightmare.

@subpopz "Dedicated servers would likely be worse, unless you happened to live close to them" you proved your argument wrong as soon as you started it, P2P also has a guy acting as the server, maybe one day you will play with your neighbor, the other day you will play with a guy across many countries. Reliability is key.

If they add 3 new NES games every month, then there will be 56 NES games by the time my year subscription expires. For the NES archive alone, I think the $20 price tag is fair.
I've ranted about this in other threads, but I really feel the missing ingredient here is a more fleshed out phone app. Splatnet is proof that it's capable of so much more than its current state.

Anyone complaining about this, did you have any issues with Xbox live for $55 a year for the last decade? Because as far as I am concerned, Nintendo’s online is a bargain and it’s cheaper then psn. And I haven’t touched my PS4 since March 2, 2017. So I am not happy nintendo is going with the subscription trend, but atleast its cheaper and functional. I have no issues playing any games online with any Nintendo game I’ve tried ever, except for brawl on the Wii. That was bad. But in about 2 minutes, I can be online playing any game on my switch I want. And now I get cloud saves and retro games asbwell. Really a not a bad deal at $35 for our family plan. There are 3 of us today, and 4th who will be playing in a couple more years. My only real complaint is I just don’t believe I should be paying for online with any console in the first place. My pc doesn’t require it and it’s provides a better expierence then consoles if you want to argue that side of it.

@subpopz Realiability as in: if we assume a dedicated server is within the same distance as another player using P2P, distance won't be the only factor, more so the quality of the connection and available bandwidth. I can safely and objectively say that a dedicated server with invested money will have most of the time a better service than that of a random player online.

@Donutman
"Anyone complaining about this, did you have any issues with Xbox live for $55 a year for the last decade?"

Yes

Now Nintendo are earning revenue from online, they can fund improving it Switch is Nintendo starting from scratch. Only way is up yada yada blah blah.

My 12-months will begin on December 7 2018.

Hardly surprising when the most popular game over there requires it to continue playing. Some sloppy application aside, £20 is hardly a deal breaker for the service.

One more thing, given the recent uncertainty over how long Nintendo will keep your cloud saves if your subscription ends, I think they've now said six months. I've actually just got ps+ for the first time since July last year and that also says six months but all my cloud saves were still there 😁

Well I guess it won't be improving.

@BigKing - That's basically every console sub reasoning to buy it.

@subpopz Hey to be clear, dedicted servers are not always necessary, but in some cases they are the superior choice. Not to say P2P is obsolete or useless, if that were the case it would be encouraged not to use it and everyone would complain, sometimes P2P works so well that you only realize that it's peer to peer once you see the message "Changing host" or something similar. I'm just glad we had a healthy discussion with no heated arguments or insulting each other. You had some very good points that I do agree on. It was fun.

@Paraka There are way more online games, freebies and good deals on PS+, so no I don't pay to play 2 games on my PS4.

Don’t play much online but at £1.50 a month on the year subscription just seemed worth it for if I do fancy a game online. Considering the cost of the PS and XBox service just can’t see why there’s so many moans.

@BigKing - Then you're likely fringe, most I know are aware of the "bonuses" the other two console have but ultimately still pay the sub for 2 games; Madden and CoD.

So ultimately your original comment can literally represent console subs as a whole.

I'm not a subscriber yet. Don't know if I will be; at least until Pokémon Let's Go comes out.

Of course it’s doing well, people want to play online and the only way to do it is subscribing.

The main selling point of the service is not online saves, and it’s not the NES games, is the ability to continue playing online. The other things are just extras in top of that.

Some people are saying that now that is selling Nintendo won’t improve it, I say that it’s exactly the other way around.

The peer-to-peer versus dedicated servers argument is already old. In some situations PtP is better, in others, dedicated servers are better. There is no all-round solution.
A dedicated server is better for big games with a huge number of players at the same time, something like World of Warcraft. For other games, a dedicated server will only be good if you are actually physically located near it.
I don’t know if most people are aware, but actually most PS4 and Xbox games are running also on PtP, so why does it become a problem when Nintendo do it? I just don’t get it.
Nintendo’s online was bad before, there’s no denying that, but with the Switch I’ve had literally no issues with any game whatsoever, so all the complaining is undeserved and based in the performance of past consoles alone.

Could it be better? Definitely, and I’m sure that now that they are getting money from it, part of that profit will be used to improve it over time.

Not surprised it's doing well. People supported XLG and PS+ when they did it and those options are much more money. It's one thing to not like the NES games or whatever, but the complaints I find most ridiculous is the "how can Nintendo charge us for online?!?!?!!" when the competition has been getting away with it for years.

I find most of the conversation surrounding Nintendo's online to be wildly extraneous. DUH a longer subscription is cheaper. It's cheap. If you don't want it, don't subscribe.

@KryptoniteKrunch I haven't been paying Sony or Microsoft one cent for their online, even though they arguably offer at least something of value in return. Nothing you get to keep, though, so it's all worthless in the end. Nintendo now doing the same thing except having objectively worse online functionality compared to Sony or Microsoft, and even compared to Nintendo themselves twelve years ago doesn't really inspire much good will towards the men in suits devising these devious schemes.

@Yasume Or it selling well will encourage them to add more. You support a service that makes you money.

@NintendoFan4Lyf And if you get it at all then it’s just Nintendo that’s ripping you off.

On the other hand, online population of other games have significantly been affected

@Paraka I always see people in my PS4 friend list playing those monthly games(like Destiny 2 last month). Besides those games there are huge multiplayer games like GTA, FIFA, Battlefield, Overwatch, Destiny 2, Monster Hunter Worlds, Street Fighter 5, Far Cry 5 and so on. And the social aspect is way better.

@KryptoniteKrunch oh i dunno... Maybe it could be because the competition actually provides dedicated servers and Nintendo expects you to connect peer to peer...

Games of Doom on the Switch, because the servers are dedicated, are 1000× smoother than any game i have even attempted to play on Splatoon (so happy i managed to return that game, i genuinely see no appeal in the laggy mess that game is online).

Charging for peer to peer is really high level greed.

@JamesJose7 Thanks for the link! I wonder though if he's only talking about dedicated hosting servers or any kind of servers (for example matchmaking servers)... It does sound like he's talking about hosting servers though since those are what you need the most of for smaller regions.

There are a few issues with what you said after.. Did you know that with 1v1 matches dedicated servers can add lag compared to p2p?
If they do it right 1v1 matches in Smash will be p2p to minimise lag between the connection.

If you're playing against a person with a bad internet connection no dedicated server is going to save your match. Simply because they have to connect to the server with their bad connection as well. In a 1v1 match it can only get worse.

More important to having those precious dedicated servers everyone is so hyped about is making sure the games have better netcode to minimise lag and handle the connection to either a peer or server properly.
That together with stricter matchmaking could improve the system a lot already.

Anyway, keep in mind that there's more areas one can improve a network than just slapping dedicated servers onto every game... People should learn that it's not the holy grail it's made out to be...

Thanks again for the link though!

I've used my trial and i've come to find i don't really have many games(Mostly JRPGs/Platformers) with Online right now, so it's completely useless. Now when Smash/Diablo 3 come out, that will be a different story.