It’s Official: The Switch Online Service Has Surpassed 10 Million Subscribers

wow will you look at that!

I doubt they’ll do much if we keep paying for it when it’s crap.

10 million users willingly paying for what was previously (mostly) free.

And people wonder why Nintendo are so complacent with their online "service".

I will subscribe when we will start getting monthly games (even indie titles) and the internet connection will be more steady

Even if it means paying more, I have no need for it currently

I predict a lot of complaints about the service in this comments section... Oh wait... It has already begun.

They'll have to do something pretty special to make me sign back up when my subscription ends.

Tetris - Who cares
NES games - played them already
Cloud backup - A large number of titles aren’t supported

They’ll probably just add another two NES games.

I can't understand why such relatively straightforward quality of life improvements like an easier friend matchmaking system and voice chat aren't top priority to match Xbox live and psn, and don't even get me started on the joke that it the nes library. Nintendo could double that subscription if it took it's head out the sand

Achievement unlocked !!

Add some more good exclusives like TETRIS 99 and you'll probably get more users. TETRIS 99 is one of the best reasons to take out a subscription right now.

We are still in online's infancy. They will most definitely have a road map for the next few years and you don't need a crystal ball to see their strategy will involve SNES titles and more bespoke multiplayer games like Tetris 99.

I'm eager to see how Nintendo continues to improve upon the service. As it stands, it's decent enough and Tetris 99 is proving to be successful. Maybe roll out more "battle royal" style games such as Excitebike 99, Super Mario 99, etc? I wouldn't mind seeing more sales either.

Impressive, personally, I have seen zero incentive to bother with it, as I'm currently rather single-player focused and the value besides multiplayer ... is just not there for me. I actually that new coupon system, that saves you a couple of bucks per game, might be the most appealing aspect to me right now, with all these upcoming games like FE, Zelda, Astral Chain, Daemon X Machina and so on and so forth. That is quite telling, ain't it?

sigh I play Smash, Splatoon, Mario Kart, Mario Maker 2 and lots of other games online. I got no choice. Dirt cheap, but it's what it's worth.

I thought this was an overpriced service that nobody would subscribe to,guess it was just the very vocal forum posting internet/YouTube minorities that do not like the service,ah well with so few of them I guess Nintendo are not losing all that many sales.

Joking apart I do expect them to add more consoles at some point,but I think they have the price just right imho.

They will announce something significant in the next 2 months as subscriber renewals will start.

My guess would be snes games or a big freebie, who knows maybe a nintendo themed battle royale game?

so far I've paid 20 bucks for the service. I have amazon prime - so I got an additional year for free. I also just bought the game voucher - cuz I'm gonna buy Fire Emblem and Link's Awakening.
So my Nintendo Online service has paid for itself for two full years.

You guys can complain about it if you want, but I have absolutely no reason to complain. Free is good, right?

Guess the crappy NES only content is working...too bad

Haven't bought it, no intention of doing so. I'm not paying to use my internet connection for a second time.

They’d make it more appealing by threatening discipline or outright firing if their own devs fail to support the cloud backup service, it’s unbelievable that they didn’t outright mandate support from their own teams.

so many of us took a bullet

@Tantani I will subscribe when we will start getting monthly games (even indie titles) and the internet connection will be more steady

"Internet connection will be more steady"
Bruh. Its YOUR connection.
Thats not how the internet works. No service can magically make your connection better.

They'd have a lot more if they offered a better package. More retro games beyond NES, direct messaging and an invite system similar to Playstation and Xbox. 20 bucks a year is chump change if you can afford to be playing video games at all. So I don't mind paying that to be able to play online whenever I want to.

We are not entitled to that service for free. But Nintendo would be making a lot more money off it, if they put more effort into it.

Ten million suckers, now that's an impressive number.

@Varelius it is more of the switch hardware internet capability and lack of using cable internet
My phone see almost 100 mb speed while the switch get much less usually

You will see that both Sony and Microsoft hardware get a better connection even on WiFi (unless you try to download something on the PS4.... than you are pretty much doomed lol)

The service is $20 a year.....not much to say besides you get what you pay for. Don't pay much, you don't get much.
I half think this was Nintendos intention. They don't have to put as much effort into something they're only charging a little for.

and we still get boring NES games....anyways, does anyone know what games we are getting this month?

@Cotillion I think that is the intention. Also they don't want to follow what Xbox and PlayStation is doing which is a painful expensive (even if good) service that is hard to monitor and maintain. There's a reason why they didn't put Miiverse on the Switch knowing how well it would sell. Nintendo has always done just enough for the market (young children) and the people buying for them to react accordingly.

@Heavyarms55 Sure. But I don't think that is what they want.
There's a reason why they didn't put Miiverse on the Switch knowing how well it would sell. I think their intention is to create a simple service that is easy to monitor and maintain for the sake of younger children and older folks.

I bought Switch Online membership from the start and I'm happy with the service. I've played over 30 hours of Tetris 99, and often play Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Kart 8 online. And on the whole I've enjoyed the NES games. While there are some titles I've no interest in playing, there are enough that I've wanted to play to make it feel worthwhile. Especially when you consider you use to have to buy them for £3-4 a time. Is it perfect? No. But for the price, I'll take it.

In comparison, I bought a PS4 last year during Black Friday sales to play Red Dead 2 and Spider-Man and got a PS Plys subscription on sale too and to be honest, I'm not planning on renewing that when it ends. Overall I'm not playing any online games on my PS4 and the free games each month have been pretty uninspiring, with a few recent ones (Overcooked and Sonic Mania) that I already have and played on the Switch.

The result of releasing a game which you need online to play the majority of the game (mm2) in a bundle with the service for an extra $10. Not the result of happy users who can message people from the service, yet alone voice chat.

I hope we soon get SNES games.

@Tantani lol they do give monthly games

@Slim1999 I mean games to add to your library.... not 20 years old NES games

This means nothing, the only reason I have a sub now is because I found a cheap copy of Mario Maker 2 with the code for online. They've practically had to give it away through Amazon and twitch too in order to make the numbers look respectable. To harp on about it being a success is pretty lame.

a account is a person using it for one week, month.

How many active 1 year plans do they have?

Payed 4,7€ for a whole year. That’s not even a bloody dinner for cloud backups and NES games I don’t care about, so the main appeal is unlimited Mario Maker 2 levels, which, for that price, I have no issues to pay.

Yes, payed online sucks, but so does Maker 2 with story mode and your creations ONLY.

Only got it for the cloud saves, and that's it. If I could make save backups like I can with my PS3 and PS4, I'd drop this sucker.

Gonna be honest, the only reason I got this was for Splatoon 2. I got the Mario Maker 2 bundle with a sub for 10 bucks more so I'm hooked up for another 12 months but they better do something to make it more enticing during those 12 months or I won't be extending it again. Splatoon's Splatfests will long be over by then so I won't have too much of a reason to extend my subscription; I was already doubting it this time but just got it for that cheaper price.

I won't be renewing my subscription it was a waste of money for me. I don't play online,not played Splatoon for ages and I don't care about NES games. even if it is cheap doesn't change the fact it's still barebones almost a year on. Until they give me a good reason, I won't be renewing mine

1/4th of the initial install base, huh.

Good grief please give us SNES games at least. Or start selling virtual console titles.

can we get a different dlc code bonus besides the splatoon 2 jersey for a 12 month subscription? feels like that should have already been a freebie.

Wonder what online user base the other 2 console makers have?

10 million is an impressive number though given how controversial the service's value actually is.

*Edit, I wrote the above paragraph whilst walking towards my car, looks like my phones auto correct changed what I wrote! Why I actually meant to say was:

'10 million is an impressive number though given how shitty the service actually is'

They are raking in quite alot of money for not alot of effort really... It's a good money maker for them.
I think going forward they will do minimal changes to the service, perhaps a few SNES games and another game in the mould of Tetris will be added in the next 2/3 years...

Loving all the free games and discounts every month over here on XB live 👌

The comments I love the most go something like this: I don’t play games online so why are they expecting/forcing me to pay for this service?!! Outrage.

Newsflash: they’re not!!

Anyway I understand most of the complaints I however have zero problem with NSO as it is. Tetris 99 is awesome. NES games are nice to have access to. SNES games would be great and would make it a massive bargain in my eyes. But as it stands it works - Splatoon2, MK8Dx, MM2, Rocket League online all work great for me. I’ve just spent £151 on my weekly family food shop so this is peanuts in comparison.

Paid for a year day one and got another free year via Prime. I use it mostly for the NES games and if this is the only way I can play these legally on my Switch I'll do so.
Occasionally go online for a game here and there, but I'm a mostly solitary/retro player.
I'd love to see SNES games and a modern indie or 3rd party game a month as well as better discounts to improve the service.

Until they offer SNES games it is done for me. There is maybe 5 games I play sometimes. Once my subscription is up I am not renewing unless they up the quality of offerings.

@King-X and voice chat in games without using an app or discord.

Paid?... Because if they counting people like me who got it for free with Amazon Prime. Numbers will be a bit inflated.

My subsciption has long since expired but all of my game saves were backed up when it was active. If my Switch would break now and I don’t have an active subscription, can I restore everything then (if I renew it)? I mean, Nintendo doesn’t delete every backed up game save as soon as my subscription ends?

10 Million subscribers is a good number, and many of them probably have a family subscription, like I do, so the number of users must be higher. And for the people complaining about "connecting issues": Change your router. I live in Bolivia, and I could always play online without having any issues, and I had my router changed in April, I believe, and now it works even better.

@johnvboy you’ll find that the people who complain and rage on the internet about such things are generally the minority. a perfect example is look how many people in the comments section that refuse to subscribe, yet we just passed 10mil subs.

@YagaMaki looks like ~63mil for xbox and ~94m for psn according to statista

@Edu23XWiiU Changing routers unfortunately doesn't change the Switch's faulty connection logic in powerline or mesh networks, and neither does it change the really, truly, exceptionally horrible WiFi antenna. My phone can still see my home network half a street away, the Switch already completely loses all connection if I move to a different room.

@tekknik,

I have always said it's the vocal minority,people always shout the loudest when they are not happy with things,wheras when people are satisfied with something they just get on with it.

Want to know how to make it more better and extra more popular, is to MAKE IT MORE CHEAPER! We already paid 61$ for mostly every nintendo game, so stop making us to pay more for stupid online, NINTENDO!
Soon i'll have to pay for online again for whole year in October, which l will hate doing again. Also l already know nintendo is very very rich, so l say nintendo is just being greedy. Idc that l pay for family subscription online one for whole year, its still pretty dumb and why because nintendo always have made their online free.

@Snakesglowcaps
You know what the problem is?
You speak like it is universally true that the service is crap, the fact of the matter is that there are still tons of people like me who do not think that at all.

I vastly prefer Nintendos online service over Sonys and Microsofts simply because it gives me everything I want and is FAR cheaper.

To me, just to play online on the other consoles, I'd have to pay a ridiculous amount of money. The other features they give me are things I barely care about and for that price they can keep all that garbage. I just want to be able to play online for as cheap as possible, preferably free of charge like on Wii U.

People need to stop acting like they speak for everyone.

@Bliquid
xD you made me laugh by saying that. Good one good one!

@nintendoknife this definitely sounds like a router issue or something other than the switch. if you can’t move rooms without disconnecting that is definitely not normal. i have two switches here and neither of them have experienced connection issues in the 2 years we’ve owned them. then again i’m not using mesh or power line networks (and didn’t realize people took the joke of powerline networks seriously). also your phone is a poor judge of signal as phones will aggressively hold onto a WAP even though the signal cannot support traffic or is basically nonexistent.

I'll probably catch a lot of hate for this but i have 2 years stacked on my switch. I love re playing some of the older games i use to play as a kid and some i never got around to on the NES Like the Zelda games. I dont even use cloud storage. I just laugh at the toxic whining as i play my games and if you cant afford the 19.99 for the one year sub you just need to quit gaming then

@Mr_Persona
See my comment aimed at u and other people lol

@Snakesglowcaps
hmm idk maybe it won't change or it will be better, like maybe nintendo will give us more free games that are more worth it because we paid online.

@KnightWolf
idc say all you want till one day people will just yell back at you, but it won't be me.

I finally subscribed, i got a years subscription with Super MARIO Maker 2. It’s nice being able to play salmon run again

I haven't used my subscription for anything up until now. Yes, I've played few old NES games. But downloading Mario Maker 2 user levels is totally awesome! This game is the ultimate 2D Mario experience! And the Online service keeps it feeling fresh and awesome.

That said, I hope these subscriber numbers tell Nintendo that they need to keep investing in their service. I would like them to be a bit quicker on their feet when it concerns implementing user requested features. But I know that Nintendo doesn't work that way.

Have the family plan. Is it a bummer having to pay for what was free at the start, sure. I play a few games online so guess I have to be paying for it now. IMO the other stuff is perks. Cloud saving is a whoopty-doo(this from someone who has lost save files), NES games are nice(the dozen I enjoy playing) & Tetris 99. Do agree with comments on making it better. Better chat options are the biggie. Also to allow games from NES-64 to be the freebees and getting them out to us quicker than 3 a month. GCN-Wii U could be separate(Eshop?) & discounted for subscribers.

I love the short memory of gamers.

2005: Microsoft charge £40/year for the ability to play online. You get nothing else back.

2006: Sony charge nothing to play Online in an attempt to put value on the PS3 over Microsoft.

2010: Sony start charging £40/year for a few free games per month, beta trials a few discounts. Not bad actually.

2013: Microsoft introduce a few freebies with Xbox Live gold subs. Still £40.

2013: Song start charging to play online with the launch of the PS4. The cost stays the same at £40.

2017: Nintendo make it clear that free online multiplayer is a limited deal.

2017: Sony up the cost of PS+ to £50/year

2018: Nintendo launch a sub for £18/year. They throw in a growing library of retro games that have been remastered with online gameplay.

2019: Microsoft up the cost of Xbox Live Gold to £50

Seems to me Nintendo offer the best value in terms of monetary outlay

Nice numbers, amazing what you can achieve if you give away subscriptions for free with every other service and hold everyone's saved games hostage unless they pay. I'll wait until they actually make the service appealing to any degree.

Cya
Raziel-chan

The Mario Maker 2 NSO bundle has sold very well so expect those subscription numbers to rise significantly.

Is this same quality as the playstation 3 offered at beginning? It's not xbox live quality i'm sure...

To be honest, I really do not like the idea of paying just to play multiplayer in games I already paid for. Sorry, as a Nintendo fan who's also a PC gamer I hold this opinion strongly.

The NES service is a feature I like, a Netflix-like experience for classic games, but I want more than just NES games.

I just signed up the other day, I’d like to think I was the 10 millionth. I’ll just go
With that

@2ndFlush but you didn't get even a free NES game lol

“How would you like to see Nintendo improve the value of its online service moving forward?“

My answer: Anything other than more NES games.

Nintendo’s answer: ALL the NES games!

im not sold on the Switch Online because of everyone saying how bad it is and the lack of games that appeal to me that i can play NES games don't interest me put N64, GameCube and Wii games on they i will sub

Yawn Let me know when we can have our own local save file backups.

Fair play, I’m surprised it has so many subscribers considering the content. If it had GameCube or wii games that would make it’s a permanent subscription. I hope it’s gets to the point where the whole back catalogue pre switch is on it! Lol ....yeah I know that’s never going to be a thing

I bought it because I want to play online games with friends and family. It's a tax, but not so high that I really care. None of the side features have caught my attention.

Not sure I get my money's worth it of Switch online but that may change with Smash Bros and Mario Tennis Aces. Tetris 99 is fun but it's still Tetris after all and gets boring because I've played so many Tetris game over the years.

Nintendo can be so slow at rolling out Nintendo online perks.

I'm ready for SNES

Cool. Now how about some SNES games, Nintendo? We're only, you know, in the 3rd year of this console....

snes VC, what else?

Crap service. Not worth it compared to Xbox live, or PSN.

Respectable numbers. That’s 25% sub rate.

I think most people who subscribe do so simply because they’d rather pay $20/yr and have automated cloud saves and online access, than save $20/yr and not have automated cloud saves and online access.

BUT.

If they increased the value of the service (messaging, SNES, etc), I imagine that subscription rate would jump closer to 50%

@Snakesglowcaps
Calling it Crap is being generous.

@Kirgo slow down there my friend. I never spoke for you, in fact you made a comment and spoke for yourself. And I find it a bit hypocritical that you can’t acknowledge that a lot of people pay for this blindly because of the switches current popularity. Nintendo doesn’t have much incentive to do more because it’s selling and personally that makes me feel like others are speaking for me. At the very least they could introduce tier’d subs so that people like you could be happy, and people like me who want GameCube games and messaging capabilities could be happy. The point is they can do more, but they probably won’t because everyone keeps paying rather than raising expectations. But don’t you worry, I can appreciate your point as well as mine, just because my comment has likes doesn’t automatically make me a jerk.

Switch Online doesn’t have features that automatically guarantee that our daughters are going to get verbally assaulted, sexually harrassed and threatened while everyone has to suffer through constant racial slurs and homophobic taunts. The grass isn’t greener on the other side....

@graysoncharles
Because if you can afford 1 game then you can afford 1 year of Nintendo online

Most are free promotional subscriptions that were given out earlier this year.

In fact before all those promotions dropped Nintendo made a statement saying "less people than we thought have subscribed"...

Most of these accounts didn't pay for their subscriptions, especially if you include the family pack subscriptions, me and 5 of my friends share one subscription, thats 6 divided by 35, which really does not give Nintendo much profit at all.

@robr wow there snowflake, fairly certain there will be plenty of mediums for your daughter to get harassed via the internet unless you plan to lock her away. Nintendo online should genuinely be the least of your worries.

Would it not be more prudent to teach your daughter to be more tough skinned? Rather than trying to shield her...

The fall is so much bigger when its unexpected.

@tekknik It's a Switch hardware issue, whether you've experienced it yourself or not (perhaps because you live in a small house and/or the router is placed in a central location and/or your house is made of wood, etc.) doesn't mean the problem isn't there. Look up "switch wifi problems" and you'll find thousands upon thousands of unique results, all of them pointing to the WiFi antenna/chip as the culprit.

The phone example was just to indicate the difference, not to say that I can still use that connection but to show that the phone still sees the wireless signal, whereas the Switch's WiFi antenna is so horribly awful that getting full bars is literally only possible if you place it right next to the router. Also, as you mention aggressively holding onto an AP, that's funnily enough the Switch's only real problem (in mesh/powerline networks where all APs have the same name) other than the bad antenna. It holds onto an AP with a really weak signal three rooms away even when a much stronger signal from an AP in the room the Switch is actually in is available, even when you tell the Switch to reconnect and even when you turn it off and on again. The Switch even sees the new signal, it just refuses to actually use it. It takes 10-15 minutes for it to finally let go of the bad signal and connect to the good one.

@frogopus oh you sound like a absolute joy of a parent...

Id hate to be your child, the world is going to be an even meaner place going forward for any kid raised with those ideologies.

Well have fun...

Better servers, less lag is what it needs, would of helped too if the dock had ethernet port instead of expecting end-user to buy an adapter if they want anything other then wi-fi when in docked

How many more times in my life am I gonna pay for Tetris, crikey it catches me everytime and then I went and bought the DLC...oh boy...

@Razer Do you honestly believe that exposing young girls to sexual harassment is a good thing?

only because it’s the only way to backup game saves. i refuse, if i lose my saves i will replay Zelda and everything else and Nintendo will just miss out on the new games I would have purchased

Article says, "Nintendo will continue to make it more appealing" but literally nothing is mentioned aside from existing features. Wtf NL?

Paying $10 for the year in the Super Mario Maker 2 bundle is what pushed me to do it.

@frogopus
The biggest issue is that we need options. They already have "robust" parental controls, I don't see why a parent can't spend the extra time to make sure their child is playing games safely. So that, yanno, us manchildren that don't have our feelings hurt can enjoy a game with our friends without it being ruined for us.

I take the time to make sure the kids in my family are safe in both online browsing video games, if other caregivers can't that is their problem.

Comparing this to the Xbox and PS subs, this is still a very low attach rate. Around 28%.

For a service that was sold on being so cheap you have no reason not to, it seems like a lot of people found a reason not to.

Works for me. A quick 20 and I have access to online. The vouchers already paid for it though.

I cant wait to resubscribe, if only to read more outrage over this...humanity’s biggest abomination.

I wonder how many in this thread, after ordering a meal or pizza for $20 and are unsatisfied, whinge and moan and fly off the handle every single time they hear about the offending restaurant, because that’s what happens in this site every time the online service is written about or reported on (get ready for more when the nes titles for this month are announced).

In the last year, nothing new (apart from getting a free game) has changed with the online service. But the same people here go off on the same tired regurgitations and points theyve cut and pasted a million times as if the service was announced for the very first time and their genius insights of “they should add snes,gamecube, n64 games” is a revelation worthy of a nobel prize. You mean all Nintendo needs to do is give you a ton of more free games, for no extra cost, and youll be satisfied? Gee, you dont say.

People are and should be able to voice their legit gripes. And they have. Over and over. And over. All while acting as if their refusal to purchase is akin to rallying the oppressed and poor of the world, or a trailblazing act of political protest.

We play games where a chubby italian plumber jumps on mushrooms with faces. Juuuuuuuust a reminder.

I got the online sub for the online play and cloud saves. Now that Super Mario Maker 2 is out, I'm getting more good use out of it thanks to me being able to play everyone's levels. Tetris 99 is pretty good and I even got the game vouchers, so I pretty much got more bang for my buck by having access to the online and a pair of $60 games. If I were to have longer access to NSO, though, I'll probably use my gold coins for another 1-year sub, that way I save another $20. I have enough gold coins for it and they're going to expire.

With all that said, here's what I would do with the service:

1) Have better servers for games
2) Expand the retro game library (I love the idea of NES Online, but only having NES games is boring... SNES, N64, and GameCube games would be rad. Have "Switch Online Gold" with those three platforms if they want to)
3) Don't pick and choose which games don't get to have cloud saves
4) Add friend messaging
5) Let players use headsets for voice chat
6) Make more games that let players join friends (Nintendo's been weird with that...)

If they do all that, the NSO numbers might increase quite a bit.

How many are part of the "family subscription"? It will be interesting to see the drop-off rate too. Interesting Nintendo publish this figure just before the 1 year anniversary of the service, so those with annual subscriptions will soon have a dilemma. Personally, I haven't bothered, because it's a rip-off and some of the "services" Nintendo offers, should be free. Notably backups, which should be allowed manually. The NES offerings are a joke, and clearly the retro market has moved onto direct releases from publishers, like the recent Castlevania collection, and to mini systems. While $30 for a year (in Australia) doesn't sound like much, I find it an insult considered a don't play much online, and basic things like keeping top scores (hello, Virtua Racing) or even accessing Mario Maker levels, these should be free. For actual online play, there should be a budget service of $10 that gives 100 hours a year something. It could even be "pay to play" - $1 for 10 hours, or even a 1 free hour for $10 of game purchases. As for Tetris 99, the option should be to buy it, rather than restrict it to a subscription service. Nintendo will probably get my money eventually. Unlike Sony, whose price is even more of an outrage!

Dedicated servers already! I know the service isn't expensive, but paying to play p2p online is sorta weeeird.

How would I like to see Nintendo improve the value of its online service moving forward? REVIVE THE MIIVERSE!!!

@Tyranexx Let me know when we can have cloud saves for Splatoon 2. We don’t want this “oh because of cheaters” CRAP.

We need the ability to interact with the community in some form or another. Messaging system, and through groups like Ps4, or Miiverse like U and 3ds. The latter being more appealing. ACTUAL party chat built in, not trash phone app. The phone app should be used only for creative purposes like Smash World, or SplatNet. Those are good uses of the app. However, voice chat should be native to games, and not force an app on us.

Coming from someone who uses Discord a lot, you still need voice chat built in, if you want an easier time making new friends online.

Not that impressive considering the console has an install base of 35 million. The service hasn't improved one bit since it launched..

@Razer Well clearly we know that you enjoy harassing people with that kinda attitude. Betcha you were the one who beat up the weak kids in school to help "toughen them" up too.

@Mallow <-- Complains about whiners; yet whines like a b*tch. Funny.

Between access to online multiplayer in games like Splatoon and Mario Maker 2, free offerings like Tetris 99, NES games, vouchers, and being able to split the cost with other people so that I only end up paying $8 or so for a year of the service, it's worthwhile to me.

Continue? When did they start trying to make it more appealing?

@Shinnos With you on this entirely and in fact dumped PS Plus a while ago. Switch online is decent enough for the cost.

@Varelius
The Switch wifi chip is horrible. I get a stable connection on all devices except Switch.

@DreamerAbe86 He used quite a lot of reason in there, to be fair. And he's right.

@Mallow Well said.

@Tantani
*30 years old

@Beatley82 You agree with him because you're both fanboys who get triggered at any criticism leveled at Nintendo.

@BrettAwesome Your spot on and that's been widely reported by numerous people.

Nintendo Online is whatever, but the big thing that gets me is them locking the Retro Nintendo games behind this service. Virtual Console is literally the only thing that holds the Switch back from perfection imo. I can’t believe they thought not having it was a good idea. I look at the Switch as a “one stop shop” for all things Nintendo. The virtual console could’ve have been extraordinary with NES, Game Boy, SNES, Game Boy Color, N64, Game Boy Advance, Gamecube and some cool 3rd party stuff like Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, Turbo-Graphx 16 amd more! Plus this drip feeding of games is really bad. Only 3 games a month?!? The NES is home to over 1000 games. Virtual Console needs to happen.

@DreamerAbe86 sigh If you say so, kid.

@Beatley82 Love you, boo.

I have lost interest in Nintendo the last year. Mostly boring re-releases, worthless my.nintendo and this pay for online crap. Not impressed.

@Mallow I have no quibbles, but I can’t help but feel that this site sees a lapse in the clicks and thinks about what works - online always rattles them, let’s post an online article, Pokemon? Gold. Smash? Yay. Digital Foundry analysis of a port? Sweet sweet clicks.

"Nintendo will continue to make it more appealing"

They better... Lol

@GrailUK Infancy? Switch has been out for over 2 years now and frankly they've taken a step backwards from the WiiU which had some of the most creative online service of all.

I'd love to see SNES and N64 games available in the online service as well as games from other concoles

@Gzeus88 lol you must have selective memory. Online service wasn't day one. Anyhoo I did like the wii u online. Miiverse was kooky

I heard that once you've been with them for more than a year you get a bonus untranslated Famicom disc system game. There are only so many times they can say 'Tetris '..............hopefully

@BrettAwesome @Tantani Again, thats not how the internet works.
A game doesn't use even 1% of that bandwidth, usually. Your internet speed is irrelevant.

Things like packet loss -LAN and Outside your local network(internet) , bufferbloat, health of your cable or radio hardware, how strict your firewall is (is it filtering and/or blocking packets, is the proper ports open and ready for communication, is NAT on in the router, are you double or even triple NATing behind multiple NATs trying to route the data on your LAN) etc...things like that are what actually matter most when it comes to online gaming.

The ONLY TIME your internet speed matters in this situation is if you don't have the bandwidth the game needs which is usually no more than 200KBps up and down. 1Mbit = 125KBps.

Edit: concerning the wifi chip in the switch, thats meant more for local wireless gaming. You know, like Nintendo DS local.
Wasn't meant to go through walls an the like.

Its astounding to me how much hate Nintendo is getting for this

@Razer

So in general, you usually turn up to discussions to complain about something or voice your opinion as fact, but irrespective of that, now you have stooped to an all time low and had a dig at/questioned someone's parenting skills and their methods, as well as stating quite possibly the most moronic thing by alluding that any online harassment from Nintendos service may toughen a child up, and that worse things in life await her.

You clearly are not a parent yourself, as if you were, I would like to think you would realise how stupid you actually made yourself sound, and what a ridiculous thing that would be to say to either a parent or child.

@Mallow It would be more like paying 20 dollars for someone to use ingredients from your own fridge to make the pizza, and the end result not even tasting very good, with undercooked dough and very little toppings.

I'll pay anyway to be able to play online titles and SMM2, but Nintendo should respect us more and add full virtual console. I even agree if they do add 2-3 games per each generation monthly. Wtf N why only NES???

@Varelius "concerning the wifi chip in the switch, thats meant more for local wireless gaming. You know, like Nintendo DS local.
Wasn't meant to go through walls an the like."

What? Of course it's used for ad-hoc local wireless, but like any WiFi-enabled device, the main point is to connect to an access point. You are correct about bandwidth, though.

@NinChocolate Or rather games like Mario Maker 2 did since you still need the Online service if you even want to download custom courses from others(which honestly... even with online multiplayer, downloading and sharing course still remains the biggest appeal of Mario Maker).

Splatoon 2 has also been a huge one for Nintendo players in general ever since the game got released, no matter how many people mention they are only "primarily single player gamers and thus the online games don't matter by themselves" because ultimately... those game still matters since they're the ones that still ended selling a lot. Even Zelda has yet to catch up to Mario Kart for example.

And in fact, the game just got an article here mentioning: how re: Mario Maker 2 is still at the top spot in sales for it's second week.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, even more than two years after release is still in the top 10.

Ultimately, the people who buy online subscriptions don't do it for the "bonus", they do it... to play online.

Honestly I tried Playstation Plus for a few months and sure I got "free" games but.... honestly, if you subscripe in a bad period the fact is A: you don't know what games will be available and, for me, B: what games I did get during the period I suscribed were a lot of duds for me.

So when I got done beating Monster Hunter World, the one game I'd gotten the service for, ultimately I realized I was paying money into... well, nothing. The one game I'd actually found a reason to get the service for was one I'd stopped playing since I'd beaten it, and the "free full games" I was getting was turning, for me, into more of a waiting "game" in the hopes of just finally getting "something" that'd catch my interest at all.

So I cancelled my sub then.

Honestly, considering it's much cheaper than the competition, I'm okay with Nintendo's online service being paid. At least it doesn't pretend to give me the illusion that it does more than what it claims to be: get access to the online portions of game.

And sure "we used to pay nothing and now we pay stuff" but honestly... even with the realitty that "improving online services" isn't exactly what these funds are used for doesn't mean it's not useful for the company who do.
What do you think Nintendo was supposed to do seeing a place like Microsoft just buying out studio straight out the way they do?
Sure "they can do it because they're Microsoft" but honestly Microsoft is still a corporation, expenses have to be justified.

And I wouldn't be surprised if some of the things that justified those expenses, just flat out buying new development studios, is the money Microsoft still rake in from Xbox Live subscription even after a console generation as horrible as what Xbox One was for Microsoft.

If people want to get mad about paid online on console, they should just get mad at Microsoft for opening that can of worm and Sony for following suit in their footsteps. The day that happened was the days "free online" for Nintendo would be numbered. If anything it's a surprise it didn't happen sooner and they still tried to make it more affordable than what the competition demand(especially when you consider Microsoft's even upped their suscription prices even higher this year).

@RadioHedgeFund Honestly, thank you for this post!

I didn't even know Microsoft upped their subscription prices until you mentionned it today. Gosh, as if they weren't costly enough already in my eyes.

I mean Nintendo doesn't offer a "lot" but at least it doesn't pretend it's doing more than it's supposed to which, honestly, is the only reason I wanted online. To access online portions of games.

And I'm honestly surprised they made it so cheap compared to the competition.

I mean honestly considering Microsoft's recent move of just flat-out buying devs studio as E3 revealed, the writing was on the wall that any console devs wishing to compete monetary funds wise would still need some kind of paid subscription down the line.

Sure Microsoft could "afford" to because they're Microsoft, but as a corporation they still need to justify expenses to their higher ups... and with a generation as horrible as what Xbox One was to them, something tells me their Xbox Live sudscriptions numbers even throughout this bad generation(for them) must have helped them a lot when it came to justifying the expense of flat-out buying new studios.

@nintendoknife i’ve had my switch in a variety of scenarios and still haven’t experienced. you keep throwing around the powerline and mesh wifi words, why don’t you realize you have a nonstandard network setup and get something more traditional? did you also know the switch can support usb network adapters? no wifi needed. also i looked up the wifi issues and the only articles are from 2 years ago. switch bands, remove powerline, get a non-crap router, quit using mesh networks. i bet your problems go away

So, 10 milion idiots.

Yes, I know I'll cause offence with that, but I honestly cannot understand why people would pay for this.

I personally don't mind paying 20 bucks for what is offered. Sure, I will hardly ever play most of the niche NES games, but the classics and Tetris 99 will get plenty of use out of me to justify my purchase. I knew Nintendo's online service wouldn't be free forever regardless.

@RainbowGazelle Rather than make the service worthwhile and interesting, Nintendo's been quietly relying on the strength of their multiplayer game to weaken resolves until they're desperate enough to settle.

Splatoon and Kart were already there and pretty old now, so getting them back wasn't a big impact, but then came Smash and Maker, with freaking Pokemon up next. People gonna crack.

@nintendoknife The 'chip' is only gonna be as powerful as the make the radio in it.

The radio isn't set to broadcast strongly. Thats why it generally sucks an thats what I meant by it being better in close range.
...also no duh on it connecting to an "access point". All hardware communicating is an "access point".
Edit: well rather "can be" aside from the literal definition. Hardware is hardware and software decides if it is that or isn't.

@nintendoknife Mine was working well from day 1, and modern routers make the Switch work even better. Try it.

I bet close to half of the subscribers are on the free twitch prime, that's the only reason I have the service. Once my free time is up unless they add a lot more to the service I will not be renewing.

@tekknik Where do you live? (Edit: apparently this info is in people's profiles - you live in the US where most houses are made almost entirely of wood, of course you haven't heard of mesh networks being in regular homes.) In mainland Europe, these kinds of networks are extremely common (and absolutely not 'nonstandard') because houses are made of thick stones and reinforced concrete, and neither steel nor rock are particularly well-known for the way radio waves effortlessly pass through them.

I play in portable mode, so ethernet adapters (that I'd have to buy separately) are out of the question. I don't know why you even recommended it in the first place, because it seems you completely misunderstood my whole point: the WiFi acts up when you go sit in another room. If you never move the Switch, there will never be any problem.

Regardless, even if my network were nonstandard, which it isn't, there is no excuse as to why a brand new €300 piece of hardware is unable to properly use these networks, when a €15 Chinese knockoff phone from ten years ago has no problems with it whatsoever. The Switch is the only device that has problems with it. DSi? No problem. 3DS? No problem. Vita? No problem. Phones? No problem. Tablets? No problem. Laptops? No problem. Wii? No problem. PS3? No problem. Switch? Problem!

You've made some great suggestions in any case: if I remove the WiFi in my house, I won't have any problems connecting the Switch to it anymore. Genius!

Just for the record, also @Edu23XWiiU, my router is one of the best you can get. Stop trying to say problems don't exist because you have never been in a situation where they rear their heads, it makes you look like a fool, especially as you've made it abundantly clear that you have no idea what powerline and mesh networks even are, and where and when they are used.

@Varelius I don't disagree with that, but you wrote that its main purpose is for local wireless play, which is simply not true.

I have no complaints for now

Everyone over here fighting my battles while I genuinely couldn't care less about @Razer 's response.

@nintendoknife I'm talking from my user experience, and it has always worked well with the right routers. In my job, they put new routers once, it was a hostel, so they needed super stable connection for the guests, the routers they installed were amazing. The router I have home it's on that level. My cousin's router is s**t: he lives in an apartment, and he needs to be super close to his router, which is located in his living room. And it's a small apartment, his room is just a few steps away from the router. You're the fool, that doesn't seem to understand an opinion different than yours. Please explain to me, how your connection is s******r than mine, when I live in a country that has the worst internet connection in South America?

@Rutty_YT Agreed. That's partially why I want local backups since the online backups aren't available for some games.

@nintendoknife I live in an apartment, with steel reinforced walls (verified the time my upstairs neighbor's sink started leaking and they had to tear out my drywall to replace due to mold).

Playing with an ethernet adapter is not unheard of. In fact of all my switch friends theres only a few that play in portable mode constantly. Most of us use docks connected to our gaming PC's monitor, and networking is already available due to the gaming PC so therefore why use shotty wifi when you're trying to game competitively. Wifi introduces all sorts of problems and the gaming community generally doesn't use it, even on consoles.

What are the specs of the "Chinese knockoff phone"? What times of the day did you run the test? Did you check for EM interference (yes it can affect only one device, and yes you can set your device on top of the router and still get no signal, which is again why you don't use wifi for gaming).

So I did further testing with the two switches I have ready access to, one being a launch day switch, the other being a year 1 switch. For reference my router transmit power is set to 100mW, well below max allowed by law here in the US. Both switches had max power until I left the apartment. No matter which room, distance between router, whatever they were both solid and full signal. To lose signal I had to walk down from the second floor and start crossing the street before I lost signal, and both switches cut out exactly at the same time.

The chip nintendo used for wifi is the Broadcom BCM4356. This is a widely used chipset and broadcom hasn't issued any statements about there being defects. So it's very unlikely it's the wifi chip. The antenna in the switch isn't the greatest, but still unlikely the issue. Most of the issues seem to be with people with cheap or questionable routers, with interesting NONSTANDARD mesh networks and powerline adapters, or in areas with high interference. So again, lose the wifi is still my recommendation. On my network there are exactly 4 wireless devices, 2 iPhones and 2 iPads. Every other thing is attached with an ethernet cable.

Why do people seem to think that predicting criticism invalidates such complaints?

Bizarre mentality.

@Varelius
Listen up. I'll repeat myself. I get a stable connection on ALL devices. Phones, ps4, printer, laptop, tv. NOT on switch. I don't care how the internet works. And we all know the Switch is supposed to use the wifi connection for everything. Otherwise they would have built in a lan port. The Switch has a really bad wifi chip, and we're ment to live with it. And that is simply a fact you'll have to deal with, no matter how the internet works.

@BrettAwesome Sure, repeat yourself. No guarantee i'll listen to much else from you here on out though.

Good for you that you got a good wireless connection on every other device. Wireless is bad for gaming regardless.

I mean you do care how the internet works...cause its the same way all your stuff is talking to your router or modem.

Switch can do LAN. USB LAN. Its just a form of hardware communication, its not "supposed" to use any specific way, just a method of doing so. If it was "supposed" to, then it wouldn't have any code in the OS to make use of USB LAN.

Yes, it does have a fairly weak radio on the chip but at the same time, no console has ever had a half decent wireless radio inside of it cause thats where the companies skimp out on the most to save manufacturing costs. Its a universal problem and wireless is still bad for gaming. Go figure.

I mean, you're the one dealing with it not me. My switch has been wired day one. Even with how the internet works! Marvelous technology~

Carry on.

@Varelius
Yes. And you had to pay extra for it because
1: the wifi chip in the switch is horrible
2: because the dongle is not included.

So you can pretend I'm the ignorant one. Pretend to be the informed, adult person. But in the end you bought a product that was inherently ever so slightly faulty, so you had to spend extra. You had to use your own money to make your switch perform the way it should out of the box. I didn't need to do that on ps3, ps4, ps4pro or psvita. I didn't even have to do that on Wii U.
Is that how the internet works?
Everything works perfectly except Switch = internet broken? Is that it?

Bet you bought the official adapter too, am I right?

@BrettAwesome it was a spare I had from about 6 years ago now for a laptop with a bad ethernet port.
1. regardless if the wifi is horrible, I don't use it for gaming. It was never even a considered option in my book.
2. Oh boohoo, man can't fork over 10 bucks for his 300+ dollar hardware.

Never said you was ignorant but your attitude is certainly off putting.

Nintendo hasn't had an ethernet port on anything out of the box. not even the wii u.

"Is that how the internet works?
Everything works perfectly except Switch = internet broken? Is that it?"

I see how much you pay attention now. Have fun screaming into the void.

@Varelius
Boo-hoo what? "
No, WiiU didn't have one. But it didn't need it either.
Besides, this whole thing started when you claimed that someone had a poor connection "bruh", but that's just not the case, now is it? And by the way, nobody's screaming. I'm simply stating that the Switch has a sub par wifi chip. And yes it's both poor and an actual chip.

@frogopus

I dunno I've always detested things like discord, just because they're kind of sub par as a chat thing as a company. It also doesn't solve the issue of communication with your team which is ultimately what we need here. If you auto mute them then yer no worse off, team organization wise, than you were before.

Lacking it is never a good thing, just as there's no excuse to not have it. People like you, and I more often than not admittedly, just need an option to enable or disable voice chat. It's that simple. I wouldn't mind paying for a service that had issues i'd use, or was at least better than what the last few systems gave me for free with no noticeable improvements in quality, convenience, or much of anything outside NES games.