Pokémon Sword And Shield Players Will Be Able To Buy Switch Online Memberships In-Game

I mean with how cheap the online service already is; I don't really see people signing up for a different one unless it's somehow even cheaper(like $10 a year or something) and I highly doubt it be a one time payment as that would hurt Nintendo in the long run.

More options is always better, and I can see there being a ton of Sword/Shield players who are exclusively interested in online specifically for that game, rather than any others on the system.

If it's not subscription based, all the better.
But if it only covers an individual game, e.g. just Sword or just Shield, and not part of a "Pokémon Online" plan, it might be less attractive.

This is also considering that Pokémon Home is a cloud service coming soon which encompasses multiple Pokémon games and services, including Pokémon Bank and Pokémon Go.

It just reads to my that it's a direct link to the switch online page on the eshop

If all these additional expenses were a way to subsidise the inclusion of the entire roster of Pokémon in the game, then I would be a little more understanding (as I was understanding when utilising the paid Pokémon Bank "service"), but my understanding is that anything outside of the Galar Pokédex will be completely inaccessible, unless I have been mistaken.

The Gen VII games were the first games in the main series not to have a National Dex, but ALL Pokémon were still accessible (it's just that any Pokémon outside of the Alola Dex didn't have a Pokédex number, nor a Pokédex description). I think much of the furore surrounding Sword/Shield is not the absence of the National Dex in and of itself, but the inability to access all past Pokémon, especially considering that all of the assets are already futureproofed and good to go.

I'm quite bummed that I won't be able to transfer my Shiny Onix from Let's Go to Shield and bask in Steelix's Mega/Shiny glory. It's bad enough that TPC excluded post Gen I pre and post evolutions in the Let's Go games for no good reason, but for Mega Steelix to be left out for the second game in a row...

"This game includes an in-game purchase option for users who do not have a membership."
Maybe it's only a link in the game that will get the player to the eShop where they can buy the classic Online membership ?

Yeah that doesn't read like that to me at all. It just sounds like there's a button ingame that lets you buy an NSO sub. There's no ingame button to buy a sub in any other online switch games yet as far as I know (just a firmware-level prompt if you attempt to access the online without one).

I believe there's a new(ish) PEGI/ESRB requirement to disclose ingame purchases, which this would flag.

That would be really strange and honestly kind of confusing to casual players and kids.

Imagine you are a kid you get Pokemon and a Switch for Christmas, you see this option and ask your parents for it, then later the kid gets Mario Kart and tries to play online and can't. Parent's will think "we already bought them online, what's going on?"

No, I really think this is unlikely. I think it's more likely an in-game direct link to just purchase the NSO subscription.

@Heavyarms55 @Raylax @terry93 Yes that's my thought exactly, probably just a link to sign up to Nintendo Online. Can't imagine Nintendo wanting to let people cherry pick which bits of online they want for a cheaper price. Also how much cheaper can it get anyway? It's like £1.50 a month - even less if you shop around or got it included with SMM2.

It's just a direct link to buy NSO.

Confirmation: The same text is on Tetris 99's US pages: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/tetris-99-plus-12-month-nintendo-switch-online-individual-membership-switch/
https://tetris99.nintendo.com/
and there's no cheaper subscription available just to Tetris.

It's either what @bluesun has picked up on or it's like pokémon Bank where you get access for a small yearly fee.

I was hoping it would bypass paying for online altogether, but I already have Switch online so I'm good.

@Silly_G Not sure if I read your comment correctly, but Steelix is already confirmed to be in Sword and Shield. Unfortunately, megas and z-moves are out...

@eaglebob345 : I'm aware that Steelix is back, but I'm bummed that I won't be able to harness its full potential as I apparently will not be able to access its mega form in Sword/Shield; that's the problem I was raising.

@gspro15198 I'd agree this is just to make it easier for people who don't have the NSO sub yet to pay the sub.

I'm even willing to bet that the game will let you can get so far before it says you can't do this without an NSO sub, please subscribe here.

I'm all for increasing the NSO subscription base and improving the service.

@Silly_G
Megas are gone now, we better get used to it (tho mega steelix was my favorite mega)

More choices are always welcome, but I think most people will be more than happy with Nintendo's online offering, even more so with the introduction of the SNES games.

Austin John Plays also jumped off at the deep end about this yesterday evening, in a now unlisted vid. However, I'm pretty sure it just means that there will be an in-game link to the store to purchase NSO. 🙄

I mean I expected nothing less than all the online features being locked behind a paywall, still expected doesn't make it right. It's just kind of sad all around how bad the console industry is getting. They jack up the price of the game by 50% despite it looking like an upscaled 3ds game, cut content, and then still lock content behind a paywall. But that's ok, it's nintendo not EA.

@Yorumi The EA game requires DLC add-ons just to get the game described, then feeds endless lootbox treadmills, and then the game itself often doesn't actually work well or at all.

Nintendo's charging a flat small annual fee for online access across the platform, and charges console price for a (mostly) open world game. I can understand not liking the paywall for online....but comparing this to EA games? Have some perspective!

@Silly_G Gen VII were not first to lack a National dex, that goes to Gen III. When Ruby and Sapphire came out, a good portion of Gen I and II Pokémon were entirely inaccessible and you couldn’t even transfer any Pokémon. People keep failing to recall that. This isn’t the first time every previous Pokémon was not in the mainline games.

I'll feel a lot better about Pokemon Home if it's included with an NSO subscription.

@ShadJV but you could later transfer them in when Colosseum and LGFR came out. Here there is nothing...

I already have an Online Membership so I'm good. This is a great alternative for those that don't play many games online generally but only play specific games online. IMHO they should introduce this to other games too spread across other Platforms.

@DynamoDouglas that was over a year after release by the time every previous Pokémon could be brought to the games, and not transferred from previous titles, which is the most common argument I’ve seen among natdexers. So often it’s, “so I can’t transfer the entire team I’ve had since gen [number]?” That’s happened before is my point.

And you say “here there is nothing“ when this was something that was only possible over a year later. It hasn’t been over a year since SwSh released, we don’t know what could change in that time, by then we’ll likely have the following games in the series and they may even patch more in after they’ve put them into the next games... though honestly, that’d be strange when the previous example, Ruby and Sapphire, even had the national Pokedex internally but no way to complete with buying FireRed, LeafGreen, Coliseum, and XD (you could lower that number through friends but no online limited most players’ options). That’s over $160 of extra games to complete your National dex and this was only in Gen III when the dex was small, they had the time and even DID implement every Pokémon, making them require 4 more purchases was INTENTIONAL. People can argue all they want that this is the first time they cut content from the series, but that’s a blatant lie and at least here it’s where there was considerable time consuming work required (while back then they actually DID the work and deliberately chose to withhold it). It’s a shaky argument to say “Well in that case it was all eventually available” when that was over a year after release and requiring 4 more purchases (two on an entire different console and requiring an adapter to transfer them), we haven’t gotten a year out from these games and live in a world of patches where they could feasibly add them in when they’re implemented for follow up titles. But if you want them to do it like they did in Gen III, well they can easily do that, all they have to do is spread out the missing Pokémon through the next few games and restrict it so those Pokémon are only available to transfer from those games.

Which is horribly greedy, but if the implication is the current unknown plan for the next couple years is worse than what they did in Gen III, well that’s what you’d get.

@Silly_G That's fair. I was hoping that Gigantimax would use the mega forms for pokemon that had megas, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

@SonicAlpha Yeah, I saw that he unlisted that video and put up a big explanation as to what happened.

60$ per game
25$ switch online
5$ bank
most likely another $5-$20 for home.
pokemon keeps getting more expensive then it's worth...

@ShadJV

Fair to say its different from Gen 3. Was just pointing out that the National Dex was there.

Fair to say don't know what GF / Nintendo will implement down the line but you are right, patches and DLC are a thing that didnt exist back then.

Personally I'm not fussed whether the whole dex is playable or not the only bit that irks me is the interview where they said it was "too much work" ! This is one of the biggest franchises on the planet, if its too much work, that say they don't care enough, because everyone will buy it anyway. I feel that this sets a dangerous precedent for the quality of future games.

@Shadowmoon522
$25 NSO? $20 Pokemon Home?

I know that shiiting on Gamefreak/Pokemon over the National Dex is popular, but lets not make stuff up.

@NEStalgia it's only a matter of time. Especially with pokemon they've been offering less and less for more. I can't wait until the missing pokemon are dlc. And hey what a perfect franchise to do lootboxes. Put some regional pokemon in the game and put the rest in lootboxes.

60 for game and you should have nos already.if not what's the big deal 20 a year.they aren't charging more to play pokemon online.as far as pokemon bank goes it's not compatible with sword or shield..as pokemon home goes game freak has never said if they was charging for pokemon home.if they do so what 25 a year for pokemon home and nso

@Yorumi You may be right with Pokemon monetization, though they have to tread carefully on that one since the target audience (parents through kids) may not support that practice easily. They already have the gateway to the mobile spenders through Go. 50/50.

Though I'm not convinced of the "less for more" argument until I play the game. Less individual unit characters, but a much bigger world to explore. I don't think it's possible to form an opinion of less/more without actually playing it. Character counts aren't much to go by alone, and I'm not sure "as many mon as possible" necessarily makes a better game.

@DynamoDouglas Well the “too much work” would be more in regards to the amount of time it takes. The time reimplementing old Pokémon is time that could be spent on anything else with the games, and with each new console there is more Pokémon than ever to implement, meaning it takes longer than ever. The solutions are either make it longer between games every generation, cut the amount of new content possible, or cut Pokémon. And it’s reaching the point where it’s like pretty tough just to create a new region and some new mons on top of adding every previous mon because it’s a new system and engine. Bug testing anything with 900+ playable characters is a nightmare. I imagine the employees are already being overworked and they can’t just hire more people because adding stuff simultaneously makes it harder to find when something breaks. The only thing I think they did wrong is how they handled the PR with this issue. They weren’t fully honest and made excuses about stuff like new animations (old animations still take a lot of work to reimplement on new hardware). They weren’t honest with fans and now it doesn’t really matter what they say, many fans just won’t believe them, even when they’re honest.

Hmmm Yep good for us

@NEStalgia I'm admittedly using a degree of hyperbole but the overall point is sound. The very people who scream to the high heavens about EA or activision or such are pretty much silent when Nintendo and their partners do scummy things. When Nintendo went to paid online they actually took away features that existed when it was free and yet what do you hear "oh it's ok it's not that much money and I'm sure it will make things better." Granted they're not charging for this and it has finally gotten some flack but when are switch rewards coming to my nintendo? You know that thing that was supposed to be so much better than club nintendo?

In terms of pokemon at this point it's simply an educated guess based on what we've seen and experience. Sun/moon was vastly inferior to X/Y and that game wasn't exactly the peak of pokemon. It reduced content a lot from the previous games and took away features. Ultra was practically $40 dlc. Meanwhile Let's Go was a remake inferior to the previous remake of Red/Blue, and twice the price. It was effectively a $60 gameboy game with $50 dlc for a single pokemon. Of course nintendo has also done that now with Link's Awakening but of course it's all ok when Nintendo or their partners do it.

So we come to Swd/Shd which graphically are indistinguishable from upscaled 3ds games. Parts of the game are literally indistinguishable from an n64 game. The price is jacked up 50%, all online is locked behind a paywall. If you're a long time fan with a living dex fork over the money both for storage and for trading. And of course we have the incompetence of gamefreak to go on. What has gamefreak done recently to give us even the slightest confidence in their ability as a developer? They recently made some bad pokemon games and their town game that somehow runs like crap. But of course it's ok when Nintendo and their partners do it.

EA is farther down the road but Nintendo and Gamefreak are on the same road.

@Yorumi I think with Nintendo it's a matter of value, or value perception. Paying versus not paying is one debate. But when people saw it was only $20 it was easier to not spend a ton of attention on it. Cloud saves are a whole other thing we already discussed and the money for that is sensible, but that gets into a whole other thing. It's still a far cry from the EA spectrum (outside mobile, which is on the EA spectrum.) $20/yr versus $60/yr from the other two options even if all of them should be $0 is one thing. But the lootboxes, day 1 DLC etc is another all together with EA.

I haven't actually played Sun/moon (I bought it and never played it...), though I enjoyed X/Y and B&W (I never got into B&W2 for some reason.) I did quite enjoy Let's Go. I know it was "different" but I found it very enjoyable. That's where I start to question the "true fans" that hate everything GameFreak does, because my experience there seems very different from what the "true fans" experienced. It's very possible you'll hate SnS and I'll love it, just because what you want out of a Pokemon game is very different from what I do. I haven't delved into Link's Awakening yet, but I don't see how that's a similar comparison. That's a 100% ground up remake in a 3D engine of an old Game Boy game. It's a completely new game following the same story and world design, but I don't see how that wouldn't be full price. I can see the argument for "upscaled 3DS assets" with Pokemon, since they explicitly designed those assets for that purpose, but Links Awakening is 100% new. None of the models, artwork, or underlying game logic/physics existed prior to this release. Just the level design and story did. Which is a far cry from "FIFA 20 is just FIFA19 with an updated roster - literally."

@NEStalgia The slow boil is how they all did it. They slowly took away more and more, locked more features, and added more dlc. People spent years excusing it, oh it's not that expensive, oh it's just a small thing, it's better than x, etc.

Consider how much they've fallen over the years. In mobile they initially released a one time pay game with a demo. They didn't like the revenue so they very quickly jumped onto lootboxes, utterly asinine drop rates, and low stamina. On consoles the MK dlc was pretty good, but now we're at the point that entire difficulty modes are locked behind $15 toys with no alternative. Games have planned dlc from the beginning etc. They're not quite at EA levels...yet.

In terms of pokemon I did like X/Y but sun/moon cut so much content it was crazy. The complaint about lets go is not that it was different but just how little content was there. The complaint is the same with Link's Awakening. I get a corporation is going to get away with whatever they can but I just sort of expect a little more for full $60 games. I know we can't strictly quantify things like graphics or content but I just sort of expect more from corporations that own the biggest IPs in media. A little ambition would be nice. Hell small indies are beating them most of the time and they sell their games for a third of the price.

That's why I keep pointing these things out, they're giving us less for more money all the time. Eventually the boil will be unbearable the question is when?

@Yorumi Mobile I 100% agree. No excuses for that worse-than-EA level sham. I ignore it because I don't consume those products, but yeah if we're talking Nintendo mobile, that's awful.

I can also agree on the planned DLC. I've always been against that - I know people argue "but they haven't developed it yet, it's additional content, etc." That's true to a point. And I get that it's sensible when a game goes gold that you have to decide "are we disbanding this team or should we produce more content for this game?" so you kind of have to decide on large DLC before the game launches. But it's all too convenient.

OTOH, I think with mobile, SMR shot itself in the foot not just because mobile audiences don't want to pay anything, but by doing it as IAP. They'd have done better with NO demo at all and relied on their brand power for purchases.... IAP cut it out of the family sharing and that really gave it a bad image. I, personally don't think they designed it to cut out family sharing. I think they are just Nintendo, live in a bubble, and didn't even understand that aspect.

For me, I didn't feel Let's Go had a lack of content. I spent probably 40h on it....same as most Pokemons. I enjoyed the experience...I don't have much to complain about other than the Pokeball throwing mechanic would lose tracking too often which was very annoying.

I don't agree on Link's Awakening though. Maybe it's a short game, coming from the GB game. And that is somewhat frustrating for $60. But OTOH it's still a ground up brand new game remaking an old sprite based 2D game. I don't see how treating a brand new game as a brand new game, price wise, is unexpected just because it's a remake. Disney's not charging less for the Lion King live action movie just because it's a remake of an old cartoon, and nobody thought they should (even if you loathe Disney.)

But, I also see the slippery slope involved where DLC and fees are concerned. OTOH Nintendo seems SO uninterested in monetizing NSO I wonder at times if they did it just to stave off salivating investors and otherwise don't actually care at all.

@NEStalgia with Link's Awakening I think it's more fairly compared to an indie game and everybody expects those to list at around $20. While I'm not attempting to make a direct one to one comparison to the content, BOTW and LA are the same price. LA's 3d models are very simple and easy to create, BOTW's are more complex and more numerous.

That's the main problem, same with lets go. Let's go couldn't even be bothered to put in the content from FR/LG, LA has about a fraction of the effort as BOTW and yet they're all $60. Like I say I get that corporations are going to do whatever they can get away with this is more a criticism of the people supporting this. There's nothing stopping them from pricing the games lower, pricing them like indie games. They have huge amounts of resources and generally indies are doing more with less. That's why I buy so few Nintendo games. It's like 1 every several months at this point. I'd just like to see some more ambition out of them and gamefreak, but that's not going to happen as long as people keep supporting the idea of getting less for more.

@Yorumi I do see your point and to a limited degree I feel the same way about those smaller games.

OTOH, I think in some ways companies have a direct fear of raising prices over $60 even where they justifiably should be. I don't want them to, of course, but the real price of those big masterpieces probably is more like $80 or even $100. So they sell them for $60 and then have season passes, limited editions, DLC, add-ons, etc to bring it to $120. BOTW didn't, but most of AAA has gone that way, and BOTW is in the same class. They're banking on streaming massively increasing player number and therefore dropping price/allowing increased budgets. But still...

Priced in reality, LA maybe shouldn't be as high as $60. But similarly BOTW probably shouldn't be priced as low as $60. And NHL19 is too expensive at $0, but that's a different issue.

@NEStalgia well we're getting into a bit of a different realm here but I think the "games should cost more" is only half true. The biggest cost for a game is graphics. The more complex and detailed the graphics the more time it takes a modeler to make and thus you need more of them to make a game in any reasonable time. I think part of dlc is this problem and part of it is just they've figured out they can so why not?

Nintendo doesn't actually push graphics like this. Nintendo's stylized graphics help a lot here but also their focus on weaker hardware. While we don't know the real budgets and costs of most of these games one thing has really stuck out to me recently and that's Xenoblade X. The graphics, while stylistically different, are at least comparable to BOTW. I'd argue they're about the same in terms of what it took to make them. Monolith said they consider the game more mid-tier. I'm pretty sure the game was profitable and I also don't think it even sold 1mil copies.

Things like that come along every so often and sort of shatter the illusion that the big companies put forth. They want us to believe they're struggling peasants due to being unable to sell games for more than $60. Monolith up there is an example, Arenanet with GW2 is another. Granted they do have microtransactions but when the game was launching they were asked how they were going to pay for the server without a subscription fee. They said the box sales(at $60, it's an mmo btw) alone would more than pay for the servers for years. Huh look at that it's not so hard to pay for a server. There's not a lot of indies making games quite on the level Nintendo is but even then they commonly shatter the illusion the big companies create.

Basically I just don't believe the games need to be more expensive argument. Especially since it primarily comes from those who would greatly benefit from more expensive games.

@Yorumi It's true to a point, and of course you can see the shareholder returns for, say EA, that are windfall profits and such.

OTOH, much as I like cheap things as a consumer, I also see the flip side. Often when companies are fighting to delver lowest cost, they do so by cutting to the bone internally, stressed overworked staff, understaffing, 1 person doing 4 jobs, low salaries, minimal benefits, etc, etc. It's always more complicated. Sure some companies CAN deliver cheaper, but are they doing so by running lean/miserable shops or shops that will leave people with no savings or anything else by working there, and if so, is that a desirable outcome? Where do we hit the balance of not gouging consumers for the benefit of shareholders, while also not gutting labor to maximum output for minimum compensation?

@NEStalgia by and large I don't believe a lot of the sweat shop stories when it comes to game development. Not that I believe everything is perfect and no abuses ever take place. It's just a lot of it doesn't make logical sense to me. In the US it's not extremely hard to find a job that doesn't kill you. Even places that don't require much experience like grocery stores. They'll get you into management positions and all that. People with degrees in things like graphical design, programing, and sound composition are in high demand all over the place. So why don't they have any trouble finding workers? And no recent grads can't do all this, plus eventually people would figure out not to join the industry.

I don't really think cutting costs necessarily means running sweat shops. I'm sure we have some abuses but the media is so dishonest and so far from actual journalism that they amplify any rumor they hear. I remember when they were so rabid for blood going after rockstar who I don't even particularly like, even after the employees came out and said "we're fine thanks".

They just keep sinking lower and lower with this turd.

@Yorumi Huh? what content did Sun and Moon cut? i thought Sun and Moon had more content than X and Y, though i only played Y and Sun. ORAS had great content too.

Or are you talking about the PSS system from Gen 6? Yeah, i do prefer that over the Festival Plaza, especially the part where i can send short messages or shouts to other players like "Hacker!" or "Good game", and i can even have my own unique signature. In Festival Plaza everything were pre-written messages or word /phrases.

@NEStalgia That's why automation and outsourcing is growing. Taxes and regulations also add lots of costs to companies and businesses, you literally need entire departments staffed with people who do nothing but follow govt regulations, whether it is tax, environmental, and so on. These depts are just expenses with zero added productivity or innovation to the company. Add to that the lawyers you need to hire, and then multiple insurance plans that are required by law, costs can add up very very quickly.

@ShadJV Its just the idea that it is not worth the effort...for one of the biggest gaming franchises ever...so we can agree that the PR has not been handled well...at all!

I'm torn whether to get the game as I love pokemon but I don't want to give them my money for something that is potentially half baked, it just sends the message that its acceptable. But we'll see what happens down the line...

After all "Gotta Catch Em All" has been the tag line since the first games.

If its just a direct link...then I dont even see a story here.

And I agree with those who have said that a reduced price for Pokemon only would confuse kids/parents, unless it was made crystal clear up front what was being purchased.

I don’t think Nintendo’s original statement was confusing at all. This is how I always took it. More like Nintendo Life created a story out of a non-story 🙄

Oh online services like cloud save right Nintendo?

@DynamoDouglas they retired that slogan after Gen II actually, at least for the games.

@BlackTalon2 X/Y had a lot more to do at endgame. Restruants, battle maison, fashion, zygard, etc. There were a lot of different activities that served various purposes and for various skill levels and desires. Sun/moon pretty much just had battle tree which was nothing more than grind BP for the hell of it.

@DynamoDouglas How would it make it easier? They have eshop cards just for the subscription itself.

@Yorumi You must have been busy with other stuff, because plenty of people kicked up a fuss when NSO was first announced and many people aren't pleased with the way the nso games handles itself with slow dripfeeds and fewer games that shoulda just been available on the eshop.

@Tempestryke the people who made a fuss were the ones you would expect to. They were pretty much all people who on some level had already expressed disappointment with Nintendo. When it came down to it people bought it in droves and even more so shouted down anyone pointing out how bad it was. It's not that they were reluctantly buying it like hostages but instead were enthusiastically supporting it and viciously attacking anyone who pointed out how bad it was. They were doing Nintendo's PR work for them.

Pokemon is no different, it's less for more with even more paywalls. However, if you say that you're just a terrible rotten troll that should be banned from the site for not believing it's the most perfectist game ever. It's ok when Nintendo does it. They'll attack EA and activision, and sony and ms to the end of the earth until Nintendo shoves paywalls in their face then it's really ok, and they need the money anyway and surely it will improve everything.

@Yorumi And? It still negates your point that no one complained about it. I still refuse to buy a subscription because I don't really care about online and because the service sucks.

There are hardcore corporate defenders in every vg fanbase its true, but you make it seem like we're all blind, hardcore hypocrites and that you and you alone are the only one who can see through their bs. How's that for hyperbole?

@Tempestryke I suppose it can be read that way but it wasn't my intention. I was directing it at the hardcore defenders who only hate things when it's not nintendo doing them. Still my fault for not being more clear. I know there are people who do criticize I just feel those who worship are much more influential since I've seen markets where the customer actually stood up for themselves. The console market is not such a place with the one major exception being the original xbox one.

@Tempestryke It's funny, whenever I see a page on this site that is talking about the Nintendo Switch Online, I always without fail find someone replying to Yorumi.
I wouldn't wish anything bad on the guy but if I may offer some advice; just leave him be. You may as well go argue with a wall.

@NCChris I agree on that when I kept scrolling down it seem endless.

Whelp, nintendolife posting another nonsense story.
Should rename the site ClickbaitLife

@NCChris Okay. I'll take your advice

Update now the games are out: Looks like at some point Nintendo updated the wording.
"This game includes an in-game purchase option for users who do not have a membership."
is now:
"This game includes an in-game option to purchase a Nintendo Switch Online membership for users who do not have one."