Nintendo yesterday lifted the lid on the price of its new 'Expansion Pack' for the Switch Online service, and if you've seen our reader poll about the subject, it might be a bit too expensive for some.
So, what's the go, and why is Nintendo charging the prices it is for this new add-on - featuring a library of Nintendo 64 and Sega Mega Drive games, along with access to the new Animal Crossing DLC? According to NWR contributor and proven Nintendo leaker, Emily Rogers, the "likely" reason and "main culprit" is believed to be licensing costs.
In fact, Sega apparently wasn't a "big fan" of the Wii's Virtual Console service back in the day due to the "low sales" and various other issues, so Nintendo has supposedly had fork out a fair bit of cash for the Mega Drive/Genesis library this time around:
"Licensing costs are likely main culprit behind NSO expansion's bold price. I heard Sega were paid very, very well. This is notable because Sega weren't big fans of Wii's VC service due to low sales, revenue split, and lack of marketing. Hence why Sega didn't support Wii U VC.
The money spending doesn't stop there - with Rogers further noting in a follow-up tweet how games on the same service from other companies would also need to be licensed, and it all adds up! And then there's Nintendo's arrangement with Rare and Microsoft for Banjo- Kazooie on the Nintendo 64 library...
"3rd parties titles (Konami, Capcom) are also being licensed for Genesis NSO. So the licensing costs begin to add up after awhile. And who knows what licensing agreement/arrangement Nintendo had with Rare/Microsoft..."
Rogers has previously played a role in certain Nintendo leaks such as Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and Super Mario 3D All-Stars, and most recently provided accurate details about the Switch OLED model prior to its release. Do you think she's on the money here? Do you think "licensing costs" are the main reason behind the "bold price" of the NSO expansion pack?
As always, leave your own thoughts down in the comments.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 250
More fool Nintendo then for paying them that much for games that are already available on the switch and expecting everyone to be on board with the pricing of the new subscription. Should have just added in GB, GBC, and GBA, preserving their own back catalog and left sega to make their compilations.
As i stated in another thread i will stick to paying a cheeky £12 for my standard UK yearly subscription as much as i would like to play those N64 games.
If that is the case they should just have included GB/GBC/GBA instead, I assume most Nintendo fans would be more interested in that anyway
I really don't care. The base service is not good. I accepted it for the base price but asking any more for it is really a joke, I'd go without if this was the base.
I wonder if Nintendo did this so Sega didn’t make an exclusive deal with Sony or Microsoft?
Again, this is what’s wrong with subscription services: if you’re getting lots of stuff you want for a value price, they’re great. If you have to pay for access to stuff you don’t want to get the little bit you do, they can quickly annoy you.
Think I’ll wait for the moment.
Wait so is it 30 dollars or 50 if you are upgrading from standard NSO?
I am kinda iffy about this as I already bought the Mega Drive collection and I don't even playing very often. If the collection wasn't there then I would be more excited for this. Oh well, at least I will get the 64 games.
It makes sense. Getting much more heavy with 3rd party content. It could mean there are a lot more rarer games on the way. That would definitely justify the price more, with games that are newly available on a more accessible platform like the recently released Gley Lancer. People may be reluctant to jump on board with the initial selection of games.
Why pay that much in licensing cost on games nobody asked for anyway?
Imo most people rather play first party GBC/GBA games then any megadrive content.
She must be really happy with this kind of attention.
Oh yay, sega games that have been released a million times on every platform under the sun... if only there were another way to play them...
The whole service is such a mess. N64 and sega games aren't that big a draw for most, a lot of people don't care for animal crossing so the dlc is pointless and just drives up the price, and that dlc isn't even yours to keep? What???
At this price point they need a couple more console libraries before its worth it. That and make the dlc actually yours to keep, having it only accessible during the sub is such a stupid idea.
They could have any number of the dlc passes they have for games available, say they provide 3 and you pick one per year as a bonus to keep.
So you could have this AC dlc, octo expansion and xenoblade 2 torna expansion to choose from, and you keep one of those. As they go on, they add other passes (age of calamity, botw, smash passes 1/2, etc.) and every year you get to choose one of them as a bonus. Cus i can garuantee that not a ton of people will be buying the passes for older games like botw or splatoon 2, having them as bonuses for the online service incentivises people to play and/or buy the other games the dlc is compatible with. Its a win-win.
This whole service just needs a rework. Definitely not getting dragged in, nothing they are providing is worth as much as they are charging.
@Mystique $50
But all those Sega games are inferior to the n64 games
Can't speak for everyone but I know I would have been happy if they left the sega games out of this. You can play them elsewhere. They should have invested more in bringing other legacy Nintendo systems into the service such as Gameboy or something. They have so many celebrates systems and games it's a shame they don't want to have them represented in their online offering.
Would prefer to just sign up for N64 in this case without licensed games as I would only play Zelda and Starfox anyway
Sure hope the terms include library access for as long as the service is live. It would be sad to randomly lose games in the coming years… Wow, the more I think about it the more I miss the virtual console.
Those who wanted genesis games have already bought the sega classics collection.
This pack is full of items that have been bought many times before. Only this time I only get to rent them.
Would have preferred to be charged $15 for each separate n64 game to buy and keep.
@mr_somewhere The extra price here has nothing to do with the base service, this is simply an upgrade to play N64 and Genesis games on your Switch, it's that simple.
No added features, just the same subscription you were paying on top of more retro games to enjoy on your Switch legally without dodgy emulation and with added online to specific games.
I think I'm warming up to this, honestly. After thinking about it thoroughly the only real big issue I see with this upgrade is that they aren't allowing monthly payments. This means that Nintendo is asking for a year-long investment of money without us knowing how often and how substantial the upgrades to the games available are going to be. I think if they launched this new membership with all of the N64 games they showed (including the ones that are going to be 'available soon'), then a lot more people would be inclined to invest into this service.
As it stands, I will probably hold off for a month until they release those future games and announce the next major update.
In a perfect world, they could have divided all of these upgrades into tiers. So, instead of paying for a full upgrade with both the Genesis and the N64, perhaps you could pay half for only one of them and half for the other, paying a little more but at a discount if you get both. If they add GBA and GBC games in the future, this will be an easy steal in my opinion.
I hope that these big prices do incentivise them to improve on their online servers. That's what it really comes down to. All of our complaining really doesn't do much, but if the money invested could bring them to outsourcing for better servers, then I'm all for it. Online games without latency lag should have been there from the beginning of the Switch's lifecycle, but as I said, these are only circumstances that operate in a perfect world.
This is just another case of everybody jumping the gun and complaining as a kneejerk reaction and then realising that things are actually not as bad as they initially seemed. I'm against the pricing of the initial upgrade, but I believe in 2-3 months Nintendo will make the upgrade worth the while. Their only real fault is introducing only a year-based subscription and not allowing people to buy the upgrade for 1 or even just 3 months. When you divide the yearly upgrade into months it only costs as much as a large Latte per month, it's ridiculously low pricing for good, legal emulation with added features like online if you really take time to think about it.
At the end of the day, this upgrade is entirely optional. You absolutely don't need this to play online of any kind and the only things that are exclusively given to you are N64 and Genesis games with some added online features. If you do not need these luxuries on the go then you shouldn't be complaining, because this service isn't for you.
Well when they put it like that...
@Kidfunkadelic83
Exactly my thoughts. Take out the Genesis, add the GBA (or, even better Gamecube), launch at $40 and though some people would still be angry, most would probably accept it as fair. $50 is ridiculous.
Which only makes the whole situation even more bizarre. Adding Gameboy games would have made far more sense than paying Sega a hefty licensing fee for Megadrive games, many of which are already on the Switch website elsewhere (and which many casual fans will have bought on the Megadrive Mini).
If this is true. this is reeeeeeaaaaally scummy on both Nintendo and SEGA’s end. They never get paid this much for their partnerships, my guess is they probably just took advantage of the situation and Nintendo didn’t care just like the rest of this crummy service
Great, another hot topic for "leakers" and "insiders" to parasite on.
Its a cheap price. 😊 Nintendo keeps on giving and giving all year round.
@Petew While I do agree that Nintendo should have considered the option of bringing VC to Switch for people to buy and keep retro games, I absolutely don't think people would be okay with paying half the price of the upgrade per single N64 title. The upgrade actually allows you, from the get-go, to play many of the essential N64 games and later on they're adding a ton more that people have been craving for (including Paper Mario and Banjo-Kazooie, mind you).
I understand the principle of owning and not renting something and while I'm all for the idea of choice, I absolutely wouldn't buy an N64 game at half-price of the subscription if the latter allows me to play 30+ games at the end of the year.
I think people who praise the VC absolutely forgot the insane pricing on the eShop for those games. In Australia, an NES title was over $5, a SNES title was over $10. That's 4 SNES games to keep for the same price as however many games you get to play off the N64 emulator over the next 12 months.
It's really tough when you look at the initial pricing within the first minute, but when you remember that it's a 12-month subscription where you'll be likely getting quite a good line-up over the coming months it becomes difficult to complain about.
My only real qualm with the Nintendo Online subscription is that they should use the net profit gain from this deal to invest into better servers, therefore giving people a better reason to get the online subscription in the first place. I generally play games like Monster Hunter online, so it doesn't bother me much, but I absolutely understand the frustration coming from people who try to enjoy games with perfect ping requirements such as Smash Bros and other fighters. I also don't think peer-to-peer connections should be paid for at all in this day and age, if I'm paying for an online service, I should be getting dedicated servers. Online is the thing Nintendo seem to be struggling the most at, and it makes sense, because they're literally a generation behind in that regard. I feel as if they need to outsource their online service to a third-party company or get some additional help or a new department just for that purpose.
Online has become very important especially over the past couple of years and Nintendo's has no good reason to be as faulty as it is at the current stage.
If they add Golden Eye it will be worth it… or Perfect Dark more realistically
@Varkster I think you're forgetting that the NES and SNES libraries have been trickling out their games for the service, with some key games such as earthbound still not there. They put games out every 3 or 4 months, and when they do they are games nobody really wants or has heard of, it is gonna be the exact same with N64 library.
It may be "cheaper overall" for the rental model, the problem is the vast majority of people do not value these retro libraries as highly as Nintendo are asking for them. Add to that the fact the animal crossing dlc isn't even to keep, and plenty of people will get nothing from that (so the price hike is for just the N64 and sega games, making that seem much worse too), means we have this reaction from the majority of people who care about the service. It's just not good unless you are in a specific niche group that:
Those who are happy are vastly outweighed by those who aren't. There are reasons people are kicking up as much of a fuss as they are.
Kick Sega out and reduce the price. No one wanted that games.
The addition of the Mega Drive/Genesis games was a huge mistake. You can already buy the Mega Drive Collection and own the games outright for around £15 on any given sale. If Mega Drive games have added even £2 to the subscription price, it's a huge waste of money.
@Matl You said that people don't value the retro games as much as others do, and this absolutely applies to the Nintendo Online overall service bundle, but I think it doesn't apply here.
This upgrade is specifically designated for people who do value the retro games. Nintendo is specifically providing no additional services or incentives to buy this upgrade otherwise.
This upgrade is simply for people who wish to play N64 games with added online functionality with the Genesis added to the mix. I think that it's actually fair, because this upgrade is entirely optional. People will buy a membership when they see an N64 game that they specifically want to play on the go with legal emulation and with good quality.
I have a collection of emulators and ROMs that I don't actually invest time in at all, but I would absolutely pay for this service to feel like I own these games fairly and have them running in good quality. Some N64-emulated games are still in a horrendous state and don't run well at all with a lot of graphical glitches.
As for how often and how well they upgrade the service, I beg to differ. I think the update roadmap they provided is very promising and if Nintendo is interested in people paying for this upgrade, then they will provide substantial updates with good games as a lineup.
The one point I agree with you on is that they should absolutely add games that have no business being missing from the NES/SNES library. Earthbound is a game that needs to be in that collection and the fact that it's missing I think maybe shows that Nintendo might be working on an Earthbound remaster/Mother collection of sorts.
Are we seriously using Emily Rogers as a source again when she's been proven wrong and to just be making crap up and guessing 99% of the time? This objectively makes no sense. Why would Nintendo pay up the nose for something that barely adds value to the service. I mean you get most of these on the Switch already for like $15. I suggest there's something more to it than this. We'll likely see where DLC or game like Tetris 99 dropped in the next 6 mouths. Plus if you look at NES/SNES they licensed with way more third parties than Genesis or N64. Stop supporting these garbage "leakers".
Sega is a strange addition for sure. They could have saved on fees and added the gameboy instead. As many have said, these are available elsewhere with such ease, even the switch!
Joining a collective seems to be the way to go. Find people to pair up with if you have nobody in your family/friend circle. That is what I am currently doing with a few chaps on here.
That way, it is possible to drive it down to under ten pounds a year if you can get enough people on board.
Could’ve just been N64 games and then eventually GBA games.
I hope the subscription of this is below projections. Knowing idiots though. They’ll buy in just so they don’t feel left out.
If doing Nintendo only games dropped 30$ from the price I’d happily just take them. Even if it were just a tier option. Then I’d possibly switch to the more expensive price later when I finished the other games.
Surely the best way to approach this would have been to include N64 titles under the original structure with perhaps a small price increase to the base sub and then give subscribers the option to say add on the mega drive/genesis pack for a set fee, then perhaps open it up to other companies like SNK for a Neo Geo pack and Konami for a PC Engine/Turbografx pack
@Varkster that's true, it does really only appeal to those who want the retro games. But even then, the large price hike is too much for many people, reactions online from people big and small are all saying it's too much. And the roadmap? It's like... Majora's mask and banjo kazooie... That's not much of a roadmap at all.
And then there are those who are only sorta interested in the retro games, like myself. I would be on board, but the price is just way too high just because I am not that invested in the N64 stuff to even consider upgrading. The sega stuff does absolutely nothing for me either, nor does the animal crossing dlc, so I would be paying a massive price hike for N64 games I don't care too strongly about (but am interested in trying). I could just emulate at the end of the day if I am that desperate too, though that's really a last resort thing and I haven't delves into it much at all.
If they want it to succeed it has to appeal to a wider market, cus it's either you love the retro offerings and/or animal crossing to such a point that it's worth it to you specifically, or you aren't. The comment I made earlier of having multiple dlc passes to pick from like the old botw and splatoon expansion passes would greatly incentivise more people to try the service, especially if the dlc was available to keep regardless of if you have the upgraded online service or not. It needs more variety of Nintendo wants as many people on board as possible, which they definitely do otherwise they would be putting these new libraries in with the base line service.
It's just too underwhelming for a vast majority of people for people to care, or too pricey for those who aren't super invested in the retro stuff and AC dlc. More power to those who can see some value in the service, though. Wish I could be one of you.
@Matl Just to add here, I think the Animal Crossing DLC was Nintendo's way of saying "sorry for the licencing fees we paid for the Genesis line-up, here's just a little extra something to motivate you to buy the upgrade". It's as simple as that.
In reality, adding Animal Crossing DLC cost Nintendo nothing and even though it's a rental, the only option you can purchase it for is a year. I think people underestimate how long a year actually is. In a year many things can change. Whoever plays Animal Crossing will surely get their money's worth out of this bundle within the next 12-month period and on top of that they will be able to play classic N64 games. I'm even speculating that they might add the original Animal Crossing to the line-up at some point.
This morning when I woke up I looked at the prices as pretty abysmal, here in Australia it's pretty much the price of a full game for a year. I thought about it throughout the day though, and came to a conclusion that this is actually not terrible pricing. If you already own a membership for Online like I do this just gives you an opportunity to enjoy retro games the way you wish to enjoy them.
Every time I boot up an N64 game I don't want to feel like I'm stealing it or that it's unearned, the luxury of having it on a modern system is well worth it for me. I understand the qualms people have with the price point, because yeah, when you look at the full price, $50 USD looks pretty rough. But honestly, $50 per year is a tiny sum to ask for if all you're really asking for is for people interested in older games who don't wish to resort to illegal emulation.
Yes, Nintendo taking down emulation sites was just all part of the making for this specific model, and yes, I do think they're in the right for charging for these games (a vast majority which they developed themselves) and taking down the websites which are notorious for distributing these same games which took years to make in their respective times for free.
We should have had an option to choose what platforms are included. If some of that price is for Sega games I dont want as I already have them either on compilations, Steam or as a cartridge then I am paying for something I wont be using.
This is Nintendo through and through.
both Sony and Microsoft deal with that for new modern games which will cost more, they are losing money on their subscription server's but they both have the money where even if they are losing money it's really not that big of a issue, are constantly gaining new subs yet because you get so much value
Nintendo are just greedy. And you have Nintendo fanboys who will defend them to the death. Honestly, what is this world heading towards?😥😥😥😥
huh? The pricing is just strange. If you are still playing Animal Crossing then the sub is.. ok? Fine? And maybe it will bring some people back to ACNH, but it’s kind of a year late. This would have sold bonkers last summer.
Apart from that, I just don’t see how old games from 30 years ago are worth $30-50 a year. It’s a really tiny catalog too.
When you break it down by month the price isn’t bad Nintendo cut quite a deal with their catalog though I don’t use it that much. Honestly I think it’s cool but the only main incentive would that I would be able to play these games online but as someone who collects retro games I’d rather play them on my OG console with my friends when they visit. I think we all could agree we could do without Sega Games and just stick to Nintendo’s library be as it may I’d rather own digital copies than rent
@Matl I do believe that if you're not all that interested in N64 games then you, personally, should hold off on upgrading. I am holding off on upgrading until the N64 games I haven't played that I'm interested in appear on the service.
I also have a strong suspicion that within the next year we will see another major update to the current subscription with GBA/GBC/NDS titles added to the mix. It's evident that Nintendo is planning to keep its online framework with the current eShop in the coming generations of consoles. The second Switch or whatever it will be will likely operate on this same online model, which means they will be building on it.
Yes, that means you don't have to currently invest into this deal. If the games don't interest you, as I said, you don't get any additional features aside from the Animal Crossing DLC anyways, but when the features that you do want get announced (such as the platforms I listed before), then you can invest.
I hope you see my point when I'm talking about specifically an optional upgrade. This is an investment, yes, but Nintendo showed very clearly what their roadmap is for the next couple of months and they are selling it as an optional upgrade. The fact that it's optional, I feel, is the most important part. You aren't missing out on anything but the retro games if you do not upgrade. If you see that they are adding games that you really wish to enjoy without emulation, then that will be the time for you to dip your toes and invest into it.
Online we are the biggest minority, the vocal ones. We express our opinions on forums where most people just look at the article and don't even bother scrolling down. I think the ratio of the people viewing and skim reading through the article and the people actually taking time to comment will surprise most people. If I were to guess, I'd say 95% of people who hop onto NintendoLife don't take the time to comment or even make an account.
The problem with that is that as a community we feed off each others' emotional responses. I woke up in the morning and looked at the news (I didn't even know the Direct happened) and initially I was turned off because I read the comments and without taking the time to actually process and think about the information given I was on the bandwagon of hating on the scheme and thinking that it's a ripoff.
Taking the time off the comment section really gave me a chance to reel in things from a different perspective and now I don't feel that it's a ripoff at all, the fact that they're giving this upgrade as an option that you can pay for at any specific time and date that you want seems to be entirely justifiable.
The one issue I have with this entire debacle is the inability to pay for a monthly subscription. You have to pay what is essentially the price of a full game without Nintendo providing a full 12-month roadmap for what they're willing to add to a service. In a way, it's like buying an expansion pass without knowing whether a game will be well-supported a year down the line.
I'm sure that is true, but most people won't care.
What might have been a better idea was to do an add-on upgrade for each system instead of doing a increase for everything.
@Varkster I guess we will all get different value out of it and as with Spotify and Netflix, subscribing rather than owning seems like the future.
For Animal Crossing players who also play online and are part of a family with multiple switches, it represents fantastic value.
For those who have only wanted one or two of the N64 games as they have recently played the others, it's asking a bit much.
If this is true then honestly, I'd be okay if we lived in the alternate timeline where they only added N64 games and the yearly fee was 40 instead of 50. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE the Sega Genesis and its library but we already had access to the confirmed games on the Switch via different collections and the inclusion of Genesis games in NSO seemed a bit random to begin with.
Sure, whatever. Rogers was probably sent out by Nintendo with this made up news. Nintendo, particularly the CEO, could care less about providing good value, and more about taking your money. What a joke.
Off-topic but those plushies are really adorable, especially Classic Tails.
Some people complain about Game Pass but on Xbox you have the choice to purchase every single game (with a 20% discount). On Nintendo, the "physical and ownership paradise", you can't buy Virtual Console games anymore, just subscribe to Nintendo's lacklustre services. Wii U was still fine but since Switch everything Nintendo do is disappointing.
For the record, I'm a Nintendo and Xbox fan.
Another thing bothering me is why add the dlc for a game people may or may not actually own. Why not just offer a switch game. The Tetris and Mario game they introduced were well received right? Just seems odd to add content for something that a large amount of the switch fan base may not actually be able to access.
@Varkster I agree it's different for different people, it's certainly an option and not necessary so that's at least some good in all of this. It's just not a good spot to be in at launch, much like the original NES and SNES lineups being criticised in much the same way, but at least they were part of the default plan. This pro membership is gonna get better, sure, it's just gonna be a hard sell for people until it gets a good chunk of the N64 and sega library and probably one or two other bonus things too. And even then, how much better it gets is basically gonna be random, seeing how Nintendo approaches these sort of things in the past.
Let's just hope it's something more worthwhile down the road, cus only then will people see such a sharp price hike and even begin considering the pro membership as even something that is worth the massive jump Nintendo is charging.
@Petew I completely agree with you, and that's the exact reason why I think a monthly membership should have been included from the start. I think Nintendo knew that a lot of people who would upgrade would simply go through the couple of N64 games they wanted to play within the month and then cancel their subscription. Instead, they're offering a 12-month investment which you would be able to get a beefy N64 and Genesis (and perhaps other systems later down the line) collections without that handicap.
Think about it, the 3D All-Stars collection is still on the shelves, that has Mario 64 readily available in a better format than the emulation they will give in the N64 service. That collection is a full-price game. If you were to split the 3 games (regardless of their budget) into three, then you would have $20 per game.
Now, if I really wanted to play Mario 64 and I didn't wanna buy the collection, and I already owned the Switch Online subscription for the next year, well...that would be less than $5 to play Mario 64 without buying the collection.
Who on earth asked for Sega games?
Who else would happily pay less not to have Mega Drive? The Sonic games are all coming on one card soon anyway, and there's already a Genesis compilation
@Matl Honestly, the reason I believe they will bring more other systems to the line-up of the upgraded online service is that the N64 library isn't all that strong to begin with. Other than what they showed for the upcoming 2 months there really aren't all that many "must-have" games on the N64 left over. If they upgrade the library at a decent pace, they will surely run out of games to add to justify the upgrade price within the next few months. After that, it only comes down to adding other retro consoles to the mix and the most reasonable consoles to expect are the ones without crazy licencing fees like the Genesis. I think Dreamcast and Saturn being added are extremely unlikely, so the Nintendo handheld systems would be the next in line.
I imagine Gamecube and Wii games would come someday as well, perhaps 4-5 years down the line with the next iteration of the Switch or whatever and maybe another upgraded cost.
Everyone who paid $60 for Mario All Stars prompted this.
@Baker1000
Yeah I'd be way more happy for that option! I love sega games but there are just way easier ways to play them right?
Licensing costs justifying the price of the expansion is irrelevant; The value proposition just isn't there. It's saving grace is that it is optional.
I'm paying for it, because it can only get better! Nintendo Switch Online is Incredible and I'm glad we are finally getting more Classic Masterpieces!
@Varkster Yeah, I always thought the N64 library was very limited in the first place. And honestly, not the absolute best games? Like I played OOT 3D which is just an improved version of the og N64 version, and I just don't enjoy the game, let alone understand how people think its hands down THE best game of all time. There are certainly gems but they all seem very hit or miss, and only thrive based on nostalgia more than anything. They almost certianly goona have trouble filling up the months with quality games, and its just gonna be "filler" games nobody wants or has heard of, just like with the NES and SNES games already on the service.
As for GameCube? I think they value the games too much to be a part of the the service, cus thats when you get to some truly quality games that Nintendo could rerelease on their own or have HD versions of (such as wind waker and twilight princess HD, they are definitely coming to switch at some point). I think they will cough up the game boy through to game boy advance at best, and even then it'll be the super slow pace with the games nobody wants/has heard of, blah blah blah...
Its just disappointing seeing how game pass is handled and seeing nintendo's offerings looking very pitiful in comparison. Hope that changes sometime soon. I would love to play these older games if they could nail the price to content ratio.
Nobody needs the Mega Drive stuff. We can already buy the Mega Drive Collection and keep it forever, like civilised human beings.
Nobody wants to rent the Animal Crossing DLC either. Half of us don't even have Animal Crossing. The other half would surely rather buy it normally.
Seriously the only point of this expansion pack is the N64 games. And from that perspective it's utter gouging. Nintendo knows there's people like me who have been absolutely pining for N64 games on the Switch; people who will pay almost anything to have this dream come true. They have calculated the absolute maximum amount of money that they could wring out of us N64 fiends without it being so ridiculous that it gets completely boycotted. Then they chucked a bunch of other useless stuff in there to make it look like a slightly better deal.
I guarantee that they are reading all this negative public opinion and saying: that's fine, vent your steam, have your 15 minutes of outrage. In a month or two you will be signed up and paid up and it will just be the status quo.
Bullcrap lol, this is just trying to eat our money.
Uhh, when has this "leaker" got anything right? Didn't they say Mother 3 was coming out on the Wii U? And like some really incorrect smash bros leaks? Pro switch? I forget... but anyway. This isn't even a leak, it's just an obvious guess. I wrote the same thing on reddit, they probably just read my post or came to the same conclusion because, IT'S OBVIOUS!
I don’t believe it to be honest, I think it’s just Nintendo taking advantage of the fact that you need to pay at least $60 a year to play online multiplayer on current Xbox and Playstation systems.
All I'll say is I disagree with her assessment and reasoning.
I wish Nintendo would just BUY Sega already! Like seriously, why don't they?!?
@Petew
The Genesis mega collection is also lacking in content. (No Sonic 3 or knuckles for one and no third party games ex Valis or Power Rangers the Movie).
I just realized, this morning, that the very difference between this service and Xbox's gamepass, outside of the price or even the value of the package (which can be debated) is that on Xbox, you can STILL BUY those games if you don't feel the like to subscribe.
On Switch, it kinda feels like an hostage situation : if you want to play these retro games (on this platform, off course), you HAVE TO SUBSCRIBE. You just can't buy them. You can't acquire them, outside of this service.
And I'm beginning to think that this is the real problem, here. A subscription service is fine, and it's a good thing that Nintendo provides this option for its players. But in a way, it's not really an option. You just have to subscribe.
I'm still enjoying Metroid Zero Mission on WiiU. I bought that game, I wanted to keep it. I'd love to have an option, on Switch, to just buy the retro games I'm interested in. And off course, the subscription would still be the best deal out there (like Gamepass), but I would like to get the option to really buy my games.
On Playstation and Xbox, you can buy the games that are included in their services, if you want to keep them.
Here, we just can't.
@Matl Nintendo is a massive company, it's not some indie developer trying out new things with pricing models. There is an entire department dedicated to analysis of costs and competition. There is almost certainly constant discussion about Game Pass and whatever Sony is offering with PS+.
A lot of Nintendo's retro backlog is considered very highly in the gaming market and amongst their fanbase. It's honestly not insane to think that millions of people are going to want to enjoy N64 games on their Switch for the price given since a lot of people do really feel nostalgia for these games.
I understand why you'd say that these older games are deeply flawed. Super Metroid is a game that a lot of people to this day considered one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, but after playing Dread I can see how Super Metroid's control scheme and Samus' movement is very flawed. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the game for what it is because I keep in consideration the time in which it was made. It's the same reason why to this day I can pick up games like Baldur's Gate and enjoy them despite the convoluted mechanics and UI of the games. It sure as hell isn't for everybody, and I think Nintendo as a company is well aware of that. This upgrade was never intended for everybody, that's why instead of raising the base price of the online subscription they instead opted for an upgrade system.
If they add GB/GBC/GBA games to the mix a lot more people are going to be into the deal, that's a given. As I said before, Nintendo's research department is 100% looking into this and working out a stable roadmap for updates to come in the future for these titles.
I think another thing of note is that this online service will most certainly still be updated on the current Switch. When the next Nintendo system comes out, that will not invalidate the online subscription on your current console, which is definitely a good thing.
It's also very important to note that as a previous owner of a PS4 Pro it was very discouraging to get PS+ after the games that I wanted have already come and gone with the subscription. When you get the Nintendo Online service you get all of the previously added retro games and not just the ones that are being updated within the timeframe of your current subscription.
As an example, PS+ offered Bloodborne at some point, which is one of the best games on the PS4 (it's even my profile picture) but if you get PS+ the month after then you miss out on that offer. If you get NSO then you get the entire NES and SNES library as well as NSO-exclusive games from the get-go. This is something that I don't think gets discussed nearly enough when it comes to criticizing the service.
If you upgrade to NSO+ (or whatever we want to call it) in 2024, you will still get all of the games that you have seen up to this point including TLZ:OOT and Paper Mario. It's another thing to keep in mind.
You guys are giving us even more reasons not to buy this overpriced BS. First the Animal crossing thing were you have to buy it out or continue to pay yearly for ALL of the DLCs content. If this true about the Sega license, tell them they can keep it. This whole plan is damaged and needs to be scraped and started over. Everything should be an individual "add on".
Why? Most if not all of those games are already available via a compilation, and I thought AU$60 was too expensive for it considering that there were only two or so games among them that I was interested in. The NSO expansion only gives you a fraction of those games and charges you a premium to rent them. A lousy deal if there ever was one.
SEGA’s catalogue only has strength in numbers, and one company can only capitalise on that content so many times.
I assumed it was both the licensing fees and the mandatory Animal Crossing DLC
Wasn't Emily Rogers the person who posted " #2016" with stolen fanart of Kumatora attached?
@The-Nate The mandatory DLC costs Nintendo $0, I have no idea why everybody jumped on the train of assumption to think that this was the reason of the heightened price tag. From a business perspective, if anything, it was an extra incentive to soften the blow of the price tag, and obviously they didn't want to just give the DLC for keeps because that would knock down the additional costs of the actual service which they need the money for to (supposedly) pay for the additional licencing fees from SEGA.
I assume if they were just to involve N64 games as the upgrade we would likely be getting $10 like everybody thought when NL posted the article predicting the pricing. It's honestly really unfortunate that Genesis is part of the line-up when so many games from that system are already individually available through the eShop and other means as well as a strong, well-priced collection readily available for purchase.
I'm wondering if many of those Genesis games will have any online functionality, because at least that would warrant the investment into these games a lot more. Playing Final Fight or Golden Axe with a friend who is a distance away would certainly soften the blow.
@Gwynbleidd I'll say something from a much more personal perspective, I drink and smoke and honestly throwing away one pack or one bottle a year for something I'll most definitely get hours of enjoyment from as a retro enthusiast is more than worth it.
Money plays very different roles when it comes to perspective, I believe that's the moral of the story here. As I mentioned before this upgrade pack doesn't cater to everybody and it's not supposed to. That's why it's optional. Some very strange phenomenon has been happening in the past few years where every video game player believes that everything has to be catered specifically towards them. This involves Nintendo Directs, deals, pricing, etc. This is absolutely not the way it ever was and it will never be that way. Gaming in general is an option, a luxury, something people can survive without. You are given choices and it's your right to invest or not to invest depending on what you think holds value within a deal or a game.
Nothing has to be catered to everybody and not everybody is going to invest the money into every single game, that is simply asking for the impossible and the economy would go to absolute ruin if that were the case.
@Varkster To be fair, the price hike probably comes from both the value the games hold to nintendo/sega AND the animal crossing dlc to an extent. We just aren't sure how much of an extent this is balanced out. But nintendo certainly isn't just giving away the AC dlc for free, I think they would have more sense than to charge what they are if it was just the N64 and sega games withough the AC dlc.
Everybody had that plush sonic
I call [bleep] on this. This is likely the opposite way: they paid Sega for this because they had a budget based on charging for this expansion.
I’m sure Nintendo felt giving away N64 games at higher resolution for just 20 a month would devalue the games, and we know how Nintendo feels about devaluing their properties.
Nintendo also likely felt they undercharged for their online service, and felt adding more consoles (you bet we will eventually see GameCube) would only be acceptable under a higher cost. I also expect the eventual addition of the GBA games to require this expansion.
Considering 7 people and I share a family plan, I couldn’t care less about what is only going to be $10 for me.
@Matl If Nintendo was handing out the DLC for free, then you wouldn't see the limiter on it that's saying that after the subscription expires a lot of the features of the DLC will be locked. The reality of the fact is that they're giving it as an extra incentive and putting a limiter on the ownership of the DLC because they know that a lot of people would just buy the subscription and it would lose them money spent developing the DLC if they were to give it out for free to keep.
They very specifically put these two announcements together because they know that AC:NH is a very popular Switch game with a lot of people requesting new content. The only other option they could have had is including the Smash Bros Fighters Pass instead, but I think that they must have found the value of the pass too high to give it out for free, especially since Smash Bros is a much older game which means it has a less active player base than Animal Crossing.
Perhaps they could have included older DLC in as well, such as the Three Houses, Splatoon and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 expansions, but I'd imagine they noted that people are still buying these at reasonable prices, which wouldn't be a worthwhile deal for them to include.
Shinobi, Wonder boy, Golden Axe, Shadow Dancer, Virtua Fighter, Daytona, Outrun, all great games but in arcade version, not in genesis crap ports we already paid many times
I genuinely don't understand why Genesis games were included at all, then. These games are already on Switch, and they're pretty much available on everything at this point.
If Ninty is going to pay through the nose for licensing costs, then do it for stuff that's worth it. Banjo Kazooie, for example, was a great addition on the N64 side. I wouldn't have minded so much if we were getting a full library of Saturn or Dreamcast games.
@Gwynbleidd Would you really rather pay half the price of the upgrade for a single N64 game that you want to play than buying a 12-month subscription with a constantly upgraded library of the same console?
Perhaps I have a very different view on ownership and collection of games, or maybe I have a much more loose way of looking at spending my money but honestly the latter seems like a much stronger deal to me, especially as a person who would love to play through a lot of these games I missed out on with genuinely good emulation and even added online support if I wished to try it with my friends.
Trust me, I work blood, sweat and tears for my money and I know how hard is it to earn well in this world. I look at games as entertainment which I need in order to relieve stress and gain enjoyment, same reason I spend money on booze, smokes and partying. It's just another staple in my life. I have many, MANY things to pay for and it's definitely not cheap living in Australia especially with the added luxuries that I listed. I wouldn't mind paying a small fraction of my weekly pay per year just to play these games that I wanted to play legally on the go.
Kind if why i said back when sega, and third party games were being added dont expect this expansion to be cheap. They could of added GBA,GBC, and drop 3rd party games ( yes even Banjo.) And increased the price modestly.
"3rd parties titles (Konami, Capcom) are also being licensed for Genesis NSO."
Hm. If accurate, future-proofing good but potentially another rise looming then?
Although I assume this is all largely aimed at the Japanese market.
(Put Mother 3 on there.)
Makes the inclusion of Megadrive and not gameboy and GBA even more ridiculous.
Nintendo have lost the plot on this one.
Have the megadrive thing as a separate thing it’s own virtual console and membership.
The N64 stuff should have been standard
I wish they just made a n64 collection cause subscribing is annoying
@Varkster I’m pretty sure wii and GameCube will never come as those are games which could easily be upressed and ported at full price.
If this is the case it’s time to dump Sega. No one was impressed by the addition of those games.
I’m fairly sceptical that Sega license costs would be the main reason. If the costs were high, why would Nintendo feel they have to pursue an arrangement with Sega or why not split the N64 offerings and Sega ones. It’s pretty clear from the press etc that Switch fans are primarily interested in the N64 catalog, especially when some of the main draw card Sega games like Sonic are readily available in legal manner elsewhere already. Genesis support seems like a bonus, but still a foot note by and large, next to the N64 support. I don’t see why Nintendo would make a deal that financially hurts them by paying too much to Sega for these releases and forces a price that could be detrimental to uptake of the service or Nintendos margins. Sega support just doesn’t seem worth paying a huge amount for.
I suspect Nintendo just thinks the N64 library is worth that much to users.
If Nintendo needed extra content they also have the Gameboy family they could pull content from, so again paying too much to Sega doesn’t make sense to me.
I guess I’ll just skip the online expansion. I’ll get the DLC for AC and be done with it.
@Varkster Big Amen here, and I've been saying all along that there is decent value here. You're getting access to some really cool games, and a FAT expansion for ACNH. And there will almost definitely be more games added to the service, and maybe even more DLC packages.
And if you don't need those things because you own the games already and/or don't play AC, you just don't buy this. It's that simple.
@Gwynbleidd You're not considering that a vast majority of people don't own a 3DS/Wii U or have never owned it and don't have the same collection of VC titles that you have readily available. For the 99% of people that I'm talking about that want to dip into this subscription, I absolutely don't see the fault here. The price tag is high, yes, but as I said already multiple times you're paying for an investment — a 12 months one, at that. Despite the investment, I think a lot of people who missed out on these N64 games (including me, despite having them all through means of emulation), this is a good asking price. As it stands, it all comes down to perspective and who are you are when it comes to video games.
I talked in one of my previous comments about how we're the literal minority, the people commenting on a video game news website and that most people are likely not of the same mindset as we are. The like/dislike ratio on the Nintendo video about this upgrade is very bad, but honestly, the vast majority of people don't even click those buttons. Most likely the people who are interested in playing these games for the first time will buy it and those who have played them before or who have them readily available will not.
You can state your point of view or your ownership of these titles on previous consoles but you can't honestly expect the vast majority of people to be in the same situation as you. It's very common for most people to be selling their old console with a pack of used games when they're trying to invest into a new system, if not downright throwing it away.
There maybe costs, but that does not justify me having to pay for Animal Crossing DLC when I don't own or play or AC.
I'd be happy to pay a small monthly payment to play some N64 games, but thats it.
I have read and been told by gamers that the Switch AC game is low on content and does not have the longevity of previous AC games. We're gamers sold short with the game?
Since the expansion pack price is pro-rated if you already have NSO, that probably means you can upgrade for less, so you can binge what N64/Genesis games they have for now and cancel before renewal. It may pay off for people with a few months left who just want to test run.
And stuff like this people don't think of lol you have to spend money to make money and yes I wanna make my money back then some.day 1 upgrade for me
This seems unlikely since the Wii VC was so long ago. If Sega was that upset, they wouldn't wait until November 2021 to start getting paid.
It is most likely pandemic related. Everything is more expensive, so this shouldn't be surprising.
@Varkster I also have a strong suspicion that within the next year we will see another major update to the current subscription with GBA/GBC/NDS titles added to the mix.
People also had a strong suspicion that the Switch Pro was coming. They also had a strong suspicion that Game Boy games were going to be added now.
How about we just go with the facts.
@JasmineDragon I agree, I think the big take-away here is that this is optional, people aren't being forced to pay for this if they wanted to continue playing their online games such as Monster Hunter, Splatoon, etc. This is just an upgrade for those willing to pay for it.
That's why I'm becoming more and more confused about it. There aren't even any strong added features like themes or anything, this is simply "upgrade to play these retro games, oh, and, get this AC:NH DLC for free as well"....
It's a very strange time when a single glimmer of negativity within gaming news of any kind could spike a massive outrage and discussion within a fanbase. If anything, it's more unhealthy for the amount of people stressing and commenting because it sure as hell doesn't hurt Nintendo in the long run.
It comes down to this: if you don't see the value, this upgrade isn't for you, don't buy it. You're still going to have your online with the current subscription you own. End of story.
Being able to play retro games online, including simultaneous and pass-and-play, makes it all worth it for me. Have played through Super Metroid, Yoshi's Island, A Link to the Past, and several competitive games with friends I grew up with over the last year. That's the definite value for me above and beyond collections or VC, plain and simple.
Nintendo should just buy Sega already. There's so much untapped potential there, both in terms of the huge back catalogue of amazing classic games and all the great legacy the hardware. It would be so special if Nintendo and Sega become one.
@Crono1973 It's not unreasonable to suspect they will add more systems to the upgraded line-up since the N64 library is quite small in terms of must-own titles. I'd argue it's even smaller than the Gamecube library. They're asking for a 12-month subscription and (presumably) within the next month or two we're getting the other games they showed in the Direct. After that, there are 5-10 more games I can think off the top of my head that are must-haves for N64 and they need to justify the upgrade moving forward.
I get where you're coming from, but I think it's easy to use deductive logic and common sense to come to the conclusion that they will have to involve their handheld systems in their line-up soon enough.
Well, I don't mind paying $20 for Phantasy Star IV.
I'm definitely not gonna bother with the NSO expansion until it's either A. Revised or B. Offers more bang for your buck with more options. N64 is fine, but TBH I'm not interested in most of the Sega Genesis entries and not into Animal Crossing at all.
I subscribe to the current service, but mainly for the cloud backups (While I'm fine for them charging for this since it takes up storage space, I'm still salty that this is the only legal way we can back up saves) and the rare online Monster Hunter Rise session. I've never even booted up the NES/SNES features yet thanks to already owning most of the games I'm interested in via the SNES Classic or the Wii U/3DS VC.
@Gwynbleidd I didn't disagree with you about that from the get-go. I said in one of my previous comments that I think it's a shame they didn't just add the option to buy these games like on the VC or add the option to buy the subscription monthly, instead of investing for a year. I wouldn't pay $15 per game but I still think an option should always be presented to the customer if there is demand.
I'm not entirely defending them on this, I'm simply saying that the yearly price is actually quite justifiable depending on the person buying the upgrade.
From the start I've been saying that Nintendo's lack of providing options to the customer is bad business practice and I disagree with it. My argument is that the overall package, when you put it into perspective, is actually a very good price considering the content.
Whatever the reasoning for the insane price is I wish Nintendo would just come out and tell us exactly why. If the NSO was a competent service with dedicated servers, messaging, voice chat.. you know, the basics. I'd be all for it. Hell, I'd even say it would compete with Gamepass Ultimate in a sense. It's a bit of a hot take but that's strictly my opinion. However, the NSO service offers none of those things. I love Nintendo but I'm not impressed with this at all.
Then why do it. I couldn't care at all for the Genesis titles. Let third parties work out for themselves how they would like to sell their classics. I would rather that NSO was for first party Nintendo titles across classic platforms and bring the price down. Maybe separate the platforms as multiple smaller expansion subscriptions. So people can pick and choose what they want to pay for instead of asking people to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a bunch of stuff they won't use.
I'm not defending Nintendo's decision making on this, though I'm not gonna go as far as to call them scummy or anti consumer. I personally will buy the Animal Crossing DLC and stick with the basic membership for now. I also wonder why they felt the need to pursue the Genesis library as an addition over one of their own not currently available.
But I am still curious as to why those who boast to have these games through other means are so incensed with rage. Not saying Nintendo is above reproach. I've stated my gripes with some of their decision making on this very site. But with this, an optional subscription, I don't get why those who probably don't necessarily have a need for it are so upset
Man, I don’t know why people are so upset about an ultimately cheap method for streaming more than 20 more games than before. It’s cheaper yearly than purchasing one new game. I thought the Genesis announcement felt like a lead balloon to me too, as I got excited like everyone else when Nintendo suggested a second console and thought GB and N64 were coming in tandem. But I mean, seriously, I prefer NSO+Expansion to Game Pass, based on the titles we get. It’s a solid line up. Cheaper than the VC too.
No one asked for Genesis, these prices are a disaster.
If true, this is basically what I’ve been saying to many VC proponents. Now I would love a VC “to buy” option for select titles, but as the Wii U’s VC offerings were far lower than the Wii U’s it became apparent sales were not great. In fact I bet only a dozen or so titles (the big hitters) probably ended up turning a profit.
Honestly though, Musha Aleste is really the only MD title I want to play. Hopefully it becomes available through another method. Maybe via a second Aleste Collection.
@Varkster What you think Nintendo will do and what Nintendo will actually do may not be the same. Let's just stick with the facts, aren't you tired of the rumors and speculation?
Some people are speculating that they will justify the price by adding more DLC, not more systems. No one knows for sure so why bother with the speculation? Speculation is wishful thinking.
@Crono1973 Most rumours especially reported on this site have always been outlandish. I said what my biggest criticisms were of this new subscription model on this same thread and I also gave my piece on why I believe the pricing was actually quite fair, depending on the circumstances.
What my speculations are based off is common sense and their previous actions, especially their previous handling of the initial NSO. They added SNES a year after initializing the model, I think it makes sense they will do the same to the upgrade if they want more people to invest and the game library to keep growing. Obviously if they stop pumping out ROMs of N64 games people will stop buying the upgrade.
Yes, I get the fact that my word doesn't mean s*** in the wider scope of things, I'm not even a part of the industry, but to me it makes a lot of sense.
Whether people want to invest — this option is available to them forever. In a year they can get this service with a load more games available to play if they choose to. Until that time, this sevice is only for the enthusiasts. I'm 1000% sure Nintendo is aware of this.
@k4mik4z3 It's on the Sega Genesis Collection. You can go get it right now and get alot of other games with it.
@zool
The Nov 5 free update effectively brings New Horizons in line with previous entries and then some.
The Happy Home Paradise DLC is effectively a sequel to Happy Home Designer on 3DS.
No, the asking price is just Nintendo being Nintendo. If people want Genesis games, they can buy the Sega Genesis Collection on Switch.
Between subbing to access Sega games on Switch, or playing the versions I already paid for and own on xbox, think I'll stick with Xbox.
It's also not a good sign if Nintendo felt like the NSO service needed Genesis and Banjo titles so badly that they paid that kind of money, instead of, I don't know, just releasing the N64 titles that Nintendo already own and that people have been asking for.
Just ***** Nintendo pivoting everyone thought it would have been GB/GBA but nope here’s Genesis games nobody asked for, when Nintendo gets arrogant they pivot this is why they made the Wii U which nobody could have predicted and after it failed they made the Switch which is what people had predicted they’d do early into the failure of the Wii U.
IWATA's Nintendo will be forever missed.
The new age of Nintendo is turning quite disgusting, arrogant, self-inflated and greedy.
@zool youre not paying for the dlc, its an extra
Maybe a good deal for Nintendo to get on Sega’s good side after the Wii U VC but what value is there for customers? Sega Genesis Classic collection has been on Switch for years and one of my most played games. Dreamcast would of made much sense for the price.
Well that wasn't worth it.
Give us Crazy Taxi, then maybe.
@Bustacap youre not paying for the dlc, its an extra
You are paying for all of it.
@Franklin These are Genesis games. Not Dreamcast games.
@Kidfunkadelic83 they’ll probably roll in those systems under the expansion pass over time.
@msvt yes, Iwata is missed, but he laid out the Switch roadmap before he died. Furukawa hasn’t done much since he came into his position. Whether NSO was his idea or not, I couldn’t tell you. And greed? The whole industry is powered by money, not goodwill. You think Sony and Microsoft are in it for charity?
The more I look at it, I can see it a lot more now. Sega already has their Genesis Collection on Switch so Nintendo offering it with it at a lower price would definitely be a hard sell for Sega. Having Konami and Capcom on when they've been none existent with their major games (which they would want you to buy as part of their own collections) means that Nintendo would definitely need to give them a larger sum of money to make it worth putting on the service
I would be happier with an expansion option without the Sega games; I already bought all the sega games for Switch I am interested in, so really I only care about the N64 games. But I don't think I want the N64 games quite enough for the current pice.
Remove the genesis and have either gameboy or wii on switch
I hope the expansion won’t increase more price when they add gameboy, DS, Wii, GameCube
@Mystique if you already have the standard you get a price cut from the expansion depending how long of the standard subscription you have left.
At that price you could get a retro handheld that plays all sorts of things. Love those lil mini devices, just haven’t decided which one I want. May hold out for steam deck , thing looks awesome!
Zero interest in returning to N64 games.
Online multiplayer Genesis games is about it
No way I am paying more than double year after year for that. Maybe 5 to 15 more per year. Otherwise they are going to have to offer so much more to justify the ($80).
Now if they included the SEGA CD version of NHL 94, well that is another story.
Then give us the option not to pay for it, a large portion of people do t care about the Genesis games or the AC DLC and just want the N64 games.
What?
It's a $25 a year price increase. The "main culprit", hell the ONLY culprit is "Hey I bet we could get more money"
I say this a lot but it's worth repeating. Nintendo fans are awful and extremely stupid. Like beyond belief. Unfortunately that means sites has to pander to them and publishes things like this without adding little bits of perspective like ...
"In fairness, services like Netflix have increased their price by an $24 a year 3 times in the last 8 years, while Humble Bundle recently increased their price by $96 a year while DECRESSING the number of games you get, so an additional $2 a month for new games and the Animal Crossing DLC doesn't really need much of an explanation"
In a prefect world they would ever do some actual reporting and also add "It is an extremely common and accepted practice in Japan (to the point you could say it's even expected) that when introducing a new cost like a subscription service or even a new tax to start at a introductory price lower then the eventual target to minimize backlash, then slowly increase it over time. We should fully expect the price of Nintendo's online service to follow a pattern of adding new levels at a higher price followed by phasing out the lower cost tier until the service's yearly cost is inline with Xbox Live and PS+"
I just wanted to comment on that, seeing Banjo-Kazooie in the sizzle reel for the expansion pass lets me know that there definitely was some serious licensing going on with Microsoft, Rare, and Nintendo since B-K is not Nintendo's IP. That got me to thinking-- The N64 library gets thin once the 1st party games release, leaving only a few 3rd party gems and good unknowns (but mostly 3rd party garbage), and the remainder chunk of decent games are from Rare (Jet Force Gemini, Blast Corps, Banjo-Tooie, Killer Instinct Gold, Perfect Dark... As for the licensing nightmare of GoldenEye...? Well, lol). If this romance of Nintendo x Microsoft x Rare continues, and we get those other Rare games, then this extended subscription would be justified for me, at least for the N64 games. As for SEGA, eh... Should've just released GB/GBC/GBA, but that's just my opinion.
@progx
I use "greed" because of what has only been known as the 'switch tax'... same products and/or content across other platforms are fraction of what Switch ends up with... it's literally a meme at this point. It's fine with me and not looking to debate or gaslight anyone... I have previous generations I still enjoy... this new nintendo and new philosophy I can tell you that. I have loads less affinity towards this nintendo than I have ever had since the NES days. It is a big change and not at all a positive one in my opinion.
There were a few Sega GBA games released on VC. But they were all Japan only.
Honestly the only Sega game I really want is Sonic 3K and it’s not there. I’m much more excited for the N64 games.
If it included sega games like crazy taxi , house of the dead , jet set radio , 18 wheeler & outrun I'd be interested but not genesis games I can already buy & own
Emily Rogers.. so not actual information. She can be trusted as far as I can flip my shoe. She makes educated guesses, does not make them insider. Take any info from her with a grain of salt.
Unless all of the games she 'leaked' actually get released or mentioned again to recoup all the non credibility she has. Such as Pokémon Stars, mother 3 on the Wii u, and plenty of other no shows. I also don't understand how acknowledging a report from Bloomberg makes them the one who leaked the information..
It is also common knowledge that Nintendo would have to pay increased license fees for consoles and games they do not own. That's how licensing works.
@RadarRider1987
The Megadrive flopped in Japan. The nostalgia for that system primarily exists in North America and Europe.
They would have wanted Gameboy and GB Advance as much as the rest of us.
@Longondo I recall a lot of vocal outcry in hopes of there being Genesis/Megadrive, Turbografix and other consoles to come to the online service during its early tenure. Nintendo likely have just recently started to read those requests as they are stuck a good 5 years or so behind the rest of the world.
I find that hard to believe. The licensing fee has nothing to do with it. If they get a million people paying 20 extra or 5 million people 10 extra, which would they choose?
They apparently think this will give them the most.
ok so why they included Sega Genesis? lol
People saying - this will be added and that will be added….. rubbish….. they have barely added any SNES and NES games since they ditched the regular updates and n64 they’ve launched with 8 hahah. Anyone thinking another console gets added this side of 18 months is out of their minds
@msvt the original Mario Bros can be beaten in one sit down. When it released, it cost $25. Adjustments for inflation brings that up to $100. Nintendo has always been on the expensive side of gaming.
The low sales on wii where because sega put it for free on the play store.
@Varkster you know I owned all these games on 3ds and wiiU after had buying them the first time on their original systems. If the next switch isn’t backward compatible I’m just going to buy a PC and pirate the crap out of Nintendo. I’ve supported them since 1985. They got my money. I don’t care anymore.
@BlackenedHalo because a good amount gamers ask for it reason why gamers are too entitled these days so im not going to fully blame nintendo on this price hike.The blame should be place on partially the gaming community along with the 3rd party devs as well plus who ever started this trend in the first place is also at fault.
@sixrings I have the entire worthwhile catalogue of every game up until the Wii saved and sorted on my hard drive. All of this is readily available, but I do not play these games because, honestly, it feels dirty. I ran through a couple of years in my late teens when all I would do is steal even just to survive, but I am glad that I can now afford all of these luxuries through (admittedly) hard work.
I have attained enough trust in Nintendo to make these prices worthwhile in the long run. Everybody jumps the gun in calling this company a cheap rip-off without taking into consideration that this is the same exact company which gave us Bayonetta on top of a purchase of Bayonetta 2 for free with added features in the Wii U era. This is the same company where Iwata, the highest in the chain, cut his income in half to prevent people from getting fired.
At the moment it really comes down to how enthusiastic you are towards this company to be willing to invest. The fact that they provided deals that insane during their most financially troublesome times gives me a lot of respect for them and I give them that credit and trust as a long term consumer I have trust that they are willing to make this deal work.
I fear I know about this, being privvy to a person in one of these companies legal teams. But I feel I shouldn't share too much.
But this sort of... Extends from a different discussion between the two right now in terms of "offers."
@msvt
Iwata Nintendo was no different beyond corporate presentation. They’ve always been a very money hungry corporation because they’re a corporation that only exists to make money. The Iwata era gave us dreadful DRM, Region Locking, Microtransactions, DLC, Mobile Gaming, Free-to-start games, toys to life etc. Just different ways of chasing cash.
@RiasGremory
It’s Nintendo’s decision
@Gwynbleidd
Great example of the Nintendo fans I was talking about!
I write about how it's bad reporting to blame a price increase on licencing and some child replies with their dissertation on why things shouldn't cost money and how the power to simply not buy a service you don't feel has value isn't good enough.
For those of us that don't give a sh@t about Sega can we choose to only pay $10 extra for N64 games?
NintendoLife going into damage control mode.
When Nintendo gets around to letting me A) buy their first-party legacy games permanently where B) purchases are tied to my user account instead of a single system (as was the case with the VC), then I'll have an interest. I'm simply not sinking $50 a year into a shoddy online service they're trying to prop up with a trickle of retro games.
Case in point: there was all this concern yesterday about whether users' access to the new ACNH DLC would be lost if their subscription to SO lapsed (the answer is "some" of it will). The simple solution is just to buy the DLC outright; whether you do so or not doesn't take one red cent off that SO Expansion asking price; if you think for a second there is genuine "value" in ANYTHING you don't permanently own or control the rights to when you fork over this kind of dough, I have a bridge to sell you, real cheap. The fact that so many people just roll over and comply with modern online business practices as they keep getting worse and worse is why corporations like Nintendo feel free to treat them like dirt.
Learn to cowboy up, vote with your wallets, and say "NO" every once in awhile. It'll do you good in the long run.
@MetalMan
Of course not. Like I said, Nintendo wanted an excuse to have a high priced subscription tier like the big boys despite the value not being there.
@electrolite77 i dont know about that even big companies like nintendo,sony and microsoft can be influence by 3rd party devs.
Nintendo paying Sega a premium? Nintendo? To Sega? A premium?.....No, that’s just not possible..no way
Anyone saying Nintendo more than doubled the NSO fee because Sega brought some serious hardball to the table with...Genesis games.... that’s just... crazy
The Genesis games, that ostensibly did low figures in the Wii shop VC... came roaring back to smack Nintendo with a vengeance and a premium... and Nintendo just couldn’t resist... changed and rocked their world... the Genesis games..
The Genesis games...
😂
If this is true, please start paying Square, Capcom/Disney and Konami/Nickelodeon/Fox/etc.
@AtlanteanMan
Totally support the vote with your money message regardless of what side your vote would go to! But I'm really not sure about your second point.
Nintendo works just like Xbox when it comes to your account and purchases. They are tied to BOTH your account and your "home" console, so if you are logged on to any Switch under your account you have access to them, while at the same time any account logged into your Switch also has access. This is actually insanely useful because you can make a friend's console YOUR "home" while making the one you use their "home", and then at all time you will both have complete access to the other's games (as long as you have an internet connection when you start the game up initially. You can keep playing without a connection)
There are a few hiccups, I play Animal Crossing with my wife despite owning only a single copy between us and it kicks me out when she starts up the game (although I can get right back in and it doesn't kick her out) and we have to use the Internet to visit each other (can't use local connection).
Clubhouse games never kicks us but it does force us to use an Internet connection to play with each other on a shared copy of the game.
Nothing else I can think of gives us any problems. It IS a little unintuitive to find and download games from your account on to someone else's console unlike Xbox where they just show up automatically as you port over your desktop interface, but the option is there.
The Sega stuff seems kinda pointless since many people already bought the Megadrive/Genesis Collection. Nintendo should have released GBA games with the N64 stuff instead.
@RiasGremory
Yeaaaaaaah. Ultimately it’s on Nintendo. Whatever pressure, it’s their service, their pricing, their call.
@Gwynbleidd
You're probably right, even though my personal experience has been different. I used to do freelance reporting work in the Xbox space when I was more actively involved in game development and it was never like this. Sites demanded real stories and the comments to unpleasant realities like price increases was generally "Mah. That's life" (1)
It's also the shocking divide between NA/EU Nintendo fans and Japan that influences me. I move between Canada and Japan and the fan base over there is nothing like this. It's just my theory but I think it's because the NA/EU fans are older and got hooked on Nintendo because their parents were well off enough to buy them a NES or Gameboy (Look at how often you read commnents like "I played MY copy of red/blue on MY Gameboy. Ummm ... no. Unless you are like 60 it was your parents who bought them) while in Japan even the Gameboy was a "family" console. It wasn't uncommon for parents to take it with them to work and it was INSANELY uncommon to see a kid or teenager with one at school.
As such, I think a lot of it has to do with the base being made up of adults who grew up as entitled brats and their equally entitled children.
But hey, I have absolutely no evidence to support that outside extremely limited personal experience, so who knows.
1 - After posting this I remembered how bad the fandom got after the "always online" Xbox announcement. I had a contact and had just finished a huge article on some of the features that always online was going to allow and they were AWSOME. You were going to be able to let anyone on your friends list "borrow" your games, sell used digital games, invite friends to play any online game with you without them having to own it ... a ton of stuff. I sold it for A LOT because I had it ready to be released as soon as the embargo was lifted ... but it was never published. After the fan reaction the site I sold it to didn't think it was a good idea to post anything positive about it, even if it was just factual with no opinion. So I guess no fandom is perfect.
blast processing ain't cheap
As everyone else has said, if this was the issue, why did they even need to include them in the first place? No one really expected or wanted Genesis games, and while some did want Rare's games, they'd probably understand if they had to be left out because of Microsoft's BS. Most of the people wanting N64 wanted stuff like... Mario 64 or OoT, first party games. I see no reason why they couldn't have just given us N64 and GB games for $30-$40.
This is the reason why I figured they should have went with N64-GBA. That way they stay strictly Nintendo. This would have been monumentally cheaper and would have made them just as much money if not more. I mean the Switch is the culmination of all things Nintendo, right? This whole Sega deal could have been like a side-app or something.
It makes sense, that explains why every Sega Ages game costs $30 a piece, right?
Either the ACNH DLC was a last minute add-on, or this is complete BS. 'Cuz the way I see it, the DLC is $25, vanilla NSO is $20, so the Genesis & N64 games are valued at $5.
And if this is the case, I'd rather have had them add GB & GBC games like most people, and had that alleged Sega money go to translating Japan-exclusive NES Online & SNES Online games like the SMT ones so that we could play those instead.
I always assumed that VC was more trouble than it’s worth. Only the fan favorites sell and even with that you get a small cut. It seems that big upfront payoffs and subs to recoup are the way to go. Gamepass seems to have a similar strategy from what I have read.
The only way I could see this being worthwhile is if Sega also released their Saturn, Dreamcast, or arcade catalogue to the Switch over time. There are so many games on there I’d love to play that paying the price would be a no brainer. But it’s just Sega Genesis games again, with the majority not really ageing well, or at least not as well as a lot of SNES games. But for now I’ll pass, I’d be interested to see if they added Gameboy the base service and GBA to the enhanced service.
I can’t see Nintendo paying Sega a fee for Genesis games while Nintendo could release GB/GBC/GBA games for almost free.
It sounds plausible, but I don't think it's true. For one thing, that included Animal Crossing DLC that costs 25 bucks on its own for a "permanent" (whatever that even means these days...) license to use was, for whatever reason, made a part of the service.
I can only guess they did this for one or both of two possible reasons: one, to hide the fact it is the game's first paid DLC; and second, because otherwise $50 would seem like a blatantly obvious rip-off to everyone--not just us Nintendo fans and others whole actually see the whole picture.
They wanted to foist some more garbage upon all of us, and sneakily sell it like it's such a great deal. Personally I have little interest in the DLC and I'd rather buy it for $25 outright if I did--you know, to be able to play it indefinitely, as it should be, with or without NSO service--instead of being forced to pay $30 more for a service that effectively includes a monthly or yearly RENTAL of that DLC, which on its own should realistically only cost $10-15 more per year. Bottom line, I should not need a consistent Internet connection and weekly calling home to Nintendo to ask if I can use DLC in a game. This is just a disgusting, anti-consumer move on Nintendo's part... I can't put it any more nicely than that.
Also, look at the complimentary hardware. The N64 and Genesis controllers. Compared to their NES and Super NES predecessors, they both cost $20 more per unit, and in the case of the Sega Genesis controller, you are getting even fewer buttons than the previous Super NES controller! Now, you could argue from that that Sega may be getting paid more for the controller too, which would fit into the original claim, but...
...the Nintendo 64 controller is ALSO 50 bucks! Yes, a controller featuring a d-pad, a thumbstick, A, B, L, R, Z, Start, and four C buttons plus rumble support... costs the same as a Genesis controller with only a d-pad, a Start button, and three action buttons.
Considering both controllers are the same price, I doubt that Sega had any real advantage in the price of the hardware. It seems to me like it's just Nintendo as usual, charging the absolute MOST that they think they can get away with... and yeah, Sega probably also benefits in the end. But I think this is a thing of Nintendo's doing.
Well that's a silly decision then. Nintendo, just emulate all your own platforms (home & portable) and catalogues first to keep the price down for consumers who are probably mostly interested in Nintendo content first and foremost anyways lol smh.
And on top of that, it's not even like they chose the Sega Game Gear or Dreamcast which hasn't been done on Virtual Console before or anything. So many options have or currently exist to play Genesis games smh.
Poor excuses & decisions in 2021 imo. Hope they wise up and get the service together with better additions & value soon.
... Wun can only hope.
Regardless of the reason, I do not see the value as of right now.
But to go deeper... At the current moment, any licensing fees with MS/Rare mean jack because we don't even get those games at launch- we aren't even provided with a date or an estimation.
And Sega were paid very well to put a bunch a bunch of their games on the service that are widely available elsewhere, for direct purchase? If so, Nintendo made an incompetent business move. There's so many ways to play SOR2, Sonic 2, and Golden Axe that it's unreal... we aren't even getting the full trilogies for those. I've got access to many of these games through other channels, so there is no value in it for me.
I thought online services were to play games that support and online component/were built to be played online, now Nintendo what you to be the Netflix of videogames bringing content very few people asked to have since we'll, it has been available elsewhere so many times before. Online gaming has fail because gamers want to own the their games, not rent them. I think that's what annoys me the most about it. This is ridiculous.
Problem with a rumor like this is that it won’t ever be verified. I too might start staying things that cannot be debunked. You know, for the fame. Or whatever.
Licensing costs or not, it still doesn't change the fact that nintendo's online is still complete garbage. Charging $50 annually and still don't have the basic features that xbox and playstation have...its completely unacceptable. Now that it's in the $50 range this service is more starting to be compared to other online services..nintendo needs to get with the times.
@EriXz Yep. It seems that with the end of "free major updates" to Animal Crossing, Nintendo has its sights not only on "paid" DLC, but possibly even worse: "DLC as a service." cringe
Nintendo doesn't seem to care to fix their actual lagging online service... instead just fluff it up with rental DLC. I seriously hope this fails, because I do not like the way Nintendo is heading with their so-called "online service." They have literally moved from not only renting old games... but now renting DLC for new games.
Hey Nintendo, where's your actual... you know... online gaming service improvements? You know, improvements to actually playing games online? As in, not software as a service, but instead just playing the games that you own online?
@somnambulance In general, a movie costs about 3 times less to own than a video game. A show with 6 or more seasons would cost about the price of a video game.
Would anyone subscribe to Netflix if it only had 10 shows and 30 or so movies? No, not at all. It’s not a good price to stream 20 games for $30 a year, games that based on VC pricing would cost about 180 dollars to own.
Also, who likes Altered Beast? SEGA includes that game in just about everything.
I wish there were a a tiered paid system which you could choose Sega, N64, other expansion packs etc. Because I have a Sega collection Already with most of these games and others
I would have just bipassed Sega and just talked Konami into popping a load of their NES and SNES games onto the Switch Online. Far greater hit-rate than Sega. Konami these days will do anything for money with minimum effort so would almost certainly been cheeper to deal with than Sega.
Not "Sega", more accurately "third parties". Rare, Konami, Capcom, Compile as well as Sega (and probably more I missed) always meant the licensing costs were going to be high, but I hope that its setting a prescident that we continue to get varied and valuable games rather than the usual contenders.
What baffles me is that they added Genesis/Mega Drive games before adding things from their own catalgue they could have added for free - Gameboy, BG Color, Advance, Virtual Boy, Gamecube, Wii all would have been far more "valuable" to their core audience, surely? Or if you are going to start paying extra for licensed games, add some more to the NES and SNES libraries with that money first too.
Personally, I love Sega stuff but I'd be far more excited for a more full service with things we don't often see - Master System (especially post '91), Mega CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast - or arcade games.
@UltraZelda64 So true on all accounts. I've always been supportive of Nintendo, but this is blatantly anti consumer. It's a scumbag tactic led by a Nintendo CEO who likely doesn't play games and could care less if anyone thinks this is a joke of a deal. Even more hilarious is their stealth announcement yesterday, with the N64 controller sold out in minutes. Seemingly unprepared with supply again. Unprepared for the backlash to Switch expansion, and probably why they got word to Emily Rogers to put out a nonsense rumor. Nintendo took a huge step back yesterday and showed the type of company they've become.
@anzzjam
I love the arcade version with its crazy clean voice samples.
I could live without the Genesis version. I don’t understand why Sega can’t just use the arcade version in its collections. Better yet, just give us both.
This supposition just isn't logical. If we accept that Sega didn't like the virtual console because their sales on that platform were low, why would this lead to Nintendo paying a high price for games that, on this basis, are hardly likely to drive take up of the subscription? Low demand for Sega titles wouldn't increase the price that Nintendo would pay, surely? Ludicrous.
If it’s sega driving up the cost can I just get the n64 games for $10 a year extra?
I wouldn't think of this as a big deal if it means we get more quality third party games on the NES and SNES collections down the line.
@koffing Ya the N64 has 297 total games I believe and even then some may not be compatible pokemon stadium 1 & 2, no transfer pak, some bad games, Superman N64 for example.
@PokemonDMG dont give them the idea of bringing over superman 64.
With NES/SNES, it was licensing on an individual game basis where most of the games were from Nintendo that didn't need licensing. With the Genesis, not only is Nintendo paying Sega for licensing of the platform, but the platform itself is technically 3rd-party to Nintendo, so EVERY title coming from it needs licensing.
@Cyberbotv2 You really believe Nintendo has that kind of time and care to go to the some random leaker to plant a rumor? You don't think that's a little bit out there?
The Saturn and Dreamcast better be inline then.
I’d accept the pricing if GB/C, GBA, GC, Wii and DS along with Saturn and DC are coming later on at no extra cost.
Throw the sega games in the trash then, problem solved?
I highly doubt this, why would nintendo want genesis so badly? It doesn't have any demand of that of nintendo's retro games so why not just launch it with something like gameboy?
If true then Nintendo made a big mistake. They could have just bought every subscriber a Genesis Collection download and moved on. I won’t ever be paying for this subscription, and in truth am planning to let my regular subscription expire in a few weeks.
Well then they should have skipped Genesis, since we can buy most of those already anyway. Zero interest or want from me
Nintendo made a bad decision. I want GBA games. Stuff not already available
Wow. I downloaded more mega drive games from 07 til around 11 than any other retro platform. I assumed millions of other gamers did the same.
Then again some companies have ridiculous expectations. I remember what Square Enix thought was likely for Tomb Raider 2013 and it was ridiculous then.
Maybe Sega had ridiculous numbers in mind for wii and didn't quite hit that high, eg 10 million downloads for Sonic 3 and Streets of Rage 2.
This should have been fairly obvious to anyone who understands how retro game re releases generally work. Nintendo also likely had to throw a lot of money at Microsoft for the right to include Banjo Kazooie on their service
@RiasGremory Oh ya can see it now, only question is who will swing the giant mallet? The Mario bros. or the Warner bros./Warner sister on the deal?
@UmbreonsPapa
I don't think modern day Nintendo is the same as they were even a few years ago. I wouldn't put anything past them anymore. Considering they actually came out recently to squash the newest 4K rumors that came via Bloomberg shows they are watching and listening to news cycles. And with yesterday's announcement, they'll never backtrack on any of it themselves but I'm sure they have folks putting stuff out there to justify their pricing and online structure.
But in the end, none of it matters. If people want to think what Nintendo is offering here is good value, good for them. I just find myself extremely disappointed with their entire approach with the Online expansion. If Iwata was still here, this would not have been his way.
@Cyberbotv2 both sides can agree and disagree on this subject but lets not forget who started this trend in the gaming industry the first place (cough)sony and microsoft(cough).
@MARl0
Indeed.
Argh I just want to be able to play DS and GBA games without having to open my 3DS (while I’m on it, bring the remastered Zelda’s and star fox across). Why on earth would I give a crap about Sega? I can literally play these games on an iPad
@anzzjam Yeah but you're not actually streaming NES, Super NES, N64, and Sega Genesis games on NSO. All those games are downloaded to your console so everytime you want to play you just need to access NSO. The only thing is the NSO app itself would only be open to subscriber so if you want to play a retro game just subscribe and you had access to all of them.
Also games are not the same as movies. A single game could have 5 to 20 times the contents than one movie had. A game like Breath of Fire had multiple endings and a plethora of secrets that players probably won't be able to find their first time through. For a dedicated player, it'll take them 7-50 hours just to complete a single game depending on its genre and difficulty.
A game service launching with 20 titles for $30 a year with promised of more coming per month sounds like a good deal to me especially if you had access to all of them instead of paying full price for each. Unless you're super good at speed running each game or is not a fan of any of the genre than perhaps 20 titles at launch won't impress you but you had to realize those 20 aren't just the only games you'll get on the service cause more will be added as time goes on, the subscription price will never change, and you had full access to every title instead of just one or two.
If this is true, why didn't Nintendo just pass on the Genesis games and charge less? WTH?
Nintendo sites and fans are so strange to give so much attention to people that have been frequently and very notoriously wrong like this person, whereas any other community would have ignored then 10 years ago like we should have. It's just ***** hearsay like always
@Ryu_Niiyama
Yeah I think there’s a disconnect between how popular some fans think the VC was and how popular it actually was
@Cyberbotv2
I don’t have any confidence in that. It was Iwata that gave us Nintendo’s moves into system-locked DRM, Region-locked portables, Microtransactions, DLC including Day One DLC, Season Passes, subscriptions (for Pokemon Bank), Mobile gaming, and worst of all ‘Free to Start’ mechanics.
In 2012 before the Wii U disaster, subsequent losses and shareholder pressure during that period (and before Sony went the paid subscription route) he said “ We cannot promise here that Nintendo will always provide you with online services free of charge no matter how deep the experiences are that it may provide, but at least we are not thinking of asking our consumers to pay money to just casually get access to our ordinary online services”
(https://nintendoeverything.com/iwata-discusses-nintendos-non-subscription-online-approach-for-wii-u/)
This entirely tallies with the approach they’ve taken with the Switch, a system he was heavily involved with.
@Taro
Never break down subscription costs month by month if the minimum term is longer. That’s what they want you to do to blind you to the actual cost. Always work out the total over the life of the contract whether it be Mobile Phones or Car Leases or whatever. It seems this Expansion Pack is only available in yearly blocks, so the actual cost is what it costs for a year.
I always thought, comparing NSO NES and SNES with the respective minis, that they shared almost all games because the license included both releases.
Mega Drive Mini was cheap enough, so I didn't think third-party games had been that expensive to justify Sega charging Nintendo so much now.
Anyway I think they shot at their feet, because NSO games were always a perk, not the main reason to subscribe. Double the price and many people will pay, but not as many as you thought.
50,- only is just insane.
They have to let people try out the subscription if it is worth it.
Judging from the release pace of snes and nes games, it is not worth your money.
It looks like nintendo first needs a pile of cash to buy these licenses, and this makes it sketchy, because as user we don't know if they can deliver along the way, between negociations and the one year subscription.
I think it is better that in the first year, they need to convince users by letting them try out a monthly subscription for like monthly 6,- and € 50,-
Still nintendo gets a big pile of money every month, because i think only 8% will use this subscription, and out of 8% maybe 3% takes a year subription that is still around 2,7 million x 50,- a year(135 million a year)
On top of that 3% from that last 5% will continue their monthly subscription wich makes 72x 2,7 million a year (189 million)
And this is at is lowest expectations, and ofcourse there are expenses.
Anyhow, nintendo needs to promote this new subscription on tv, adds etc, and it is worth it because any percent higher means alot of money .
@Richnj The only way I can see the price increase being to do with SEGA licensing making sense is if the rumours about Microsoft trying to buy SEGA are true.
@electrolite77 I think you misread what I wrote
@Grumblevolcano
Wich is stupid, sega is still busy dying.
The company lack creativity in their development team for almost 20 years, and the company is stuborn to make drastic changes.
Just too many old thinkers and old employees walking trough the hallways of the company.
There is always something lacking in their products (allthough street of rage was a great step) and sonic is just a too small caracter too make sega big again. They need a new talented team, young and fresh programmers that get along nice and share ideas without some old ***** in a suit keep ideas restricted
At this moment, It is a poor investment if you ask me.
With all the GB/GBA articles that were flying around, I would have put money on them being added to the service. I would have been tempted if that was the case. Suppose it will be another 4 years before we can start dreaming of Gamecube games.
If the mega drive collection didn't already exist In could understand why they might think their is some value in it. But it does, surely most sega fans will already own that
I can't make my mind up what to do on this at all. On the one hand, it's at least half as much again as I was hoping for. On the other hand £60 a Year is not a lot of money to me. Unfortunately my wife and daughter both saw this direct and can't wait for the dlc and I admittedly would love to play some stuff I inexplicably missed 1st time around, majora, paper mario and banjo to name 3. My real problem is the message it sends nintendo by going along with it. Ps plus games aren't often up to much, but gamepass really has raised the bar and this N/O isn't in the same league as game pass. Honestly, a netflix model or cloud gaming is not going to go away and my belief is it will be the future, like it or not. I've never bought a cloud game myself but cannot see how a rental or digital model, coupled with the potential environmental savings of not manufacturing and distributing physical games wont become a factor or convenient excuse as well. Obviously there are server overheads and maintenance etc to consider. Why they couldn't just prove the doubters wrong and come in at lower than expected price and give value above and beyond is really disappointing , especially with the captive audience they have some how worked for themselves again
The service was overpriced in the first place IMO, and I pretty sure the licensing isn't why we see a price jump. Nintendo wants to earn money where it can which is fine IMO and I'm not mad or hateful towards this decision. But one thing is certain. I am not going to pay extra for this service before we get FREE downloadable games like epic does it on their launcher on PC.
In the end it all comes down to what you want to pay for this service yourselves. 🙏👍
I love Sega and the Genesis (obviously), but I doubt that this handful of games was source of the huge price increase. These games are indeed available many other places cheaply. I think it’s just more added value in the eyes of Nintendo. Younger gamers are not going to play many of the N64 games either. At the end of the day, only you can decide if it’s worth it or not. I for one am excited and I’ve wasted more money than what they’re asking on a bad game more than once. Is is higher than what I expected? Sure. Is it still within the realm of doable? Yes. This is not an especially cheap hobby and it’s not a required purchase. Vote with your wallet and they’ll either get the message, or more likely not care. Any purchase of the expansion pack is just more money for them. Nintendo has proven time and again that they are going to do their own thing, regardless of what the vocal crowd wants. I’m not happy with the price, but I’ll pay it because I want to play those games on my Switch.
Most people here (me included) decried the Switch OLED not being a “worth it” upgrade, but many (myself included) pre-ordered or went and bought one day one. Nintendo knows that people are going to buy their products however they put them out.
If that is the case, they should have just left out the Genesis games. Or tried to get a handful of Sega Saturn or Dreamcast titles instead. These Genesis games are widely available already. Or they could have just included GBA, or DS, or GameCube games.
@TKundNobody
Your comment seems harsh, but fair. I like genesis and those games are great, but I own the genesis collection on switch, so there isn't really anything new. I also own the castlevania and contra collections. If they had some sega cd games like sonic cd and eternal champions then that would be interesting.
I'm a nintendo lifer and I look for any excuse to be on their side
but the price here is ridiculous
they should really add more - like gba/VIRTUAL BOY/Game Boy/and Gamecube
and maybe some actual bangers on the old consoles there - make it comparable to what I already have on my wii u
and maybe better dedicated servers or whatever would make the online play better.
THEN I'd bite.
Who cares. Bad deal. Not worth it. Sega should rather expand their classics collection thingy. That was a grand collection and could do with a few more obviously missing titles.
Hoping that at least the money from the suckers who will pay extra $30 for this, will make NES and SNES games come faster to the standard service and make more games missing for years to come back, but also help to make licensed games, games based on other media properties like Batman, Star Wars and TMNT, to come back unedited to these online services.
@IGN_Commenter What, the people that showed there was a market for paying premium prices to own 25 year old Nintendo games were responsible for Nintendo releasing a premium service where people could stream them? Not sure I follow your logic there old chum.
@Kidfunkadelic83 this pays/covers for future licenses too that we are unaware of: TG16? GoldenEye? NBA Jam? Ken Griffey? Other big third party games
@Specter_of-the_OLED @anzzjam Specter has a lot of points I agree with.The amount of games will increase over time and it seems there may be additional incentives too. Honestly, streaming services are NOT a direction I like for games (nor TV or film), but it’s the way things are heading for legacy content. Also, at least too, the quality of NSO+Expansion is a much higher bar than Netflix, Hulu, etc. 99% of things on most streaming services, I won’t touch. However, 100% of the items on Nintendo’s streaming services I will boot up. If you don’t feel it has value, don’t pay for it. For me though, it’s a sound decision with that Animal Crossing DLC. With that included, the value becomes very cheap, if you ask me.
The price has nothing to do with licensing. When are people going to learn that's not how capitalism works? The price is set because that's how much Nintendo figures people will pay. It's set before they even know what services are going to be included. This is ludicrous nonsense speculation.
@UltraZelda64 yes, it's a sad and shameful practice, I usually defend Nintendo but this is just too much. Furukawa's a young fella, this may be very well the result of him giving up to investor's pressure.
@somnambulance "If you don’t feel it has value, don’t pay for it.”
This is what most will do regardless of your "advice", this is a discussion topic and it's exactly what we are doing here.
@MJF exactly my point, this industry it's always better when Nintendo's thriving, and I usually look for an excuse to support them, I won't be lining on their side with this.
@theGamerPad "this pays/covers for future licenses too that we are unaware of: TG16? GoldenEye? NBA Jam? Ken Griffey? Other big third party games"
Its usually a good idea to let people, whose money you are trying to get know what they are intending to add to the service. Its also paying for DLC that i wont and intend to never use. Those that say the DLC is a good will gesture and all were paying for is the 2 new consoles are kidding themselves. Like i said previously, im happy for the people that can take full advantage of this but i wont so will unfortunately have to forfeit the N64 games. This has been cleverly thought about. You can buy 1 years standard sub at £17.99 and the DLC for the same price as the new membership that adds in N64 and Genesis games. Sounds like a no brainer until your sub expires and you lose access to alot the DLC has to offer so you either have to sub again under the new plan for another year or buy the DLC seperate which in turn will lose you the 2 classic systems.
Goldeneye will never happen unfortunately as much as it would be awsome.
Leakers are very reliable. Like the time they leaked that doomslayer, master chief, ryu hayabusa or geno would be in smash. Or when they correctly leaked that armored mewtwo would be in Pokemon sword and shield. Or when it was revealed that the switch pro would come out.
Stop giving Emily Rogers airtime. Fraud.
@EriXz I disagree. I think the expansion pass will be an overall success with casual gamers and Animal Crossing players. For instance, my wife, who owns maybe four games of her own, texted me at work after the AC Direct, and told me we should get upgrade expansion pass because it offers better value than purchasing the DLC outright. Then I had a family gathering yesterday, and the whole family was excited about it, and they’re all casuals. This is an expansion pass designed to cater to casuals, not collectors. Also, I think it makes sense for Nintendo to have tiered versions of their online service, just the same as their competition. At least, Nintendo, unlike their competition, offers a family plan for NSO.
@Specter_of-the_OLED I see what you mean and good point about these games being locally stored. With that said, the value proposition is not equal to that of a common streaming service. Most services would collapse quickly if they only offered such a small initial offering, such as NSO.
@Taro
I agree with all the rest of it, I was just discussing the opening bit about subscription costs. If I came over as argumentative that wasn’t my intention.
Wouldnt surprise me but I question the business decision. Id rather GB, GBC and GBA.
The Genesis collection is pretty underwhelming as once again its omitting Sonic 3 and Knuckles and not even having the original Sonic.
should we tell SEGA we're sorry for not buying Sonic and Knuckles on the virtual console?
For a company like Nintendo that prides itself on making the most out of older technology, this move is very un-Nintendolike indeed if the rumour is true.
Take Goldeneye for example - the reason we never saw the original title released was because it would have cost an absolute fortune to acquire the rights to do so from all the stakeholders. So why overspend on licensing to ultimately pass that on to the consumer?
Will we see Saturn? Dreamcast? If so, cut the slowburn crap and announce it. Because for now, its the same rehashed Sega library which makes the whole endeavour very discouraging.
What licensing?! Nobody asked for adding Sega- when you can cheaply buy Sega Genesis collection on Switch! So their addition is the most redundant thing ever! Plus we want to buy N64 and GC games! Nobody asked for Sega anyway. I am not wasting money for rental as most would agree!
Hey if this means I can play goldeneye of switch count me in!!
@electrolite77
Good point.
@faint
N64 was so expensive back then I had to wait, and skip most of it. As kids with SNES I remember me and my friends would plan out which games to buy, so we share them. I paid $80 for Chrono Trigger, $75 for Mortal Kombat II and $70 for NBA Jam back then.... that was basically the entire generation for me. In fact one my main go-to games back then was to get long quest games, RPGs, etc and I think that genre turned successful in the USA due to getting longer value out of games.
These days I have a good collection from various generations -most of which I rebought for my own satisfaction. A game night these days is bits and pieces of across 2-3 decades -though on Switch from the current -though I kind of consider it PS3/360 level output...which I am mostly fine with, but it does not feel al that New to me, still.
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