Nintendo Switch Online Will Be $20 a Year

rgMekanic

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Today Nintendo announced that the online service for the Switch will be coming in 2018 with pricing of $4 for 1 month, $8 for 3 months, or $20 as year, but will be free until the paid service launches. Voice chat and lobby features will be handled via a smartphone app also coming in 2018, but Nintendo adds "A free, limited version of this app will be available for download in summer 2017." Subscribers will also get access to a "classic games selection" where "Subscribers will get to download a compilation of classic titles with added online play, such as Super Mario Bros. 3, Balloon Fight and Dr. Mario."
I feel that the pricing for this service is very good compared to it's competitors. Nintendo has stated that the "classic games selection" will be an online library of games that will be accessible as long as your subscription is active. But using a smartphone app for voice communication and lobbies could hurt the online play on the console in my opinion.

This paid service lets Nintendo Switch owners enjoy online multiplayer gaming as well as a dedicated smartphone app that connects to your Nintendo Switch system and helps you connect with friends for online play sessions.
 
For someone like myself, who rarely engages in online multiplayer, the value of this service is wholly dependent on the library of classic games they will offer, as well as the discounts on eshop titles. I'd happily pay $20 a year to play my favorite retro games and recoup some of the subscription fee via discounts.
 
In my opinion, this is precisely why the NES Classic was discontinued - the idea being to offer that library via the online service.
 
But using a smartphone app for voice communication and lobbies could hurt the online play on the console in my opinion.
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I just imagine a bunch of super serious 23 year old pasty kids screaming at each other over their smartphones as a team to help secure that splatoon objective.

Hell that would be wonderful to watch a few minutes of on twitch and never watch again.

Price wise, that's pretty cool. Mostly people who do own a video game system now probably considers $20 a throwaway...what a crazy price for this generation of gaming.
 
I enjoyed Splatoon because there was no chat or voice. I didn't have to hear a bunch of kids screaming or nerding up the screen. I think Nintendo stands to alienate the "family friendly" Nintendo buyers.
 
The price sounds right, and it's nice to see they've smartened up and got rid of that whole 'rental scheme' thing they had going.

I'm hoping the delay into 2018 will allow Nintendo to figure out how to make voice chat work. I'm sure it's more of a 'protect the kids' issue than a hardware issue.

In my opinion, this is precisely why the NES Classic was discontinued - the idea being to offer that library via the online service.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this was part of the reason to discontinue the NES Classic. Though I still think the primary reason to release the NES Classic was to make a quick buck to keep investors satisfied as the Wii U didn't have enough gas to stay alive until the Switch launch.
 
I like having some form of chat functionality, but I don't want to be overwhelmed by a dozen people yammering away in every game. To me the best solutions have been group chat functions via the system's main menu. It allows you to coordinate things, but everyone else playing can't hear you.
 
I like having some form of chat functionality, but I don't want to be overwhelmed by a dozen people yammering away in every game. To me the best solutions have been group chat functions via the system's main menu. It allows you to coordinate things, but everyone else playing can't hear you.

Well if it's a solution like Discord, Twitch Voice, Vent, or all the other stuff I hope they will allow you to have a pretty good level of control.

It's cool seeing Nintendo take the smart phone stuff more seriously. They seemed so anti smart phone anything before....maybe this could be a sign of them getting comfortable releasing more of their ip to the smart phone market.
 
I enjoyed Splatoon because there was no chat or voice. I didn't have to hear a bunch of kids screaming or nerding up the screen. I think Nintendo stands to alienate the "family friendly" Nintendo buyers.

so... don't use the chat app then?
 
I enjoyed Splatoon because there was no chat or voice. I didn't have to hear a bunch of kids screaming or nerding up the screen. I think Nintendo stands to alienate the "family friendly" Nintendo buyers.
most online games I play I always have random chat muted. I think the choice is better than forcing it.
 
Well currently to do voice chat you need your phone, an app, a dongle, your switch, and a headset designed for the system. And hopefully you have a headphone jack on your fancy phone, as if not you'll need another dongle yet....

The whole chat through a smart phone is dumb as hell
 
Originally they said it was going to be some "one classic game per month" bullshit where you don't even get to keep the game afterwards. Has that changed? This makes it sound like you can download from a library of games and play them as long as you're a subscriber, which is a far better value.
 
Chat and voice through ONLY the smart phone?? Guess the switch can't handle it. :love:

I'm not knocking the switch as it's a good over priced little console. My daughter wants one.
 
Originally they said it was going to be some "one classic game per month" bullshit where you don't even get to keep the game afterwards. Has that changed? This makes it sound like you can download from a library of games and play them as long as you're a subscriber, which is a far better value.

They changed it where as long as you have an active subscription you have access to every classic game they release, and it will likely be once a month that they release a new one. Although my hope would be that initially they offer quite a few to give people access to a decent sized library off the bat.

IMO this is what will truly make the Switch successful. Nintendo is finally seeing the light and is going to offer access to these classic titles.

I'm also fine with this as someone who owns a bunch of Virtual Console titles on my 3DS. If they end up offering the virtual console games through this $20 year subscription anyways I think most people will be satisfied as $20 a year is basically nothing to potentially get access to a bunch of classic titles.
 
The price seems reasonable. The rest however concerns me. The "classic titles" are all well and good as bonuses and much better than "Pick a single game per month", but even at a whole classic library I really don't feel that NES/SNES titles justify paying for the service. I might feel different if "Classic" meant up to enhanced WiiU library titles like Smash Bros as well, but they mention NES/SNES so that's where I'lll keep my expectations. Instead, I'd be more interested in what kinds of deals and discounts would be available to modern titles, both full price titles as well as lower cost indies (for instance, the new Blaster Master and that...top down dungeon crawler inspired heavily by Shinto mythology who's name I'm blanking on at the moment). With the PC as my primary platform, I'm often very surprised at how expensive things are on consoles where even older content is rarely given the same kinds of price drops, sales etc... as one can find PC marketplaces like Steam, Humble, GOG and others. However, even with that, at very least the Xbox and Playstation subscription services grant the player a number of free, relatively recent titles per month that they can enjoy as long as they have a subscription active as well as a discount on other content for sale. I hope the Switch has some plan for the subscription to benefit on more recent titles like this as well.

However the real thing that concerns me is the requisite VOIP and lobby/chat being relegated to something exclusively smartphone based. I can't see any justification for this that doesn't really seem to reflect poorly on the Switch, not to mention that the "full version" of it won't even be coming until 2018? Not good. Worse, it seems to portend that "media/utility" apps on the Switch will be languishing at least until that time, which is incredibly disappointing. The Switch seems tailor made to run Kodi, Plex, and Emby with its Dock and mobile options for media watching, not to mention e-reading applications and streaming content from Netflix, Spotify and others. Hell, even the Wii (maybe WiiU ?) and 3DS had Netflix and Hulu support! The Switch could thrive with a reasonable amount of general tablet utility and media apps, but if Nintendo can't even get VOIP/chat and lobbies to run on the same console as the games, official support for the rest seem unlikely. So frustrating to see Nintendo basically determined to do the wrong thing again when it comes to online networking and supporting the Switch potential as more than an occasional toy.
 
O it gets better. Imagine if you want to use chat while sitting on your couch and the switch is in the dock. Then, you'll need a headphone line all the way from the console to you couch, then you can plug in the rest of the circus.

The switch is OK at best, and I'll prabably get one within a year, but seriously, there are a ton of things with the switch that scream zero testing or focus groups during production, which is friggin amazing when you think about it.
 
O it gets better. Imagine if you want to use chat while sitting on your couch and the switch is in the dock. Then, you'll need a headphone line all the way from the console to you couch, then you can plug in the rest of the circus.

The switch is OK at best, and I'll prabably get one within a year, but seriously, there are a ton of things with the switch that scream zero testing or focus groups during production, which is friggin amazing when you think about it.

Actually the switch's headphone port is not accessible when it's in the dock, and you can't connect your phone via bluetooth to it (perhaps to prevent latency in the controllers?) So from what I gather the phone app will be connecting to it's own voice/multiplayer server somehow :confused:
 
Actually the switch's headphone port is not accessible when it's in the dock, and you can't connect your phone via bluetooth to it (perhaps to prevent latency in the controllers?) So from what I gather the phone app will be connecting to it's own voice/multiplayer server somehow :confused:

I was under the impression the switch headphone port was on the top, or do you mean that when in dock mode the headphone port is turned off? Obviously I don't have one because I'm waiting for the v2 to come out so I don't know for sure where you are going with this
 
Well, considering their lineup, it's not very expensive to run servers for 5 games ;p
 
Is Balloon Fight popular in Japan?

Nintendo keeps trotting that one out like an asset.

Maybe it's just me that doesn't care.
 
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