After confusing reports and lots of wondering, Nintendo has finally given a solid release date for when the paid online service for the Nintendo Switch will launch. Come September 2018, the free online will end, and the $20 a year online subscription will be required to play games online. Nothing else was revealed, but more details were promised in the coming months.

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[Konic64]

I agree. There's already a promising incentive for the cheap service. Now we can only hope that Nintendo is giving is a service worth paying for.

hopefully it won't be filled with internet lag like on the 3ds

 

[jt_1258]

hopefully it won't be filled with internet lag like on the 3ds

the 3ds was slow on the internet side of things partly because of how slow the 3ds as a whole is as seen with how improving system power with the n3ds was enough to boost download speeds

 

[Kioku]

hopefully it won't be filled with internet lag like on the 3ds

I hope so, too.

 

[geodeath]

Nintendo is also offering free games, and Sony/MS don't typically offer anything quality.

Say what?

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PlayStation_Plus_vs._Games_with_Gold_Comparison

Looking at this list, there are loads of AAA games that Switch owners are still having wet dreams about.
If they are not your taste fine, but they *are* quality. Yes, there are shitty indie stuff too, but there is at least one full retail game every month. Now, this is obviously not the only reason to join the network, but it is a nice incentive, especially from companies that *know* how to do online and *know* how to transfer purchases and licenses, much unlike Nintendo where you have to rebuy the same thing 1000 times.

 

[jt_1258]

Say what?

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PlayStation_Plus_vs._Games_with_Gold_Comparison

Looking at this list, there are loads of AAA games that Switch owners are still having wet dreams about.
If they are not your taste fine, but they *are* quality. Yes, there are shitty indie stuff too, but there is at least one full retail game every month. Now, this is obviously not the only reason to join the network, but it is a nice incentive, especially from companies that *know* how to do online and *know* how to transfer purchases and licenses, much unlike Nintendo where you have to rebuy the same thing 1000 times.

well it seems like there on the right track with having software tied to accounts rather than systems now so that's at least something

 

[sarkwalvein]

Say what?

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PlayStation_Plus_vs._Games_with_Gold_Comparison

Looking at this list, there are loads of AAA games that Switch owners are still having wet dreams about.
If they are not your taste fine, but they *are* quality. Yes, there are shitty indie stuff too, but there is at least one full retail game every month. Now, this is obviously not the only reason to join the network, but it is a nice incentive, especially from companies that *know* how to do online and *know* how to transfer purchases and licenses, much unlike Nintendo where you have to rebuy the same thing 1000 times.

I see, nothing interesting on Xbox Gold again this month.

I guess I will wait some more before renewing my subscription (last good think I remember I got was Sleeping Dogs aeons ago, oh well, Bayonetta also, but that is an X360 game, so I can keep using it without renewing the subscription )

PS: Yeah, I know, Sleeping Dogs XB1 is banned in Germany;
Step 1. Set you XBOX account to Ireland,
Step 2. Call the USK and tell them to fuck off.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

I agree. There's already a promising incentive for the cheap service. Now we can only hope that what Nintendo is giving is a service worth paying for.

The NES games might justify $20/yr by themselves, considering each one is typically $8-15 on Virtual Console anyways. And I heard they had plans to expand that to SNES titles too, which would be wicked. But going further with this idea, why don't they do a full-blown "Netflix for Virtual Console" service akin to Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Now? Now that I'd pay for.

Y'know? I wish gamers would do some research into why we pay for online services.

I'm not too informed, but I see Steam and other PC services often offering a superior service to those of Xbox Live and PSN, and completely free. To me it seems paying for online is just a money-making tactic.

 

[Kioku]

The NES games might justify $20/yr by themselves, considering each one is typically $8-15 on Virtual Console anyways. And I heard they had plans to expand that to SNES titles too, which would be wicked. But going further with this idea, why don't they do a full-blown "Netflix for Virtual Console" service akin to Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Now? Now that I'd pay for.


I'm not too informed, but I see Steam and other PC services often offering a superior service to those of Xbox Live and PSN, and completely free. To me it seems paying for online is just a money-making tactic.

Steam and other PC services don't have to maintain hardware. Steam link doesn't count either.

 

[FAST6191]

Steam and other PC services don't have to maintain hardware. Steam link doesn't count either.

Steam have one of the best CDNs around which almost certainly costs a chunk of change you or I would notice going out of our accounts and I reckon you could do a lot of what Nintendo needs on spin up with demand virtual machines which cost very little these days.

Equally loads of other console games seem to be fine with offering people the ability to spin up their own server if p2p methods are proving too tricky to code properly.

 

[Kioku]

I get that everyone has this weird thing with paid online. The gist of it is that "they never charged before". Logically, a paid online service can be justified for one of a few reasons. One being cost. It's easy to look at it from a consumer standpoint. You've had free online services for years. That's a fair point. However, these free services could be costing them more each year to maintain than you'd like to believe.

Nintendo isn't trying to start or follow a trend here. Sony had mandatory paid online starting with the PS4. Was there backlash? Yes. It quickly died when people realized what they were getting. Microsoft also changed their policies slightly. For instance, I don't need a gold membership to play certain playlists in Halo: Master Chief Collection.

We have to take a step back and allow Nintendo an opportunity to justify this. It's also $20 a year. That is not that bad when you compare it to other services. Most of you pay more than this for things like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Spotify... Etc... Some of you also pay $15/mo for Xbox Game Pass and whatever for PSNow.. So, really, you're just needlessly whining for God knows why.

 

[FAST6191]

I will have to run the numbers again but I ran them a while back and for the scale of things they are doing the costs could easily be part of the dev/advertising budget. Most of these games and the amount of resources required by them are far from world leading tech and data centres needed for it.

I start hostile and they have to prove themselves, same thing I use for everything else in life. I see very little chance of Nintendo doing well here though as they have had many years now and hosed it up time and time again and are not particularly showing anything to make me expect otherwise (they have not drafted another company in to run it from what we have seen, their job positions they are offering don't show them seeking real talent, if their in house gave us the howlers on the 3ds and wii then yeah, the will have had probably about two years to deploy it properly by the time this hits). There is no step back, there is no benefit of the doubt, there is no cushion. Stand tall or don't stand at all.

Equally my no money is where my mouth is for the efforts of MS and Sony. They have not justified it either from where I sit.

As others said $20 is not a lot but is a lot more than $0 which we have been used to.

 

[Kioku]

I will have to run the numbers again but I ran them a while back and for the scale of things they are doing the costs could easily be part of the dev/advertising budget. Most of these games and the amount of resources required by them are far from world leading tech and data centres needed for it.

I start hostile and they have to prove themselves, same thing I use for everything else in life. I see very little chance of Nintendo doing well here though as they have had many years now and hosed it up time and time again and are not particularly showing anything to make me expect otherwise (they have not drafted another company in to run it from what we have seen, their job positions they are offering don't show them seeking real talent, if their in house gave us the howlers on the 3ds and wii then yeah, the will have had probably about two years to deploy it properly by the time this hits). There is no step back, there is no benefit of the doubt, there is no cushion. Stand tall or don't stand at all.

Equally my no money is where my mouth is for the efforts of MS and Sony. They have not justified it either from where I sit.

As others said $20 is not a lot but is a lot more than $0 which we have been used to.

Which is entirely valid. The attacks are not.

The skepticism and doubt are understandable.

 

[FAST6191]

What attacks?

Someone attacks an online service and I think ddos, the PSN stuff in 2011 or something like that. Hard to do that for a nonexistent service.

Extrapolating past experiences and looking at a possibly distasteful change. Tricky to do but otherwise fine by me.

 

[Kioku]

What attacks?

Someone attacks an online service and I think ddos, the PSN stuff in 2011 or something like that. Hard to do that for a nonexistent service.

Extrapolating past experiences and looking at a possibly distasteful change. Tricky to do but otherwise fine by me.

I meant the toxic hostility. Change is inevitable. A paid online service was bound to happen. It just tells me they needed to make up a loss somewhere, or to add needed profit. I don't know. Just.. Trying to converse at this point.

 

[FAST6191]

I would say if they look out and see said hostility everywhere, as opposed to ambivalence or acceptance, then they might either abandon the plans or do more than a few token appeasements. Either way works for me.

Equally I am content with they are greedy bastards until proven otherwise, and given running servers is not a dark and mystical art, not to mention something many already know, then I struggle to see offsetting a loss or similar.

 

[Kioku]

.... and we've hit full circle...

 

[Deathscreton]

So after reading this conversation, I'm not sure why people are upset. I don't say that in regards to "being upset for the hell of it", I legitimately don't know why people are angry. Is it the concept for having to pay for online features when at one point, you didn't have to? Because I can't see 20 dollars as being a reason to throw a fit. Twenty a month? For sure, that's more expensive than the other two competitors. But a year? You could probably panhandle that much on the corner.

Or is it that you don't feel the service is worth 20 a year? Someone else mentioned it but getting free classics from a library to choose from to play so long as you have an account feels worth already (not mentioning their initial plan of "one" classic a month which was trash. It wouldn't have impressed me if that had done that for free, let alone a paid service).

 

[Kioku]

So after reading this conversation, I'm not sure why people are upset. I don't say that in regards to "being upset for the hell of it", I legitimately don't know why people are angry. Is it the concept for having to pay for online features when at one point, you didn't have to? Because I can't see 20 dollars as being a reason to throw a fit. Twenty a month? For sure, that's more expensive than the other two competitors. But a year? You could probably panhandle that much on the corner.

Or is it that you don't feel the service is worth 20 a year? Someone else mentioned it but getting free classics from a library to choose from to play so long as you have an account feels worth already (not mentioning their initial plan of "one" classic a month which was trash. It wouldn't have impressed me if that had done that for free, let alone a paid service).

I just think people need to actually try to comprehend there may be a valid reason.. But no, "corporate greed" seems to be the only argument... It's less than $2/mo... Which doesn't matter since they "weren't charging before". Regardless of incentives.. People will stick, so ignorantly, to their initial thought.

 

[Supster131]

I just think people need to actually try to comprehend there may be a valid reason.. But no, "corporate greed" seems to be the only argument... It's less than $2/mo... Which doesn't matter since they "weren't charging before". Regardless of incentives.. People will stick, so ignorantly, to their initial thought.

Again, if Nintendo actually improves their online service, I have no issue with paying $20 a year.
However, if they simply put the current online service (which isn't that great) behind a pay wall, then I do have an issue.

I think that's a lot of people's concern.

 

[Deathscreton]

I just think people need to actually try to comprehend there may be a valid reason.. But no, "corporate greed" seems to be the only argument... It's less than $2/mo... Which doesn't matter since they "weren't charging before". Regardless of incentives.. People will stick, so ignorantly, to their initial thought.

I couldn't even call this greed. I honestly feel like the 20 a year is probably what they need to keep the servers operating at just a marginal profit. I do hope they redesign the social portion of it.Unless they plan to allow my Switch to connect to my phone via bluetooth for anywhere online play, everything should have been integrated into the device itself.

Again, if Nintendo actually improves their online service, I have no issue with paying $20 a year.
However, if they simply put the current online service (which isn't that great) behind a pay wall, then I do have an issue.

I think that's a lot of people's concern.

What's wrong with their current service? I've only ever played the 3DS and Wii U online, and I never encountered any problems. Did the Wii/U have inherent online issues that I'm missing?