Nintendo's Paid Online: a yearly checkup/opinion piece

Capture.PNG
Today, the 18th of September, marks the one year anniversary of Nintendo's "Online Service" for the Switch. While it was a year ago today that Switch owners gained access to the program, it wasn't until a week later that users started to be charged $20/year for access to this service. In February of 2017, then-president of Nintendo Tatsumi Kimishima said
"We really think that regardless of what others are doing or what services are being offered, it comes down to a battle of content. We feel it’s a matter of getting our content to the consumer at a price point that will make them happy, and then we’re willing to look at what else we can do going forward. This is just the starting point for us, so again, it’s a battle of content. We think we have what we need to win the battle on that front, and we hope to provide more details about the service going forward."
It was clear from even before the Switch's launch that this was to be a developing program, gaining features and proper functionality as time went on, but how well has the service fared up to this point?

2017

The story doesn't exactly begin in September of 2018, at least when discussing the Nintendo Switch's online performance. Games such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 have had free online matchmaking functionality since their launches in April and July of 2017 respectively, just a little bit after the Switch's release in March of the same year. The online infrastructure and netcode for these titles had already been set in place and made functional, even more than a year behind the service's official launch in late 2018. But how?

Well, for those of us who don't happen to recall, the existence of the Switch's paid service was actually announced pre-launch of the console, and was originally planned to be rolled out in 2017, however, around Splatoon 2's release in July 2017, it was announced that the planned paywall would be delayed until late 2018. When Polygon asked Reggie Fils-Aime, the then-president of Nintendo of America, for reasons for the delay at 2017's E3, he responded:

As Nintendo looks at the overall online digital experience there’s a recognition that there’s a lot of work to be world class. And we pride ourselves … We believe our IP is world class. We believe that when we create a piece of hardware it’s world class. We need to get our digital environment world class. And that’s what we’re working hard to do.
We wanted to make sure that it is a robust, well-executed online environment, and for the $20 annual subscription fee, the consumer says, ‘This is a no-brainer. I want to participate. I’m all in.’

But as it would turn out, the service wasn't exactly a "no-brainer". At least, not in the way they intended.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 are just two examples of Nintendo's first-party offerings in 2017 which had online functionality, and they were generally well-received as games. Mario Kart was criticized by some for being not much more than a port + DLC, but Splatoon 2 was apparently well liked, holding an 83 from critics and an 8.5 from users on metacritic at the time of writing, and further developing the strong fanbase that Splatoon 1 had established. Despite their relatively positive receptions, many factors of their online functionality were bemoaned by a large number of consumers playing them.

Random and frequent disconnections predominantly plagued all of these titles, as well as lag in all forms. Users could get upwards of 4-5 disconnect per stream on a bad day, and the lag in those games would make players being hit by invisible items, miss hitting players that appeared to be hit on the attacker's screen, and seeing red shells maneuver past their targets a constant occurrence, because the game couldn't properly keep track of which player was ahead of which. It was, in total honesty, a hilarious shit-show when we tried to steam it on temp's twitch channel, and while it made for entertaining content, it undeniably made for a very poor online gaming experience. These same issues were widespread enough among other users to prompt a number of online guides on how to reduce your Switch's online lag as early as April of 2017.

Splatoon 2 had a very contentious online mode at launch as well, specifically when it came to its lag issues. Many causes were blamed for this issue, but the most frequent goblin, so to speak, was the game's "tickrate." A user called Dessgeega on the Squidboards forum had this to say:
The tickrate, how often the game refreshes the connection between players, is only 16 per second. The first game was at 25. Overwatch is at 60 and even MINECRAFT does better at 20. The low tickrate combined with international matches means tons of lag, being killed by ghosts, teleportation, rubberbanding, and disconnects a-plenty.
These issues were not relegated to a few users, however, as the whole of the community seemed to have at least a healthy dose of contention when it came to the quality of Splatoon 2's online. Twitter was a common posting ground for irate players to display examples of lag killing them unfairly or erratic movement.


But of course this was a developing ecosystem, and free so far. People were very unhappy, and all but unanimously agreed that Nintendo needs to do better, but the service had yet to officially come.
Nintendo had time to improve things... right?

2018
2017 rolls over into 2018, and people are still sharing a plethora of sarcastic tweets criticizing the online of Nintendo's games. Mario Kart had seen not a single shred of improvement in its stability or its lag, and the new title that had come around this year, Mario Tennis Aces, was similarly being absolutely lambasted for its poor online performance.

Chris Hovermale of Destructoid wrote an article on July 21st of 2018, around a year after Splatoon 2's original release, describing the state of Splatoon 2's and Mario Tennis Aces' online functionalities as "unacceptable", and sometimes outright "unplayable".
...any time I search for opponents in online normal or tournament matches, I always have zero to two bars of connectivity, maybe three if I'm lucky. The very few times I successfully connect to an opponent, the unreliable lag spoils those exciting mechanics with frustration and boredom. The notion that I'll have to pay for this unplayable netcode in the near future feels insulting.
I’ve had plenty of online fun with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2, but I regularly get disconnected during longer sessions. When I recently fired up MK8D to play with a friend, we found ourselves unable to keep our room open after about a dozen attempts.

Threads across gaming forums of all kinds sprang up one after the other containing irate customers feeling betrayed by the quality of the online experience. Splatoon 2 continued to receive just as much heat as it did at launch, and for all the same reasons. Visiting tweets from 2017 to 2018 and comparing them, it's evident that absolutely nothing had changed, and that the attitude around Nintendo's handling of their online games had only soured significantly. There's genuinely a twitter account called Splatoon2Lag, which is dedicated to publicizing instances of what they believe to be shoddy online in the game, active since August of 2017. (Their last retweeted tweet at the time of writing was from 9/11/2019.)
Even youtube has compilations of lag in Splatoon 2.


For a full year and a half after launch, Nintendo continued to put out games with woefully inadequate online performances, and people's attitudes became more sour and confrontational. Justifiably so.

and then came...
September 13th, 2018

With their finger as far from the pulse of the gaming community as they could possibly get it, Nintendo published a trailer introducing the features and release date of their official, paid "Online Service", to begin on the 18th. In the trailer, 5 features were announced: online play for compatible games, a small library of 20 NES games (with online features), save data backup to the cloud, a smartphone app for voice chat during online play, and some nebulous "special offers" yet to be revealed.

In order, let's revisit what the state of these features were during the months coming after its implementation.

The first feature was not a new feature at all, simply the announcement that the experience users had previously been "enjoying" was now locked behind the subscription's paywall. Mario Kart, Splatoon 2, Mario Tennis Aces, etc. would have their online functionality locked unless one was a subscriber to the online service. What upset customers more was that, as before, Nintendo provided no dedicated game servers of any kind, instead programming their games with peer-to-peer connections. Without the overhead of maintaining servers, people wondered exactly what they were paying Nintendo for, with many describing the service as "paying Nintendo to use your own internet."

In what Nintendo assumed would be sweetening the deal, they included a batch of 20 NES games to be played through a standalone app on the Switch. While they did include some beloved titles, such as Super Mario Bros., SMB3, and The Legend of Zelda, it also had a lot of what people thought were mediocre filler titles, like Ice Climbers, Pro Wrestling, Baseball, and Soccer, with Nintendo promising to release more NES games on a monthly basis. In most consumers' eyes, the Virtual Console, or its hypothetical equivalent on Switch, had been missing from the console for a year and a half. To many, this was the kind of thing you might have at launch, not gated behind a $20 paywall as a pittance inclusion as part of a subscription fee. In addition, the games are never technically "yours", as as soon as the subscription isn't renewed, the games become inaccessible.

In further absurdity, ever since December 30th of 2017, over 9 months ago, the homebrew scene had already set up a vastly superior alternative to this system in the form of RetroArch for Switch. Not only would it play any NES game you'd like, for free, it sported a lot of basic features that the official NES player embarrassingly did not. While one could use up to 4 save states with the NES online games, the emulator provided limited options in terms of filters and aspect ratios, no ability whatsoever to remap controls (making rolling your finger across the A and B buttons awkward due to the joycon button layout), and 4-5 frames of input lag compared to next-frame response time with RetroArch's runahead.

There was, however, one feature that RetroArch didn't have, and that was the ability to play NES games online with friends, a genuinely novel offering. Unfortunately, playing a Nintendo game online between myself and a fellow American one timezone away gave between 11-16 frames of input lag, and playing with someone in another country produced a maximum of 33 frames of input lag. Needless to say, while the idea was interesting, the quality of Nintendo's online ruined the joy of any game played through it.

What's more, save data backup being tied to a subscription fee felt like a scam to many people. Every other console on the market, and every other before it, allowed direct access to users' save data through a memory card or via transfer to an external data storage device, like a USB stick. This allowed people to backup their own data in case of corruption or theft, in order to make sure their progress could be saved. This was something that consumers felt was fundamental to have access to, and here it was being sold back to them. Worse yet, they would never have full control over their own data, with it being handled exclusively through Nintendo. Just to put the cherry on the cake, Nintendo not only announced that user cloud saves would be deleted if the subscription was not renewed within a 6 month period, they also announced that:
...in certain games this feature would make it possible to, for example, regain items that had been traded to other players, or revert to a higher online multiplayer ranking that had been lost. To ensure fair play, Save Data Cloud backup may not be enabled for such games.

To ensure that Save Data Cloud backups cannot be used to unfairly affect online multiplayer rankings, the feature will not be enabled in Splatoon 2.

This, understandably, created a large amount of backlash from consumers who argued against this stance, but Nintendo didn't back down, all the while the Splatoon 2 leaderboards continued to be defiled by hackers for months going forward.

The hassle of needing to download an app and fiddle with a phone any time one wanted to communicate with another online was so tonedeaf and archaic that it stirred nothing but ridicule, and these "special offers" at the time only included the ability to pre-purchase of NES-style controllers. These were not available for purchase to anyone without an active subscription to Nintendo Online.

The reception to the Nintendo Online announcement...
1cag0OV.png

...was not very favorable.

But even though consumers were paying for not a single dedicated server, they did still need to pay up if they wanted to keep playing with their friends. It was highway robbery, and evidently neither Nintendo nor the law had any qualms about them engaging in it.​

December, 2018
With what was for many their most anticipated game of this generation to date, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, releasing December 7th, pressure to subscribe to the online service was at an all-time high. Like Smash 4, this new entry promised robust online features, all of which would be gated behind Nintendo's subscription. The netcode for Smash 4 had actually been, by Nintendo's standards, not terrible (at least as I played it on 3DS), but consumers were given a subtle warning during Sakurai's Nov. 1st Smash presentation when he heavily recommended that players use a LAN adapter for their Switch when playing online.

The game released and, while hype for the game and its dearth of content/polish was still at a peak, players quickly discovered that the online was greatly lacking. YouTube channel GigaBoots was quick to put out a video, on the very next day following release no less, stating that Smash Ultimate has around 6 frames of input lag when played locally using their most optimal controller setup. This much lag is already unpleasant for a fighting game, however through my own testing and experience, this number gets multiplied drastically whenever matchmaking online.

Matchmaking randomly, letting the game's online choose the optimal opponent for my Switch's region, multiplies the input lag by, on average, around 2.5 time. This means that one might expect 15 frames of input lag on average when matchmaking blindly online, as a conservative estimate. When pairing with specific people from a friends list through an arena, even this number can end up doubled, depending on their region. Playing with someone on the literal other side of the globe produced over 30 frames of input lag. This is the most extreme example I've been able to test, but one should also note that, when playing with this same person through the indie game Rivals of Aether's netcode beta branch on Steam, the input lag become less than half of that of Smash Ultimate.

Street Fighter V notoriously released with what people considered to be unacceptably high input lag, at around 5.3 frames, even less than Smash's most stable mode, but fan outcry prompted Capcom to issue a patch on October 23rd of 2018 which significantly reduced both the input lag and the lag stability to 4.41 frames. Even then, the data-miner performing the tests, WydD, called the reduction "better, obviously but not great" illustrating just how out of step with the industry Smash's online experience is.

Connection stability also takes a major hit on occasions, when the game will seemingly experience slowdown so severe that the game will literally pause itself and show a loading icon. Even more common is the phenomenon of dropped inputs due to lag, which considering their frequency, has a high impact on the overall enjoyability of the game. Overall, in terms of input lag and online performance, the game is a massive and jarring step back from even their previous outing, Smash 4, much less any other fighting game on the market. While many other fighters, SFV inclusive, get dedicated servers and no additional online fees, somehow Smash Ultimate goes without both of these modern conveniences.

Meanwhile, up to this point in time, Nintendo had released the following NES games in 3 installments, one per month:
  • October: Solomon's Key, NES Open Tournament Golf, Super Dodge Ball
  • November: Metroid, Mighty Bomb Jack, TwinBee
  • December: Wario's Woods, Ninja Gaiden, Adventures of Lolo
With such comparatively lackluster titles being released through the service for three months in a row, even optimists were beginning to have their opinions soured.

2019
During a February investor meeting, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa noted that
A growing percentage is now opting for shorter plans like the one-month membership.
It is critical that these members want to continue using the service for a long time rather than letting it expire, and for that we need to build relationships with consumers and enrich the content.
With this in mind, we are currently planning ways to boost the appeal of the service on a yearly basis... It is very important to our future business and we are giving it our all.

On February 13th, Tetris 99 was released as a free game, but which required the online service in order to be played. It was effectively a battle royale competitive Tetris, and while people did mock it for the easy comparison, it was generally received as being a harmless, functional game.

On May 15th, Nintendo also rolled out a system by which you can buy two digital vouchers for $99.99 and redeem them for two digital games, so long as they're eligible. Since the online service itself is $20 USD, and buying two digital games worth $60/piece saves $20, then technically, if one buys two new digital games per year, the subscription pays for itself.

Finally, after 2.5 years, Nintendo finally introduced SNES games for the Switch by putting out 20 SNES titles on September 5th of this year. Included in this pack are many big-name games, such as Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Kirby's Dream Course, Kirby's Dream Land 3, F-Zero, and Breath of Fire. It's undeniably a better showing than the NES pack on its release, though the amount of time taken to get to this point is arguably much too long. In addition, Nintendo has genuinely improved the online play when it comes to these titles, and while they don't feel perfect, they're at least not ruined by input latency. Unfortunately this still feels like too little too late, as it was in late 2017 that we were already given the ability to emulate these games at a much higher quality on the Switch.

But these additions still didn't address the core problems of abysmally performing online ecosystems for all of Nintendo's first-party titles, and monetization introduced a full year ago had yielded no improvements the core quality of playing online. Smash's input lag still turned online into a facsimile of itself, tweets depicting Splatoon 2's poor performance were still being made to this day, and Mario Kart 8's instability and lag has still hadn't budged an inch.
Conclusion
It's become completely clear that Nintendo's management will do everything in its power to avoid addressing the core issues, and instead intend to dance around the problems sprinkling freebies. While the voucher deal may very well render this service "free*" for some users, that's only true for users who A) want their two games digitally, B) are buying two games at launch, and C) have their two desired games be on the list of compatible titles.
The problem is, what are we paying for? Cloud saves that were only necessitated by Nintendo locking us out of accessing our own save data? Cheap emulation of NES and SNES titles we've been playing at a higher quality for almost 2 years, now? The same discounts on game purchases that we'd have if the service never existed at all? The dedicated game servers that don't exist?
In this way, Nintendo's "Online Service" is less a service and more a shakedown with benefits. The consumer is forced into paying for a service that provides nothing in the way of online infrastructure, being charged in order to even go online at all. Nintendo is collecting taxes on a service they're putting almost no money into, with what feels like the fidelity of a 2005 online network, and trying to placate people with candy they distribute occasionally. Until Nintendo actually makes games that don't take on input latency whenever they go online like the Titanic takes on water, some actual servers that they could pay for with the money they're already collecting, and netcode better than monkey-scratch, then this whole "Online Service" is nothing but an inherently farcical joke. In short, it's been a fundamentally abysmal performance, one which has willfully refused to budge an inch in 2.5 years, regardless of how many freebies in which they dress it up. For Nintendo to have done no better for its consumers by this point in time is an absolute insult.
 
Last edited by Meteor7,

piratesephiroth

I wish I could read
Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2013
Messages
3,453
Trophies
2
Age
103
XP
3,228
Country
Brazil
Quality over quantity. Overwatch, to think of a different example, has no host among the players - all the players are clients connected to a dedicated server which runs an instance of the match. Another popular shooter, Rainbow Six Siege, uses a hybrid system with the Terrorist Hunt mode ran locally by a host with an option of P2P players joining in or the Casual and Ranked multiplayer modes ran entirely on the dedicated server running match instances. Even indie developers have access to these features as many of them are baked into popular engines like UE or Unity. Modern netcode is very different from what you imagine it to be.
No indie developer has the resources to maintain such an expensive framework (maybe CD PROJEKT RED? lol).
 

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,818
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,787
Country
Poland
No indie developer has the resources to maintain such an expensive framework (maybe CD PROJEKT RED? lol).
I don't see how that's a relevant point. Your point of contention was that high end servers were only required for MMO games and not typical multiplayer games you normally come across. You were incorrect and now you're backpedaling. Heck, Activision even runs *their own* dedicated servers for Call of Duty because they found server solutions offered by Microsoft and Sony to be insufficient for their purposes. Imagine running a battle royale game like Fortnite or Apex Legends in P2P mode - have fun simultaneously connecting to and running an instance for 60-100 players, keeping track of *all of their movements and actions* on your wee little console. These are not some weird edge cases, they're mainstream titles with millions of active players. In fact, P2P multiplayer implementation is *frowned upon* in any competitive title nowadays, people relentlessly made fun of For Honor for resorting to P2P which effectively crippled the game.
 
  • Like
Reactions: osaka35

piratesephiroth

I wish I could read
Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2013
Messages
3,453
Trophies
2
Age
103
XP
3,228
Country
Brazil
I don't see how that's a relevant point. Your point of contention was that high end servers were only required for MMO games and not typical multiplayer games you normally come across. You were incorrect and now you're backpedaling. Heck, Activision even runs *their own* dedicated servers for Call of Duty because they found server solutions offered by Microsoft and Sony to be insufficient for their purposes. Imagine running a battle royale game like Fortnite or Apex Legends in P2P mode - have fun simultaneously connecting to and running an instance for 60-100 players, keeping track of *all of their movements and actions* on your wee little console. These are not some weird edge cases, they're mainstream titles with millions of active players. In fact, P2P multiplayer implementation is *frowned upon* in any competitive title nowadays, people relentlessly made fun of For Honor for resorting to P2P which effectively crippled the game.
The point is that P2P will always be the rule for the majority of multiplayer games. The availability of a feature does not imply on it becoming a new standard.
VR is supported by modern systems. Are all modern games using VR?
 

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,818
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,787
Country
Poland
The point is that P2P will always be the rule for the majority of multiplayer games. The availability of a feature does not imply on it becoming a new standard.
VR is supported by modern systems. Are all modern games using VR?
You're changing the subject again because you have egg on your face. There is no reason why an enormous company like Nintendo should run their games on an outdated P2P infrastructure that all the other major players in the industry have long since abandoned. Running servers like those that power PSN and XBL is expensive, they're expansive cloud-based services that provide significantly more features than "just matchmaking", that's what the conversation was about before you interjected. This exchange is pretty much over, I've said my peace, you're incorrect when it comes to the nature of modern online services.
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
Honestly, I was never really bothered by it, probably because it's only $20 a year, and I really appreciate how Nintendo isn't charging more for SNES game on Switch Online. I think it just didn't hit me as hard as most because I've never been one into public online voice chat, and if I want to have voice chat with friends I'll just use Discord or Skype. Also on the online topic all my friends live relatively nearby, so Ultimate's online isn't too too bad. I've been playing Dream Land 3 on SNES Switch Online with my friend via the netplay, and it's been working really well. But I would like it if Nintendo added a dedicated achievements/trophies system.
 
  • Like
Reactions: banjo2

piratesephiroth

I wish I could read
Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2013
Messages
3,453
Trophies
2
Age
103
XP
3,228
Country
Brazil
You're changing the subject again because you have egg on your face.
Nah, it's you who keep making up new excuses. You're now saying that all online multiplayer games MUST have MMO features otherwise they're outdated.
But you're probably leaving the discussion to play Destiny on your Switch, that's fine.

Running servers like those that power PSN and XBL is expensive, they're expansive cloud-based services that provide significantly more features than "just matchmaking", that's what the conversation was about before you interjected.
Oh, but what about Steam? Are their servers cheap?
 
Last edited by piratesephiroth,

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,818
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,787
Country
Poland
Nah, it's you who keep making up new excuses. You're now saying that all online multiplayer games MUST have MMO features otherwise they're outdated.

Oh, but what about Steam? Are their servers cheap?
Steam is primarily a storefront, it has basic social media features like messaging, chat and achievements, but it's based on a completely different principle and is self-funding - I already explained how that works. To my knowledge Valve doesn't run the servers that enable online play for the games they sell on their store - individual developers do, they simply utilise the Steam API to take advantage of the features it offers.

I also never said that "all games need to have MMO features", whatever you mean by "MMO features" - what I said was that dedicated game servers are preferable to P2P connections from a technical standpoint because they provide a level playing field for all the players which cannot be influenced by any of the individual clients as the actual outcomes of player actions are calculated by the server within the match instance. If you don't quite understand what that means, when you play a game and "hit" another player, you can't adjust the hitbox in your client to give yourself a leg up and your opponent can't decrease his hitbox to become effectively invulnerable - the server knows the movement of both players inside the instance it runs and *it* decides whether the hit registered or not - that's the advantage. Of course a lot of times this leads to funny side effects in the event of packets getting garbled on the way to the server, but overall it's a superior alternative to relying on one player to host the game.

Even a game with a small amount of players like a fighting game can benefit from a dedicated server since it eliminates the possibility of your opponent simply disconnecting before they lose a match to preserve their ranking which is a well-known and extremely frustrating problem. I would love for you to explain how that's an MMO feature considering the fact that it involves two players. There are no "excuses", only an ever-increasing list of reasons why you're incorrect.
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
Are you able to play Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Pokémon Snap, Zelda Minish Cap without HB? I meant like NES/SNES but with more catalogue (if that's your point)
The Wii did not offer GB, GBA or GameCube virtual console. Early Wii’s offer GameCube backwards compatibility, but it is not a virtual console. There is no official method to play GameBoy and GameBoy Advance games on the Wii. This is why you need to fact check your posts before posting them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3dswitch

IncredulousP

GBAtemp's Resident Bastard
Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2012
Messages
679
Trophies
2
Location
Penguin Village
XP
2,993
Country
United States
I can almost guarantee that this isn't true, and that there is a huge team of highly paid engineers that work on the service, it just seems that this is how Nintendo wants it.

Are there lag issues on the jp servers?
p2p is serverless, as long as your console has a nic and prewritten freely available c libraries anyone can send information p2p, which is why this "service" is bs. It's just a paywall, you're paying for internet access twice.
 

codezer0

Gaming keeps me sane
Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Messages
3,573
Trophies
2
Location
The Magic School Bus
XP
4,498
Country
United States
To keep it short, Nintendo is bilking its users for online service with no justification. They could have just as easily sold those 'access games' a la carte as the new virtual console and been done with it. Locking up cloud saves behind a paid subscription is also exceedingly petty, considering that nintendo itself created the problem by not allowing users to be able to back up their own saves on theit own storage medium(s) of choice.

Once again, there is no reason on this earth to not have a modded Switch console. Unfortunately, they were much too quick in wigging out and patching the best possible exploit we've had. Now, where I'm sitting, I'm forced to choose between the revised model with a usable amount of battery life, or hunting down a launch model at a marked up price and the cost of the jig or whatever it needs to be suitably hacked.
 

Vieela

GBATemp's official thinker™
Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
562
Trophies
0
XP
935
Country
Brazil
I don't think of NSO as a bad service at all, the price's cheap. But definetly, Nintendo could've delivered better stuff. I think NES and SNES, although a strong offer, is still not enough. I'm hoping they'd include at least N64 or Gameboy games, and that'd be incredibly great. The current lineup of VC games they got on NES and SNES Online is great, but it covers a very small amout of retro gamers IMO.

Plus, from what i've seen, Nintendo's servers just not it. They could upgrade their servers, and they have the money to do it if they want to. With their relationship with Microsoft so great, i don't see why they couldn't borrow some of the technology from Azure, for example. Apparently Sony has already done something of sorts.
 

Enryx25

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
703
Trophies
0
XP
1,722
Country
Italy
To keep it short, Nintendo is bilking its users for online service with no justification. They could have just as easily sold those 'access games' a la carte as the new virtual console and been done with it. Locking up cloud saves behind a paid subscription is also exceedingly petty, considering that nintendo itself created the problem by not allowing users to be able to back up their own saves on theit own storage medium(s) of choice.

Once again, there is no reason on this earth to not have a modded Switch console. Unfortunately, they were much too quick in wigging out and patching the best possible exploit we've had. Now, where I'm sitting, I'm forced to choose between the revised model with a usable amount of battery life, or hunting down a launch model at a marked up price and the cost of the jig or whatever it needs to be suitably hacked.
I want to play Smash, Splatoon 2 and Mario Maker online.
 
  • Like
Reactions: banjo2

eyeliner

Has an itch needing to be scratched.
Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2006
Messages
2,879
Trophies
2
Age
44
XP
5,467
Country
Portugal
I've purchased a year just yesterday. For the NES and SNES games is worth it. A lot of gems there to catch up with, because I never had the change to get them when they hit the shelves.

Ice Climber isn't a God damn filler title. It's a fantastic team game with a healthy dose of competition in each summit.

Online gaming is worthless to me and cloud saves always rubbed me the wrong way.

I'd say The Price is Right. For what it offers.
 

JavaScribe

Confused
Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2017
Messages
299
Trophies
0
Location
here idk
XP
794
Country
United States
The netcode for Smash 4 had actually been, by Nintendo's standards, not terrible (at least as I played it on 3DS)
Uh, N3DS player here: it was abyssmal.
I have yet to play through a match without it stopping to buffer. Not "just" upwards of 20 frames of input lag. No, matches straight up stop and buffer.

And I have gigabit.
 

Jimbo_Slim

Pun Master/Loser
Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
240
Trophies
0
Location
Warp Zone
XP
504
Country
United States
I've got 2/3 of the Smash roster in Elite Smash and most of it was hell. Combine it with the joycon drift I have right now and that shitty GSP system, I'm not 100% on SSBU's side for gameplay. Local wireless has lag, no custom smash/smashdown/squad strike and you cannot change the rules of a lobby without closing it. Shared Content is neat, but there needs to be some kind of cleanup as it's a mess. Spectate doesn't have gambling (understandable but you could use points), people in battle get lag from spectators in Battle Arenas, and you can't host your own tourney online. This is why I have free online for a year and I won't pay until it gets fixed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Meteor7

aykay55

Professional Idiot
Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2017
Messages
910
Trophies
0
Location
Where the buffalo roam.
XP
1,083
Country
United States
You forgot to mention the “Game Trials” thing they had started. For two weeks, you could play the entirety of Mario Tennis: Aces (or Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker in Japan) for free with a Switch Online subscription. The game was also discounted heavily (for a Nintendo game) during that period and a couple days after. The icon in the home menu displayed a timer with how many days/hours you had left to play it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: banjo2

godreborn

Welcome to the Machine
Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
38,471
Trophies
3
XP
29,105
Country
United States
off topic, but one game I think needs a discount, speaking of which, is kirby. the game is like 4-6 hours long, and it was priced at $60. at least captain toad was priced at $40 iirc (not including discount).
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    SUPPORT LOCAL PRODUCTS, MAKE REVOLUTION
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    THEY KEEP REMOVING LOCAL SHIt AND REPLACING WItH INFERIOR CHINESE CRAP
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    THATS WHY MY PARTNER CANT GET A GOOTWEAR HIS SIZE ANYMORE
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    HE HAS BIG FOOT AND BIG DUCK
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    d*ck i mean*
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    lol
  • Veho @ Veho:
    Mkay.
  • Veho @ Veho:
    I just ordered another package from China just to spite you.
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    Communism lol
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    OUR products
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    @LeoTCK actually good quality products are dying out because they can't compete with dropshipped chinese crap
    +2
  • BakerMan @ BakerMan:
    @LeoTCK is your partner the sascrotch or smth?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Good morning
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Out of nowhere I got several scars on my forearm and part of my arm and it really itches.
  • AdRoz78 @ AdRoz78:
    Hey, I bought a modchip today and it says "New 2040plus" in the top left corner. Is this a legit chip or was I scammed?
  • Veho @ Veho:
    @AdRoz78 start a thread and post a photo of the chip.
    +2
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Yawn
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    and good morning everyone
    +1
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    @BakerMan, his partner is Luke
  • Sicklyboy @ Sicklyboy:
    Sup nerds
    +1
  • Flame @ Flame:
    oh hi, Sickly
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Oh hi flame
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: Oh hi flame