We got a glimpse of some new information about Nintendo's Switch Online Service yesterday during the Direct, but most of what was shown there was already known. To help shed a little more light on just what a subscription entails, Nintendo put a FAQ up on their site. The details are as follows:

• As already stated before the Direct, all Switch users (used to be only launch users) can get a 7 day free trial. This gives you access to online, voice chat, cloud saves, and the NES games.
• Those two wireless NES controllers are only purchasable if you have a current paid Nintendo Switch Online sub.
• The full list of 20 playable NES games for subscribers was revealed: Soccer, Tennis, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3, Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, Dr. Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Double Dragon, River City Ransom, Ghost's N Goblins, Tecmo Bowl, Gradius, Pro Wrestling, Excitebike, Yoshi, Ice Hockey, and Baseball.
• Each month, a new set of games will be added to the group.
• October will add NES Open Golf, Solomon's Key, and Super Dodge Ball
• November additions are Mighty Bomb Jack, Twinbee, and Metroid.
• December brings Wario's Woods, Adventures of Lolo, and Ninja Gaiden.
• Additionally, if you ever lapse in your subscription, you will lose all cloud data. "Save data stored with Save Data Cloud cannot be kept outside of the duration of your Nintendo Switch Online membership." If you cancel or let it expire, you'll lose all data saved on the cloud.
• If you play the NES games, you need to check in every 7 days by going online to verify your account.

Source: Nintendo UK
Source: Nintendo of America

 

[KingVamp]

I feel like the prices of the controllers makes sense. Anything base on the Joy-Con is going be expensive.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I feel like the prices of the controllers makes sense. Anything base on the Joy-Con is going be expensive.

But they don't have any of the features of the Joy-cons at all. AFAIK, they're literally just two wireless NES controllers that charge via the joycon rails.

 

[Daisy]

Meanwhile a PC to play most of those free games good online costs well over 300 dollars. So if you took the extra 800 on average for a stocked pc setup for gaming at normal to medium visual level....and divided that by 20....That is 40 years of Switch online service u could pay for.

You can easily get a system that'll play new games adequately for under 300 dollars. May have to set the settings on medium or low, but you can get something that does the job.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

You can easily get a system that'll play new games adequately for under 300 dollars. May have to set the settings on medium or low, but you can get something that does the job.

Good point, something like an AMD system with an APU is pretty cheap these days. And those are a great budget-friendly jumping-off point that offers a nice upgrade path.

 

[Daisy]

Good point, something like an AMD system with an APU is pretty cheap these days. And those are a great budget-friendly jumping-off point that offers a nice upgrade path.

Hell, I have a secondary PC that has an i5 2400 and a GTX 1050Ti and it cost me about £200. Never had any problems with it. Medium settings, usually.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

Hell, I have a secondary PC that has an i5 2400 and a GTX 1050Ti and it cost me about £200. Never had any problems with it. Medium settings, usually.

Dang, nice score. But yeah, that just goes to show that there are options.

 

[Deleted member 412537]

Thank god I wasn't impatient enough to sell my 3DS for extra cash.
It still has its perks.

 

[FAST6191]

You can easily get a system that'll play new games adequately for under 300 dollars. May have to set the settings on medium or low, but you can get something that does the job.

Go one further.
While I can't predict too far into the future I am fairly confident in saying that you will really need a PC for the remainder of the Switch new releases lifetime. To that end the 300 for a nice refurb machine + cost of a switch + gearing it up gets you something nice.

Again though it is not the money but the principle. If you are going to charge for something which has been free and has not all of a sudden got more expensive then you had better be offering something of note for it.

 

[Daisy]

Dang, nice score. But yeah, that just goes to show that there are options.

Pretty easy to do, just grab an HP Elite 8200 (or better!) Office PC and throw the most powerful card that doesn't require supplemental power. Cheap but effective PC.

 

[KingVamp]

But they don't have any of the features of the Joy-cons at all. AFAIK, they're literally just two wireless NES controllers that charge via the joycon rails.

You might be right, but basically $30 for each wireless controller is fair, right?

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

Go one further.
While I can't predict too far into the future I am fairly confident in saying that you will really need a PC for the remainder of the Switch new releases lifetime. To that end the 300 for a nice refurb machine + cost of a switch + gearing it up gets you something nice.

Again though it is not the money but the principle. If you are going to charge for something which has been free and has not all of a sudden got more expensive then you had better be offering something of note for it.

Agreed, completely.

Pretty easy to do, just grab an HP Elite 8200 (or better!) Office PC and throw the most powerful card that doesn't require supplemental power. Cheap but effective PC.

Yeah, I have a buddy who pretty much exclusively budget games by repurposing old workstation units. Most of his stuff was free or absurdly cheap, which freed up money to sink into a nice 1440p ultrawide monitor. Spiffy stuff.

 

[kumikochan]

You might be right, but basically $30 for each wireless controller is fair, right?

How is that fair when i basically bought a snes mini and a nes mini for that price new with 2 controllers ?

 

[kuwanger]

Meanwhile a PC to play most of those free games good online costs well over 300 dollars.

Buy a GTX 1050 + a used HP Elite 8300 for ~$330 (today's price*) and you get a system that can play a lot of modern games on high/ultra. In fact, that system is powerful enough to run cemu. Also, a lot of Steam deal games or other bundles are really cheap compared to Nintendo offerings. Add to that Steam offers free cloud backup and you can, you know, actually make your own backups too.

There's of course tons of other possible combinations. You could buy all your games at thrift stores or ebay. Plenty of people at garage sales sell ridiculously cheap laptops (sub $50) that are underpowered by modern standards but are as powerful as the Switch. If you feel the need to buy new, you can find $200 laptops that aren't consider "gaming" worthy but really are if you set your target game year back 5 years (and use external storage, admittedly).

If all you care about is the latest games, though, you can always wait 5-10 years and I'm sure Nintendo will port it to their Switch successor as a "remake".

Pretty easy to do, just grab an HP Elite 8200 (or better!) Office PC and throw the most powerful card
that doesn't require supplemental power. Cheap but effective PC.

Ninja'd. I'd definitely say spring for the 8300. The 8200's topped out at Intel Core i7-2600 (3.40 GHz, 8MB cache, 4 cores) but I think they're relatively rare and you're more likely to get an i5-2400. With the 8300, it also varies but i5-3470 seem common and you can luck out and get an i5-3570 like I did.
https://ark.intel.com/products/68316/Intel-Core-i5-3470-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz
* I bought one for cheap for those components but also got an SSD and had an external HDD so the total is closer to ~$550 maybe.

 

[mituzora]

Probably because no one on xbox or playstation used their consoles in the past to modify their save data for exploiting the system for homebrew?

This is simply not true. Lets not forget the save data exploits to get access to both the PSP(with Lumines) and the Vita(can't remember the name) so they can't use this excuse.

I'm okay with the service, I'm okay with the cloud data stuff too, hell the only thing I'm not okay is the requirement of a subscription to buy the NES controllers. may as well buy an 8bitdo (or two) and go with that. you buy a year subscription and then have to buy the NES controllers, it turns out the same price as joycons...that can only be used for NES classics from what I'm gathering.

 

[Pluupy]

Man...remember when Animal Crossing on gamecube CAME with free NES games? Those same free NES games now on switch paid online?

 

[aerios169]

Xbox made backups of your saves for free, also you need your phone to chat or talk with others, I am very dissapointed.... nity can go to de hell in my opinion.

 

[Deleted User]

The bit about the save backups really irks me. Not only do you have to aim for a paid subscription in order to even make save backups in the first place, but you also have no control over them once you lose your subscription. Literally every other system allows you to back up saves locally for free, which leads me to believe that either Nintendo's head staff are impossibly out of touch, their IT staff are incompetent, or a combination of both.

Also, the trickling release schedule of older titles is a real punch to the gut, especially considering how we seem to be starting from scratch again, on top of Nintendo's recent crusade against ROM sites.

 

[KingVamp]

How is that fair when i basically bought a snes mini and a nes mini for that price new with 2 controllers ?

I was going to say that the controllers are wireless and compare them to the wired controllers price, but can't find a reliable comparison. I concede.

 

[kumikochan]

I was going to say that the controllers are wireless and compare them to the wired controllers price, but can't find a reliable comparison. I concede.

I would find 40 more a fair price so 20 a piece

 

[Glyptofane]

I was going to say that the controllers are wireless and compare them to the wired controllers price, but can't find a reliable comparison. I concede.

The extra controllers for NES Classic are $10. There may be some added value for wireless versions, but 3x the cost?