A Grim Reminder that in 2018, the Switch's Online will be Paid.

https://www.nintendo.com/switch/online-service/

I just want people to remember that this is a thing that Nintendo FULLY wants to do and at this point, it's probably a bad idea.

It's not at all heavily advertised that the Switch needs an Online Subscription even though, the initial setup of the Switch WILL warn you about it.

The last time I talked about this I said Nintendo really should try to bring in more Online Focused games to justify a need for a Purchase of $3.99 a month or $7.99 for 3 or $19.99 for 12. Fortunately they seemed to agree as we've seen more games get announced and released, Games such as Rocket League and Doom showed up! We're getting A New Street Fighter Collection and a Blazblue game! Splatoon 2 and ARMS has been getting heavily supported. It seems like Nintendo is getting their Online Portfolio ready for the Switch's Paid service.

Unfortunately, I think it might be a little too late to add in a Paid service now. With the Switch getting as much hype and momentum I feel like adding in the Paid Service would hurt the overall image Nintendo has been getting over the past few months.

Besides this "service" was supposed to launch back in FALL of 2017 and we're about 3 days away from Winter.

And anyone with a Switch can tell you that Online for the system is "Okay" at best? I'm not sure how I can measure it with the other systems as I don't really have a good measuring tool for it, but from my own personal experience, The Best Online I ever got was with ARMS and Rocket League. Splatoon 2 was fun, but there was plenty of moments in that game where I knew some online latency issues were happening.

I can't tell you if it's going to be better then PSN or Xbox Live, but I can tell you I'll be pretty disappointed paying $20 for what I'm currently experiencing.

Nintendo hasn't really given much more info about the "Classic Game Selections" which I'm pretty sure is just the Virtual Console locked behind a Paywall.

And it would be a COMPLETE bummer if Nintendo just has ALL eShop deals locked behind a Paywall. I mean not even Sony does that to their Plus Members. They have separate discounts for both paid and non-paid users.

Overall I think Nintendo should really rethink their Online Strategy for the Switch, it was clear from the get go that the Mobile Phone thing was a complete bust. It only works for Splatoon 2 and the Switch now has plenty more games to choose from for Online competition and Many people Discord instead of the App to voice chat with their friends, just because of the shear bull crap loops you have to go through on the app just to voice chat. Plus the Developers of Splatoon 2 even put native voice chat options on the Switch itself, just plug in a Headset to your Switch and play in LAN mode. The Headset will work.

Unfortunately we can't all have nice things. Hope you Switch guys enjoy the "Free Trial Period" while it lasts. Cause 2018 is just a few days away.

I had almost forgot. I bet there are a shitload of people thinking paying Nintendo for their online isn't worth it. And they're probably right. I might want to play Mario Kart or Splatoon online sometimes.. but enough to pay for it? Doubtful. I've already payed for the games. If they want to remove me from their online if I don't pay them even more.. OK then. But don't expect me to be a happy customer.

We can all thank original Xbox fanboys for this, who paid for Xbox live just to play halo online.

Thanks a lot, you idiots.

If they start giving away FREE games each month like Sony and Microsoft do then I’m down.

If not, screw ‘em. I can live without Nintendo’s online system.

That's like saying Netflix is giving away free games each month. It's not free if you're PAYING THEM FOR IT.

They really ought to keep it free. I understand that it costs them money to do so, but it was a sad day when Sony followed in Microsoft's footsteps on that - that was a huge bonus for the PS3 last gen. I don't think many people will pay to play Switch online, and it might slow unit sales. Sometimes you gotta spend money to make money. Keep the pot sweet, Nintendo

I thought it was already paid... are you telling me it has been free for a year and now it'll be paid? Why the reason for it? "Servers costs money"? Yeah, I guess they didnt for the last year...

Paid online is a SCAM and thats why I never ever paid for it. People have been asking how would MS turn around its situation and the answer is simple: Stop charging for online and I'm sure most americans would flock for Xbox because they love online play... and hopefuly, others would follow

If we get retro or indie titles for being subscribed I'm not going to complain about a measly 20 euro's a year.
It's really going to hurt their image though. ARMS and Splatoon 2 are basically online only, or at least their single player components aren't worth the price of the game.

Yep. Once they knew console gamers would pay, the others were sure to follow. This is why gaming companies get over on people so much, because they take advantage of gamers' ignorance and laziness to never take a stand where it counts.

It sucks, but meh, $20 for a year. That's a dinner for two.

At that point you evaluate what you're getting vs the cost. My PS+ costs about $5 month but I get 6 free games each month between PS3, PS4, and PS Vita. Even if I get all indies I'm still winning especially when you factor in the discounts that I get towards game purchases as well.

If I were invested in a Switch, I would buy it.

And what happens to these "free" games when you stop paying for psn?

If you got Switch and took the Bait...There's only one thing to say...

lol :P

I thought months ago the rumor was it would include a Neflix-like service for virtual console games. If that's correct, I'll happily pay the $20 a year and also use it to play games like Rocket league and Mario Kart online.

$20 is not much of an ask, but I still have very low expectations. I burn twice that amount with each OW seasonal event.

And despite all of that Nintendo fannies are going to support the exact same thing without reservation just like Sony fans.

I still remember when PC had this shit around. (Mplayer, etc) Now its all history.

This, this and this.

**** XBOX!

@Bread_or_Decide: You can't play them anymore. But at least they're still in your PS+ library so they'll be there if you ever decide to renew your subscription

20 dollars?

that's a joke.

let's see what they give us... i am excited.... maybe some achievements? proper voice chat? (doubt it), messaging (lol wii/wiiu had this), free classic game a month with online multiplayer (interested in these),

party chat?(i doubt it)

Well hopefully they bring out some other enhancements for the service as well. I do somewhat like that they are offering some classic games to play per month and $20 per year is a pretty paltry sum so I’m not too worried about it yet. I am satisfied though with my Xbox Live subscription so I’ll wait and see what Nintendo can offer at this price point.

They are. Just, they are retro games from previous consoles. Also, the cost of their online is like $2.xx per month, which is pretty much cheaper than one starbucks coffee each month.

I haven't forgotten about it, I just don't give a damn cause I wasn't gonna use there online sub anyways lol.

If you don't want to pay to use online features, don't pay! If I wanna play online multiplayer, I go to my gaming PC, because it's free and better in a lot of ways. So Nintendo is not putting a gun into my head and saying, pay to use internet or throw away your Switch. Neither it's Sony or Microsoft. If no one will ever bought their subscriptions since the star of this new fashion, this wouldn't be happening now.

These things cost money, some ignorant people are blaming Xbox/PSN for this, but it is the other way around: Nintendo's online pales in comparisons to other services most probably because they have no revenue stream to support it.

Once this is established, you may start(hopefully) seeing a more robust and versatile online system. I dont own a Switch but I did read a little about its limited online. This would be a good thing for the Switch imo, but they should give people choices and not force it for those who don't care about online. The price is low for me as well, a monthly cell phone bill usually eclipses that yearly amount you mentioned of 20$.

Steam has online, as well as a whole bunch of other features. Including, literally giving away free games.

Current price is 0.

$1.67 a month? oh no, how will I ever afford that

@uninspiredcup: Completely different market, ecosystem, install base, etc. I am well aware Steam has free online, and so does Nintendo at this time. But I doubt they will spend the big bucks for not only upgrading their closed online infrastructure but also maintaining it over time (things like reducing outages, regular updates, providing dedicated servers for all 1st party titles, voice chat parties, limiting lag during peak hours, cloud service like storage for saves/synching etc) without more revenue.

Since their online is free now, I believe they should keep that basic service free so as to not remove something people have for free. But I think if they offer more online services for a reasonable price they should offer that as an alternative premium service for people who do not mind paying and getting more. Hey if they want to take the lead spend a lot of $$$ upgrading their online services and not ask a penny from consumers, good luck to them they would get a lot of positive press and Im sure customers would be quite happy with that.

Sony fans be like

Unless Nintendo is able to make its service comparable with that of Sony and Microsoft, nothing offered will be worth any of my money.

Especially considering Halo online wasn't even dedicated servers back then, it was p2p like PSN was but people paid for it anyway.

Paying for the privilege of using your own internet connection, why the **** not.

Lol at people trying to blame MS for this. Every village needs it's idiots I guess.

We're not blaming MS. We're blaming the fools that decided it would be okay to fall for it and pay, thus allowing other companies to see that their anti-consumer practices work well, and follow suite.

Also, it's "its", not "it's".

Please explain how this is anti-consumer, I need a good laugh :)

im assuming they have announcements in the works regarding online. they can't seriously consider charging for it in its current state. its been very quiet on that front.

im wondering if they are having second thoughts and may be going back to a keep it free and basic approach.

knowing Nintendo whatever it is it wont be the straightforward approach. that would be too easy :P.

This :/

We can bitch and moan, and some of it has already been said in this thread, and the typical haters are in despite both they're own consoles milking far before.

But what was the situation?

1) Xbox charged.. and by far had the best service for years.

2) PS3's online was pants compared to Xbox's ... until PS4 which was charging. (hell its still not as good imo.. the one thing I will credit Xbox for.).

3) If it gets nintendo investing more in its online infrastructure and for half the price of the others, then who the f*ck out of your hypocrits have the right to hate?

"PC online is free" magic... all 3rd parties and fans paying for servers, no central administration to focus on.

Yeah because having the best is never free!

@LegatoSkyheart: lol bringing in games that are years old like rocket league justify charging for their crappy online service?

they're not even going to get the major AAA third party multiplayer games from companies like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft. To add insult to that, no voice chat, party chat, or gamertags- still fucking friend codes. Laughable!

Your blame is still misplaced. MS offered an exceptional online gaming platform when no one else did on console. People that had the disposable income payed for it. One could easily argue that Xbox live is the best service out of all the options (pc included).

Nintendo doesn't have near the features, nor the network infrastructure that XBL, or PSN has. The problem isn't that they're charging... It's what they're charging for.

@jcrame10: Did you even READ my long winded essay or did you just see the words "Fortunately" and "Rocket League" and thought I was justifying Nintendo's Paid Online Service?

No, I'm saying that a Paid Online Service for the Switch at this point will now be a bad move and they (Nintendo) should start reconsidering their approach.

That bit was merely me pointing out that Nintendo is at least getting some popular online game titles for the system to TRY to justify a payment for Online, but ultimately I feel that Pay to Play Online service won't work for this system.

Charging people for P2P connections? Please enlighten me as to how that's not anti-consumer.

Just because you love to bend over and pay it doesn't mean it's a justly price to pay.

You must think Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are struggling for money. Let me remind you, that Microsoft is a 69 billion dollar company. How much do you make? You think it's pro consumer that Microsoft pulls in this insane amount of money and then makes you foot the bill? People are so funny how they think they are getting good deals.

Your explanation fails to explain that P2P is free on PC, and no one fronts the cost for servers. Example, Call of Duty, Rocket League, oh and creating a server is free for Killing Floor 2 when you host it yourself.

Sure, if games had servers they ran on, this would be a fine example; however, most games run P2P connections and don't even use servers.

I also like to add that at the time of the Xbox 360, MS wasn't even sure if console gamers would be willingly to pay for online. When MS saw the results, they admittedly increase the online prices as they saw more and more console gamers taking the bait. We wouldn't be seeing this trend if gamers wouldn't bend over to this practice in the first place. MS was using there fans as guinea pigs, and that's where were at now. To make matter worst, MS was sure trying to pull this shit on PC and trying to think PC gamers will follow suit but PC gamers sure wasn't having that and started a riot on MS.

While PS3 may have been free, console gamers didn't care for that and continue to pay for MS online. The big 3 aren't even struggling for money, they want to charge you for $60 a year just to play MP? Hell, nobody told Nintendo to go that route and Nintendo has Billions of dollars as well as MS does.

I really don't understand why people complain about this. It's only $20 for a whole year. That's nothing. I spend around that much just for a night at the movie theater and that's only for about two hours of entertainment, so I will definitely spend it to get entertainment playing Mario Kart online all year long. And then if they start making classic retro games playable online like they promised, I'll be really excited since that is something that I've been wanting for a very long time.

To break down the math even further, that $20 per year equals just $1.66 per month. That's pocket change. Most people would not even notice if one dollar and sixty-six cents was stolen from their wallet once a month, so why are people complaining over such a small fee for such great entertainment?

Online gaming on consoles would also still be crap if it wasn't for Microsoft. The reason that people did not care about the PS3's free online service is because it sucked. You get what you pay for.

Why shouldn't Microsoft charge when they had to invest their money and resources to create an online service that blew everything else out of the water, maintain it, and continually invest in improvements so that they can continue to give gamers a better service.

Microsoft invested their money and resources to create a high quality online service that was far better than Sony and Nintendo's crappy free services and people gladly paid for it for the same reason that someone would rather pay to go to a nice restaurant for a quality meal instead of just eating some food out of the dumpster for free.

PS3 was hacked, which was a big deal.

But other than that hacked period, functionally, there really wasn't much difference. If you were playing MW2, both were using p2p matchmaking... and both seemed to perform about the same to me. Battlefield used dedicated EA servers or hosted private servers (in BF3?). Again, functioned the same on either platform. Sony had plenty of exclusives with terrific online functionality (as well as some, like Twisted Metal, with botched online).

The only thing I noticed, is that Sony had "maintenance" a helluva lot more than Xbox Live. Seems like it was like once a month with Sony and sometimes even going into peak periods, whereas I only recall Xbox Live going off for maintenance a few times.

A grim reminder that people will actually pay for this.