Nintendo fans have been waiting for what seems like an eternity to hear details about the online service that’s coming to the Switch. Unfortunately, the announcement isn’t what many were hoping for, and includes some controversial decisions.
Whilst the service is relatively cheap, costing just £18/€20/$20 for a 12 month subscription, the overall package isn’t what you’d call competitive with the likes of Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus. For starters, cloud saves will finally be coming to the Nintendo Switch. As of right now, if you lose your Switch or it gets damaged, your save games die along with it.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay the subscription to use this service. If you’ll permit me to be cynical for a moment, Nintendo probably knew people would pay for it anyway. Though you have to pay for the service on PlayStation too, you at least get the option to copy your saves onto a USB too, an options that was also present on the Wii U. No such luck with the Switch though. Meanwhile, the Xbox One offers this service for free.
The service will offer a library of NES games as part of the service, which have been updated to include online support. These games will include the likes of Balloon Fight, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and more. Though the inclusion of online multiplayer gives these games a new-ish lease on life, the face remains that these titles were already bundled with the NES Mini, along with their previous releases on the Wii, the Wii U and the 3DS Virtual Consoles. Oh, and no, the Virtual Console isn’t coming back either. That’s a whole other thing.
Lastly, there are no currently announced plans to add new voice chat options for the Nintendo Switch. Currently, you “have” to use the Nintendo Switch Online App available through your smartphone, and that doesn’t seem to be changing. Of course, you don’t have to. Why would you when you could just use Skype or Discord for free? The launch of a revamped online service would have been a great time to eliminate a lot of the contrivance that comes with communicating online via the Switch, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
In fairness, an anemic package like this is harder to grumble about when you consider that the pricing is much cheaper than both PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold. At £39.99 for Xbox Live Gold and £49.99 for PlayStation Plus, the Nintendo Online service is 55% and 64% cheaper respectively. It stands to reason that you’d get a budget service for a budget price, but that doesn’t make things less disappointing for Nintendo fans who’ve been waiting to hear more about this service for what seems like forever.
There is every chance that Nintendo could turn this one around with some big announcements, or by listening to fans and changing things about the service before it’s due to go live in December, but as of right now, it’s not a great first impression. Even though they’ve been hitting home runs with the likes of Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, today just proves that Nintendo are behind the times when it comes to online services.
Yeah, those were certainly some takes. We’ll let you decide whether or not they were hot in the comments below, but until then, check out some of the best games you should own on the Nintendo Switch.
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