Welcome to Games for Breakfast, a new feature series here on BagoGames!
Games for Breakfast, written by features editor Angelo De Bellis, is a daily opinion piece of about 250-500 words—I gotta keep it brief—that engages topical game news. Every new post will go live at 9am EST so that you can grab your cup of coffee and read a brief account of a particular gamer’s take on the latest goings-on in the industry.
With this first ever Games for Breakfast post, let’s discuss the recently explored pricing structure for Nintendo’s online services for the Switch.
Head of Nintendo Tatsumi Kimishima told The Nikkei on Wednesday that the services will cost somewhere between $17.60-$26.40. When I first heard that Nintendo was going to start charging for their online services, I was worried that their lack of transparency in what they would offer coupled with the fact that typical online services cost around $60, would spell trouble for their approach.
I’ve changed my mind just a little with this new pricing model, as it seems like a mild asking price, though I do wonder why there exists a range in price. Could Nintendo have something special in mind for the higher tier? Perhaps, but from what they revealed at the Switch event, the month-to-month offering of NES and SNES games that disappear after 30 days is not all that exciting, even if they will receive an online multiplayer component. If Nintendo does have additional features that are exciting enough to get people hungry for the launch, then why wouldn’t they have just announced it already?
Though Nintendo has surprised me with a lower-than-expected price, which certainly makes sense since I can’t imagine how their online services will compare to the mature services offered by their competitors, I remain guarded about just what to expect from this first-time foray into a paid online service.
Do you think the proposed pricing is too high, too low, or just right?
About $25 for online service is a lot better price than I expected. Hopefully the library of games will feature some decent online multiplayer that makes paying extra for it worth it.
Isn’t it? Yeah I was surprised by the modest pricing. But even with that in mind, what do you think about having the downloadable title takes away from you after each month. If the library of games meets your expectations and has awesome online multiplayer features, will it bother you much that the game will disappear shortly after?
It totally will bug me! I prefer purchasing physical games but the digital retro games are pretty fun to have as a digital copy always on the Wii U and 3DS. I’m hoping Nintendo will reconsider the deal and offer a retro game for free each month or at least 4 times a year. Maybe even offer the service for $30 a month instead and give the games for free. Especially since the Club Nintendo rewards program was closed a couple years ago, the move to offer free digital games would be a smart one.
Isn’t 25 dollars a little high? I mean, Netflix is less than 10.00. I pay 10.99 per month for Amazon Prime. It just seems really high to me – Trevor