Nintendo Switch Online: Pros, Cons, and Unknowns

<p>Nintendo has finally fully unveiled their online service for the Nintendo Switch&period; The creatively named Nintendo Switch Online service is Nintendo&&num;8217&semi;s version of PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold&period; And as with most Nintendo announcements&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s a mix of great decisions and baffling decisions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;imgur&period;com&sol;mM12Cp0&period;png" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>The Price Is Right<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>Right now&comma; playing Switch games online requires no extra fee&period; Come September that will change&period; Playing Splatoon 2 online will now cost &dollar;19&period;99 USD a year&period; However&comma; we do not know if this will impact more passive online features&period; The low price point will make this transition much easier for many players&period; However&comma; if you own a Switch with multiple accounts on it you will have to get the family plan if more than one of you wants NSO&period; If you purchase NSO for one account on a Switch&comma; none of the other accounts can use online features&period; The family plan does work on multiple accounts and consoles&comma; so if you get 7 people together you could pay as little as &dollar;4&period;38 a year&period; Not that &dollar;19&period;99 per year is breaking the bank&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>The Features Are Adequate<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>NSO will include access to 20 classic NES games at the service&&num;8217&semi;s launch&period; So far they have announced Soccer&comma; Tennis&comma; Donkey Kong&comma; Mario Bros&period;&comma; Super Mario Bros&period;&comma; Balloon Fight&comma; Ice Climber&comma; Dr&period; Mario&comma; The Legend of Zelda&comma; and Super Mario Bros&period;™ 3&period; Nintendo will announce the 10 remaining games soon&period; The wording implies that anyone who joins the service down the road will have access to all of the NES games on the service&period; It is also suggested that games will not leave the service&period; The games included with NSO will additionally feature added online functionality&comma; but it is not known if that includes multiplayer or scoreboards&period; And cloud saves are finally coming to the Switch&excl; It&&num;8217&semi;s a shame that you have to pay for the ability to backup your saves&period; But the price point is so low that it&&num;8217&semi;s an easy hurdle for most people who care&period; Voice chat will be handled through the app that handles Splatoon 2 chat&period; Most people will continue to use Discord or Skype instead&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>My Hot Take<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>All told&comma; this seems like a good service&period; Like I said at the top&comma; there are some decidedly Nintendo-esque parts of the service&period; Such as only one account per console being allowed to have an individual NSO plan and making you use a phone app for voice chat&period; But the price point and the promise of added NES games sweetens the deal&period; And aside from only allowing on individual payer per console&comma; the less desirable aspects will be easy to ignore&period; Personally&comma; I would be happy just paying &dollar;20 for online functionality and cloud save with no added features&period; And I&&num;8217&semi;ll add that the New Smash Bros&period; will launch fairly soon after this service&period; You can quote me on that&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The full press release for the Nintendo Switch online announcement can be found <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;businesswire&period;com&sol;news&sol;home&sol;20180507006260&sol;en&sol;Nintendo-News-Nintendo-Shares-New-Details-Nintendo">here<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;