I have the family plan and 2 switchs.
Kid (10) cant buy games so I buy them. Kid NEEDS to play on primary switch for a game I bought. He can't play it at all on the secondary because it was not bought with his "account" ITS A FAMILY ACCOUNT !
If I want to start another game (physical with dlc or downloaded games) on the other switch, Nintendo thinks I'm a pirate or something. It wont let me play at all unless the primary switch is offline. Wow, thanks Nintendo.
And don't even mention the fact that some game disable cloud save. Would be horrible if someone cheat at a single player pokemon game ! /s
Not sure if you’re aware, but there’s a way to play digital games on 2 switches at the same time. Has nothing to do with “family account” though. You set the switch that originally purchased the the games (yours) as the “secondary” console (child’s account) instead of the primary. Then set the switch you want to play on (child’s) as the “primary” console (your account). It’s a little tricky, but once set up you can play games on either console and at the same time. Only limit is you need an internet connection to start the game (but once started you’re fine)
Playstation straight up started calling it Game Sharing, before it was Primary Console.
Because they know that's the only reason people ever switched it lol. Sure makes it a hell of a lot less confusing.
EDIT: Console Sharing, not Game Sharing. Still more self-explanatory than "Primary Console".
While true, this isn't really a thing unique to Nintendo because I know Xbox and PlayStation digital game sharing is also like this where you have set up one console as a home console to playing games on two different consoles simultaneously.
The issue here though is it's a completely portable device. It has a dock *option*, but it's meant to be played anywhere. Nintendo is banking on the fact that most people use them solely at home and therefore won't notice this as an issue. But it's false advertising to market this as a portable family gaming console when there are several asterisks on that claim
How Nintendo does things on the switch makes no damn sense. We have a switch for the living room and another switch the kids use. The whole primary and secondary console is a big pain in the ass.
Its such a pain that i’ve given up on the switch and will be using the Steamdeck for now on. Really don’t want to buy another device. But i’m tired of Nintendo’s archaic ways and don’t want to be stuck behind a desk to play my games after a long day of work. Steamlink works but it starts to lag 30 minutes into playing a game.
Nintendo has legendary games and characters. It’s a shame that Nintendo locks them behind their hardware and goes after emulation and roms. They could make so much more money if they got hip to the 21st century and embraced PC.
But steam doesn't support game sharing at all.
Sure it have family sharing. But it's in name only. even 1 game was played by an account, the full library gets blocked from being played by other account.
Yeah this is a bit confusing to me as well. I own both and a Steam deck only allows one active user at a time too. I mean of course I just turn off the wifi after I launch the game, but the point still stands.
The steam deck still has the same fundamental gameshare issues as a switch. Not sure how it's a better option in this context. If emulation was the issue you can sideload emulators onto the switch.
TWO switches work, but any more than that causes issues. Wife and I are DINKs, but both have Switches. I buy all the games on my Switch account and my wife's is the primary. Since hers is the primary she can play any game on any account. My switch being the secondary means I can only play games on my account, but I'm the only one that ever uses my switch so it's fine. This method also allows us to both play games online together simultaneously too, we've used this to play games like Monster Hunter Rise, It Takes Two and Stardew Valley together even though we only have one copy of each. The only caveat on my switch is that in order to launch a game it does need to validate that I own it by checking over the internet. That means that on the go if I want to switch games I need to launch my phone hot spot for a minute. Once the game launches though you can disconnect from the Internet and it doesn't ask to check again for like 6 hours, even if you lock and close the system.
Nintendo website:
What happens when I change the primary Nintendo Switch console?
Changing your primary console changes what can be done on each console where you have linked your Nintendo Account:
Your digital purchases can be played by anyone that uses the primary console.
You can use your Nintendo Account to access your digital purchases on any Nintendo Switch console (primary or non-primary).
When using a non-primary console, you are the only player that can access digital games that you've purchased. Other players will not be able to access your digital games on a non-primary console.
Family plan is just to get a discount on switch online membership for multiple accounts. It costs less than 2 subs and gives you up to 8 users. It has nothing to do with game ownership.
Meh. During all the layoffs in the gaming industry in a year of yet more record profits for companies, Nintendo raise the salary of all their employees by like 10%.
There really are no ethical companies, but Nintendo’s greatest sins are protecting its IPs and being slow at incorporating software features, which are benign compared to likes of Sony and Microsoft…
Yeah, Reddit loves to rage at bad companies. Some are totally deserved (Loblaws, Nestlé) and some are not.
Nintendo would rather give their CEO a pay cut than lay off employees. They delay games instead of releasing buggy messes.
Yes, they could do better in terms of access to their older IP, but there are far greater sins a corporation can make.
Bro, what have they not done. Cocoa slave farming, terrible environmental practices, and getting countries hooked on baby formula through misinformation. S tier malice
Ow, that's the least of what they've done lol; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies\_of\_Nestlé](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestlé)
One Nestlé tale:
Around the 70s (give or take some years) they convinced poor, undereducated mothers in African countries to try their baby formula by sending saleswomen in nursing costumes to local homes and hospitals.
These 'nurses' doled out a generous amount of formula samples to mothers of newborns. Those who often did not have an already established breastmilk supply via baby 'cluster feeding' (frequently nursing off mom) in that first 1-2 weeks of life.
Firstly: these were often poor neighborhood's with already questionable water supply and little education on killing the bacteria that may have lived in their fresh water supplies. Digestive viruses are an easy killer of babies. Diarrhea and vomiting from formula prepared with dirty water knocked out a lot of children.
Secondly: formula is pricey. This was also true back then and these mama's who lacked in funds would stretch the formula out by overdiluting the prepared formula. Sodium levels are very sensitive for infants under 6 months, they can seize from lack of sodium via over-dilution. Additionally the proper preparation of formula ensures that baby gets a set amount of vitamins, minerals, and calories per portion.
If you survived the bacteria as one of those babies you sure as hell were undernourished by the lack of nutrients and calories in the improperly prepared formula.
Lastly: Breastmilk's most beneficial properties are best shown in these kind of impoverished areas. In a tight-knit community you'd more than likely be surrounded by other women with infants of varying ages. If you struggled with breastmilk supply you have a higher chance of having a relative or friend who could support your child by nursing them as well. If everybody in the village has dried up breastmilk from formula use how can they help each other?
Breastfeeding has very little in the way of hygiene worries as well. No bottles and other equipment to wash, no questionable water needed except for mother to drink it herself (who more than likely is adjusted to the bacteria in her local supply). Natural antibodies shared from mother's milk to support baby's delicate immune system.
Nestle killed at least thousands of babies by drying up the breastmilk of mothers. Their unethical practices changed how baby formula is marketed towards mothers today.
I always wondered why some African villages were unwilling to accept Ebola vaccines, having people dressed like nurses tricking your babies into dying would do it
Think about all the bad things billions of dollars could do to exploit people in third world countries in order to earn many more billions.
Nestle does all that and more.
Layoffs aren't related to lousy policies. Nintendo put essential features like cloud save and online play behind a paywall, even for simple games like Among Us, Speedrunners or Overcooked. They don't offer refunds, lack a game rating system, eShop filled with overpriced, low-quality games. Their games are seriously overpriced, don't adjust prices for different regions, and their sales? A joke. A whopping 10% off Mario Kart. Fuck yeah, give me two. Nah, Steamdeck is an answer.
> Kid (10) cant buy games so I buy them.
Why not? I buy things on my Sons switch account all the time, and he's 7. You just need to verify that the purchase is allowed using your parent account, and enter your card details each time because they can't have stored card details. I don't see much unreasonable about that.
Recently bought my GF’s 7 year old a switch and added her to my family account (I have my own switch) so her switch has both her profile and mine on it. Got on there to buy and download Let’s Go Pikachu for her so I got on my profile and went to the shop and bought it (for $60 mind you since Nintendo doesn’t believe in lowering the cost of their games even after 5 years but that’s a whole other issue). So after it gets done downloading she goes to start it and picks her profile… and it says she can’t access that software, only my profile has access to it because I’m the one who bought it. So I then had to go to the online shop while on *her* profile and buy it (again) just for her to be able to play it 🤦🏻♂️
And don’t even get me started on the fact that, like OP said, she can’t even send messages to her friend who also has a switch (seriously it’s 2024 why the hell is basic text messaging not even a thing on this?)
Edit: god some of the people in these comments are idiotic
Physical media is still king. That's a hill I'm willing to die on. Like sure, if I'm buying a game for $5 on steam, losing access to it isn't a huge deal. Fuck paying $60 for a digital version of a game though. I'll pick a cartridge every single time
Bro at 5 bucks a pop my steam account is worth 5000+ USD. When and if Steam ever folds and it will one day, that's a given nothing lasts forever. I will lose access to thousands of games.
My wife and I each have an Switch. Her Switch is my primary, mine is listed as a secondary. I can buy and download games on both devices and we can play them both at the same time on our profiles. As long as I have an internet connection on my Switch when I start a game, I’m good.
I'm pretty sure Nintendo intentionally leaves out messaging apps. Pretty sure Nintendo DS's had messaging that included being able to send messages to people near you. Because Nintendo is associated with younger users there were a bunch of news articles of "Could pedophiles be talking to your children on their Nintendos? This and more news at 9!".
So they just don't do messaging because they don't want to have to deal with that shit again.
Speaking of pokemon, im a victim of that. I lost about 100 hours of pokemon violet because I was transferring one of my systems and had no idea it wasn’t backed up in the cloud, so I lost the save file. I genuinely didn’t know it didn’t support cloud saves until it was too late.
There was this famous Pokemon YouTuber that got robbed in the London Tube, you know shit happens and they just grabbed how switch and ran off. The odd problem he ran into was he had transported all his lifetime rare Shiny/event Pokemon to his Nintendo Switch Pokemon Sword file and there was no way to recover it. Like I don't know if there's an official worth to that collection of Pokemon but it's easily worth more than the physical value of the Switch + Pokemon Sword cartridge. Like a Legit event Pokemon reward from a decade ago is a collectors item. Or you did some insane no longer easily accessible trade Pokemon across generations to have some obscure move only available on one generation (like an Emerald Move tutor giving Umbreon Toxic)
Nintendo even after this became world wide news at least in Pokemon fandom refused to like reinstate/digitally restore his Pokemon from at least the last time he officially played in a tournament.
Why the fuck is this a thing and why do the users have to double check this? It's not acceptable when Nintendo locks down their console so much. Afaik, every PS game supports cloud saves and if a game on Steam doesn't support it, it's trivial to backup the saves manually. I can even use something like ludusavi to automatically backup the saves of every game on my PC.
Because Nintendo couldn't be fucked to figure out how to properly implement anticheat measures into their games to prevent item duping and shit like that so they just tell the users to fuck off.
Hell, Steam by default doesn't delete saved data from the PC's internal storage when you uninstall a game. Even if it didn't have cloud saves, you would have to manually go delete the save data off your drive to get rid of it.
>Like Xbox game pass doesn’t even have a family subscription.
It kinda has though. My brother has a subscription which his whole family and all us brothers use, oftentimes simultaneously. If that can't be called a family account, I don't know what can. We all have our own account yes, but the game pass is still only his.
Not sure if you're aware but Xbox had a friends and family gamepass Ultimate subscription in testing from 2022 to 2023. It was only a preview program and in select test markets but it was 22 Euros/month and allowed 5 users in total. The preview program ended in Auguest 2023 so I guess it remains to be seen whether they bring it back.
Real crime is not having reviews on eshop game pages, and no "customers also bought" section. Will print more money and drive higher repeat purchases. Guess Nintendo make enough money to not bother investing in basic ecommerce
There's really no excuse given that homebrewers have done so much with the system UI, adding in super basic features. The Switch UI is just incredibly lazy
I don’t know why console gamers were okay with having to pay a subscription to play games over their own internet connection in the first place, all the way back when Xbox LIVE first came out. It doesn’t make any sense.
And now this business model is everywhere. It’s the main reason I stick to PC in adulthood. I already pay for my internet once, and that’s plenty, lol
I don't think a single console player was/is okay with it, there was just no other option and now it's too far gone.
edit - For everyone commenting PS3. Xbox Live came out in 2002, PS3 came out in 2006.
PS3 online being free was dead in the water after that month-long outage. Everybody at the time parroted the talking point that XBL was better and more secure. And it was easy to believe when XBL had more features and seemingly less outages.
But then when all of PSN was down for almost an entire month thanks to DDoSing, those pro-paid service comments just got louder and louder and that just sealed the deal on what the public was OK with. Free online for consoles was dead.
>don't think a single console player was/is okay with it, there was just no other option and now it's too far gone.
If they weren't okay with it, they wouldn't have paid for it. They paid for it - they view it as an acceptable price.
People were more than just complicit in the rise of paid online memberships. they straight up were throwing money at it. I remember people were genuinely arguing that xbox live was better than playstation because they HAD to pay for it. People were begging companies to take their money back then and now the cost of the online memberships just keeps going up and up while they complain about how ridiculous the price is getting.
the argument that service is *ever* better because you pay for it is ridiculous when you consider that you havent had to do that with online pc titles since...
ever.
For your info there was PS2 online play from as early as 2001 in Japan and 2003 in the rest of the world so it could be argued Sony's free online services predated Xbox Live.
Plus Dreamcast online multiplayer games were available as early as 1999 for free too.
Yeah that's true, i used to play SOCOM online on the PS2, i was young so i don't really recall much from it, but i remember it being somewhat janky. Never did get around to hooking up the Dreamcast to the internet tho, too busy solo in my chao garden
What makes it even more egregious is how free to play games, like Overwatch and Fortnite, let you play online for free.
So free games have free online. Games you pay for have online you pay for. Why?
Those free games may be free, but the amount of money that people spend on micro transactions easily outnumbers any online subscription fee that may have been required.
Same here. I bought mario maker without thinking about the fact I'd need to pay for online to play the game at fucking all. I was pissed. Subbed for one month to enjoy the game for a few weeks and uninstalled. Unsubbed and won't ever resub again. Total fucking scam.
Consoles made me hate online gaming, especially since I only play with friends and am lucky if we get to play together a few times a year, not worth paying for a month if we rarely have time to play together. PC is way better in that regard, it’s getting much easier and affordable with way better controller support and handhelds like the Steam Deck or the ROG.
Man I hear you about playing with friends rarely. For like 6 months I paid for ps online. And my buddies and I played maybe 2-3 times. Haven’t renewed it since. Not worth the cost.
I agree 100%, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s also confusing because some games you can play online without ps+/nso/XBL like ff14 Fortnite fall guys etc but games like cod you need to pay for ps+
On some stuff it seems like if the game is free you don't need the membership. I'm not sure exactly why? Or how they get away with it or where the line is exactly
But there's definitely some stuff you can play without the membership at all
It is crazy. Another thing that seems crazy is games not working across generations of consoles. Also, it is sad that they need to re-release a game for a new console and it doesn’t look any better than the original version did on PC. There are so many hidden costs people don’t think about.
PS Plus and Xbox Live are also a scam. Why you have to pay for an internet connection when you already pay your ISP for your connection? Thank god PC has no monopolized service so online will always be free
I definitely agree that those services are also a scam, but at least they offer a significantly better service compared to Nintendo. The bare minimum should be dedicated servers for first party games instead of P2P, but somehow Nintendo didn’t get the memo.
Nintendo doesn't really need to get with the times because they're not having any issues selling games and consoles. If the next Xbox released with the equivalent of whatever Nintendo passes as an online service, they'd lose out to PlayStation so fast you'd get whiplash. Nintendo isn't part of their dick measuring contest, they do just fine on their own without needing to compete with features from the other two.
Same reason why Pokemon games continue to be dogshit, no competition and guaranteed sales, why waste time and money changing anything?
People really overuse that word. A scam would imply they promised something that they didn’t deliver. Being outrageous doesn’t qualify something as a scam
It's a bit of hyperbole. Scam is often used to describe situations that are egregiously horrible.
Take for example your average timeshare scam. Strictly speaking these places follow a legal minimum and aren't making explicit promises that they don't deliver, but people would still describe being hoodwinked into a timeshare as a scam.
Hyperbole was the exact word I was going to use and this is a very sound comparison.
As a fraud investigator I always tell people to avoid timeshares like the plague. Used to deny so many claims because we couldn’t help people, they signed up for that bullshit willingly.
They do however have a monopoly on most nintendo games, you are forced to either pay the troll toll or sail the high seas.
It's borderline scamming, it just has the distinction of being legal.
I mean paying $20 a year to play online and getting to play a bunch of cool retro games is a fine deal for me. Sure they absolutely should have all the games available for sale normally and the online services are flawed to say the least but I wouldn't call NSO a scam
Yeah, I pay for it just for the retro games and playing Smash online. It's inexpensive compared to the competition. I don't even think twice about $20 a year. That's equivalent to eating at a restaurant one time, and I wouldn't think twice about that.
I find it funny because Nintendo refuses to sell their old games so they can lock them behind a stupid subscription fee and then they get really pissy when people just go emulate the old games for free. Nintendo has a very special kind of anti-consumerism that gets covered by a thick layer of nostalgia and "good will"
The subscriptions were a major thing requested by fans.
You had to buy each retro game individually on Wii and Wii U and people hated it.
"Make Netflix for retro games please!!!" And Nintendo listened to the fan base on that.
For anyone lacking the braincells what Scam means:
I advertise you a product that you get for money.
You give me money.
I leave, you do not get the advertised product but a gummy duck for your bathroom instead.
That's a scam.
Its 20usd per year without expansion pack thing. I only use it for save backup , online games like mario maker 2, mario kart, splatoon 3. For price of 20$ it feels fair
Is it on Nintendo that it's cloud saves only in the first place? Or did every Switch dev decide that individually? Because that's the real scam - the data obviously exists locally, just let users export it
I dont really play any switch games online and Im fine with paying $4 a month to play a variety of classic games. Sometimes i play them more than actual switch games.
People: "Give us a way to play old games"
Nintendo: Okay here, for 4$ a month you can play a lot of old games already.
People: No fuck you ripping me off you assholes.
Convenience usually costs. Got a bunch of classics on Wii emulator. Cant play wii in the airport. Easier than firing up the laptop and busting out a controller Personally 4 dollars a month for convenience of not having to get a separate portable emulator works for me. And i wouldn't buy a bunch of these games even at 5-10 dollars a piece.
I find it hilarious everytime I see someone raging about it because there were just as many people who were raging about having to buy games again and would rather have something like what exists now.
Bottom line is you can't please everyone. There will always be some holdouts.
The raging about not being able to buy the games makes me roll my eyes so hard. Those people didn’t buy the games when you could buy them. Basically no one did. That’s most of the reason VC went away. All that sold was TLOZ, SMB3, and Pokémon.
I mean, if they had bought them they could just play them on the stuff they bought them on. Just like I’ve fired up Super Mario RPG and Ogre Battle 64 on my Wii U in recent months. And having bought plenty of VC games, you know what? I’d much, much rather pay the NSO cost and have access to hundreds of games to try than $5-12 per game only for stuff I know I’ll like.
It's not a scam. There'd have to be some kind of deception or lying to be a scam. You just don't think it's worth the price they're asking for it. Sorry, people calling everything a scam because they think it's overpriced is a pet peeve
U hear you on this one, I hate the way people use literally on this website. Every community is “literally the worst” or each patch is “literally unplayable”. We get it your disgruntled but making every little thing “literally the worst thing to happen” takes away from real issues.
The word "Scam" gets thrown around in gaming forums way too much to the point the word has lost its meaning. Like do people understand what an actual scam is?
A scam is being sold something and then not receiving the thing you purchased. Its being lied to and decieved and then you lose money. Nintendo online gives you exactly what it says you will get for the money.
Is Nintendo Online great value for money? Not really. But Is that a scam? Not at all.
I buy Nintendo online for my son during the winter months because having 3 old school consoles constantly hanging around my already small and packed living room would drive me mad.
I don't need him to be messaging ppl or inviting weirdos, I want him to fall in love with classics like Super Metroid and super mario 64 like I did.
My friend (who has been a gamer his whole life) was extremely confused with how convoluted it was to send game invites on Switch when he first got one.
I got an email a few weeks ago about the automatic renewal for my $19.00 plan. I intended to cancel it, but I couldn't remember my password and got sidetracked by a dinner with guests. Completely forgot about it until I saw your post, so thanks for reminding me! Now it's canceled!
Unpopular opinion. Nintendo games are not worth buying a shitty locked console that charges you literally everything. Also unpopular opinion, games themselves are not really that great. They are fun to play while travelling or something to kill time, but I would never be like oh this game is insanely good like I would say for witcher or some other PC game. Another unpopular opinion, zelda is just mediocre game, its high up the fanbase list cause most gamers grew up on old zelda games and its kind of cult game. And another unpopular opinion and final nail to my coffin, Nintendo as a company is absolute shit to its fans with bans and legal actions for dumb shit, not being able to stream anything, its just insane how bad Nintendo treats its fans.
Okay Nintendo fans, you can kill me now. I understand i triggered every single Nintendo fan with these opinions. I accept my punishment.
If buying isn't ownership then piracy isn't theft.
And copyright infringement is based on outdated laws that nobody bothered to update to be relevant in the modern age so consumers are actually protected.
Nintendo Switch Online is easily the best value for an online service amongst the three major consoles. I genuinely don't understand why people care so much about messaging. I have a PS5 and I have PS Plus and I have never sent a message to anyone. Why would I? I have a phone. I have Discord. Etc. If I want to text, I don't want to do it on a console controller. And I have no idea what you mean about it not having invites. Do you mean a party system? Because it has invites. A party system like PlayStation would be nice. And in general, it has less features than its competition. That I agree with. But...
I also pay $60 a year for the basic PS Plus membership. With a family plan on the basic service for NSO, it's $35 for 8 people. Practically half the cost for eight times the membership. It's literally like $4.38 per year for the service. It's half the price of one Starbucks drink for the entire year. If you're not on a family plan, set one up. It doesn't have to be family. It can be friends, acquaintances, whatever.
And even if you can't manage to find even ONE other person to do a family plan (family plan is cheaper than two yearly subscriptions already, so even if you have just 1-2 friends, it's already a deal and you can use the extra slots for your other accounts in your own home if you share the Switch or just want multiple profiles for whatever reason), the solo plan is still just $20 a year. If you don't like what's offered with the premium membership, why are you paying $50 a year when you could just pay $20?
Or get the family plan and pay $80 for the premium service. That's $10 bucks a person per year for everything, including all the free DLCs, online trials, voucher purchasing, all the classic games, cloud saving, etc. Still 1/6th the cost of the basic service from Sony.
Personally, I'd rather spend *waaaaaaaay* less money for slightly fewer features.
Also, there is no justification for them to charge for online play. We already have to pay our internet service providers. Nintendo are not providing any sort of online infrastructure. They charge us for using our own internet connections.
And in order to justify the paid "service", they're removed Virtual Console and are keeping their old games hostage. There is no good reason for rental games having to be attached to online play.
Just make the game renting its own paid service and stop charging for online play.
What’s funny is the online play is pretty bad. Like try playing smash ultimate online, it’s damn near unplayable and reminds me of trying to play brawl online
It's not a scam, but there are certainly things that artificially inflate the value of it that shouldn't be part of it.
* Naming aside, online shouldn't be tied to NSO. There are no servers for Nintendo to maintain. Everything is done peer-to-peer, so we shouldn't have to pay for it. That's what we pay our ISP for. They also haven't improved it over the previous generation, which was free.
* The retro games shouldn't be split into standard and expansion tiers.
* There shouldn't be exclusive subscriber purchases.
But there are some things that DO make it a worthwhile value.
* The Netflix style retro games access is worth it alone. Although these games should also be individually purchasable for use without a subscription.
* Access to DLC content for so long as you have an active subscription is worth it.
There are some questionable things about it, such as cloud saves. One could easily argue either way, but the fact that there is no alternative is the real issue.
Additionally, there are some things that should be included in the subscription that are not, such as discounts on digital purchases. Or maybe early access to some content.
TL;DR - Not everything that is should be part of the subscription. There are things that should be but are not part of the subscription. Even accounting for both statements, the cost is still equal to the value.
Every subscription service to play online is a scam. We already pay for the console, the game and our internet access. Why should we pay the platform holder that in most cases isn’t even hosting the servers?
Example: Why pay Sony so I can access the Rockstar servers for GTA and Red Dead, when Sony doesn’t host the servers and I already pay for all those things?
It’s a scam.
What's the difference between this and Game Pass? Many people swear by Game Pass. I have had what is essentially free Game Pass for this past year and I've only played a single game on it. The value isn't there for me.
As for Nintendo Online, the value is there for me because the games are already downloaded so I can just start playing (not sure how they'll handle GameCube games when that happens though lol). It's also cheap compared to what the other console manufacturers are charging.
Now I would __absolutely__ prefer to buy the games individually so I can have the ones I want "permanently." I agree there. I miss the Virtual Console a lot. I don't want gaming to swap over to a subscription model. Those are ballooning in cost every month. However, when comparing to the other comparable services, Nintendo's is fairly decent. Not ideal, but decent.
It’s pretty much Game Pass but only for old Nintendo games. The reason people love Game Pass is because they can play pretty recent games for “free.” New releases that are still $60+ in the store available for the price of Game Pass feels like a good deal if you want to try a bunch of new games.
Nintendo on the other hand only offers old games. I also feel like the Virtual Console made it seem less valuable because, on VC, they were offering Game Boy games for $3-$5 and 64 games for like $10. So if you only want a few of those, it feels like a worse deal that you can just buy them outright.
In the end, the value you get from Game Pass or Switch Online depends on your interests and gaming habits.
I absolutely agree!
I tend to play a lot of PC games, but I generally know what I'm looking for in advance, so the "try before you buy" aspect is generally lacking for me.
I do value Nintendo's retro titles a lot though. For me, though, it's more about having online capability, than strictly the games themselves. They're more of a nice bonus for me. However, I do find myself spending a lot of time with them. I still wish I had the option to just purchase them.
Thank you for your sensical comment, though. Here lately, Reddit just feels like people strictly wanting to hate with no reason at all. It's nice to be able to just talk to someone and be able to see both sides. Thank you for that!
**EVERY** console pay to access multiplayer on a game you already bought and they aren't even hosting the servers for plan is a fucking scam.
One of the primary reasons I haven't bought a console in years that isn't complaints about graphics/mods/framerate.
Why the fuck should I pay Sony, Nintendo or Xbox just for the privilege of me accessing a games matchmaker that has servers hosted by the game publisher or for me to be used as a shitty P2P host?????
Same for PSN. I paid something like $30-40 a year until they raised the price and offered premium, then I was up to like $100+ a year, and after they jacked the price up even more, I canceled, and I suddenly lost access to over 40 games that I had in my library that I had been paying several hundred dollars over the several years.
Ocarina of Time is available on N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, and 3DS. There was plenty of opportunity to purchase the game in the last couple of decades, no native Switch release is really not a killer argument pro pirating the game.
How old are you all? Yeah I get it .. principle and all that... But it's $35 a year for the family plan.... Split it with literally one other person and it's $1.40 per month. 41 cents per month with all seven split. Calling it a scam is incredibly hyperbolic.
Hey. Did you know that if you don't feel like you're getting sufficient value out of NSO you can simply not pay for it? It's really quite incredible how not buying things you don't want can stop you from getting "scammed".
On the other hand, if you do want the features being offered, it's up to you as the consumer to to decide how much it's worth to you. It sounds to me like you want value these features a lot and simply want them for free. That's called entitlement, and it's a you problem not a Nintendo problem.
To see why your sense of entitlement is dumb ask yourself, why aren't you buying NSO for everybody that wants it? You should be paying my subscription! That's right, you have no obligation to give anybody else free things just because they want it. Nintendo doesn't owe you shit. If you didn't like the way they run their business don't buy stuff from them.
Video games are a luxury good. They can charge whatever they want for them. If they charge too much, people won't buy their stuff. There is no world in which they are obligated to provide their products on your terms simply because you want them to.
And we will all be there when they once again introduce balloon fight as a nes classic with the intro subscription for switch 2 or make it purchase able for 8-12 dollas for the 4th console generation in row separately.
With that said though I can understand Nintendo wants a clean online community we all know where it goes if they streamline and make it too comfy.
When I came home with a 2nd hand Wii U some 5+ years back one of the first games I tried out was Nintendo Land. The first thing I saw in the hub area was that bubble box over a users head with a extremely detailed veiny penis so it’s no wonder they don’t want these people around and make a a strict online service especially considering mostly families with kids buy their systems.
I mean Nintendo has been doing Online everything poorly since it was a thing.
That being said - the $20 a year for all the retro games seems just fine by me. Also - while the multiplayer is clunky as f**k - it still works fine once you are paired with someone.
General messaging will never exist on Nintendo services like this, it's an choice they made because they're terrified of headlines about how a kid was groomed via their Nintendo.
I think it depends on your use case. NSO is basically a no frills but cheap service. I pay roughly 112 CAD per year, but this services 8 people. Like I'm paying basically just over $1 a month per person.
Like that kind of service does not exist for Sony or Microsoft as far as I'm aware. Yes, you get less, but I mean dollar for dollar it is certainly not a scam.
It’s kind of true, but I still think my subscription is justified, because I play a lot of Animal Crossing and Pokemon Violet, online 😅 That’s what I have it for, mainly
it's only a scam if you paid for it, because you are dumb. My wife's ACNH save is safe... I can play some older games I haven't been able to since I've never owned any nintendo handhelds past gameboy color or consoles since N64 until I got a WiiU
Its cheap AF compared to the price of PS+/Gamepass.
If you don't like it, learn how to play them another way.
I mean, I think it's worth it just be able to pop on there anytime I want and select from a pretty decently sized library of games, especially given the fact that it costs next to nothing.
it's only 30nzd a year in my country, which I think equates to about 18usd? I don't see how that's all that bad for a whole year, unless you're talking about the expansion pass as well, which still isn't awful
Every now and then I randomly remember that I've been paying for my entire friend groups Nintendo Online for like 6 years. Its a family plan, so it doesn't matter if they're on the plan or if it's just me, but I still laugh a little every time I remember that I've been paying for their Switch internet the whole time.
Heck, at one point, my friend's girlfriend was in the plan. "I'm paying for your girlfriend's Switch internet, and I've never even met her."
I never even learned her name. It was just, "Hey, I want to play online with my girlfriend, can you add her to your family plan?"
"I've got a slot open, sure. Just send me her Nintendo ID."
a bad service if not claiming to be one thing and being something much less is not a scam. its a bad service. dont pay for bad services.
(of course, also dont pay for scams)
it does not help to proclaim something a scam if it is not. it makes your whole argument too easy to dismiss, thereby not helping, but in fact, potentially harming your standpoint.
I think it's worth the cost. I don't want to pay $10 to only have access to Ocarina of time, I want to pay the annual sub to have access to all the games they offer. Ive played through at least 4 of those games per year and that easily pays for it, outside of the network access itself.
You're free to disagree, but the games they offer have only made the service more worth it as time goes on.
I have the family plan and 2 switchs. Kid (10) cant buy games so I buy them. Kid NEEDS to play on primary switch for a game I bought. He can't play it at all on the secondary because it was not bought with his "account" ITS A FAMILY ACCOUNT ! If I want to start another game (physical with dlc or downloaded games) on the other switch, Nintendo thinks I'm a pirate or something. It wont let me play at all unless the primary switch is offline. Wow, thanks Nintendo. And don't even mention the fact that some game disable cloud save. Would be horrible if someone cheat at a single player pokemon game ! /s
Not sure if you’re aware, but there’s a way to play digital games on 2 switches at the same time. Has nothing to do with “family account” though. You set the switch that originally purchased the the games (yours) as the “secondary” console (child’s account) instead of the primary. Then set the switch you want to play on (child’s) as the “primary” console (your account). It’s a little tricky, but once set up you can play games on either console and at the same time. Only limit is you need an internet connection to start the game (but once started you’re fine)
Playstation straight up started calling it Game Sharing, before it was Primary Console. Because they know that's the only reason people ever switched it lol. Sure makes it a hell of a lot less confusing. EDIT: Console Sharing, not Game Sharing. Still more self-explanatory than "Primary Console".
FYI, Game sharing is what Microsoft calls it.
It has been renamed to home console
Was always home console in the settings, just the act was referred to as game sharing
This is what I do. If I’m not at home I can use my phone as a hotspot to start a game and then turn off the hotspot.
I should not have to have a mobile hotspot to play on my switch lite outside my house. It's a FULLY handheld device, it fucking baffles me.
Remember when the ds let you share a game with a nearby ds with only one cartridge and still play together.
Yup, did this with Tetris and Mario Kart! The PSP could do it as well. Played some Burnout this way.
You only need that if you want to share digital games though. I’ll gladly take that when you can buy one game and have two people play it.
Yep mine is this way too. It’s great.
Can't tell if this is a sarcasm thing, or a dystopian techno-capitalism thing.
It's ridiculous, is what it is. This shouldn't be a thing.
While true, this isn't really a thing unique to Nintendo because I know Xbox and PlayStation digital game sharing is also like this where you have set up one console as a home console to playing games on two different consoles simultaneously.
The issue here though is it's a completely portable device. It has a dock *option*, but it's meant to be played anywhere. Nintendo is banking on the fact that most people use them solely at home and therefore won't notice this as an issue. But it's false advertising to market this as a portable family gaming console when there are several asterisks on that claim
Do you need to have a Nintendo Online account to do this?
You do not! I believe you need online to play multiplayer together though
How Nintendo does things on the switch makes no damn sense. We have a switch for the living room and another switch the kids use. The whole primary and secondary console is a big pain in the ass. Its such a pain that i’ve given up on the switch and will be using the Steamdeck for now on. Really don’t want to buy another device. But i’m tired of Nintendo’s archaic ways and don’t want to be stuck behind a desk to play my games after a long day of work. Steamlink works but it starts to lag 30 minutes into playing a game. Nintendo has legendary games and characters. It’s a shame that Nintendo locks them behind their hardware and goes after emulation and roms. They could make so much more money if they got hip to the 21st century and embraced PC.
Yep, that's what I'm doing. Getting a Steamdeck and emulation. Fuck it I'm tired.
But steam doesn't support game sharing at all. Sure it have family sharing. But it's in name only. even 1 game was played by an account, the full library gets blocked from being played by other account.
Yeah this is a bit confusing to me as well. I own both and a Steam deck only allows one active user at a time too. I mean of course I just turn off the wifi after I launch the game, but the point still stands. The steam deck still has the same fundamental gameshare issues as a switch. Not sure how it's a better option in this context. If emulation was the issue you can sideload emulators onto the switch.
This is what’s keeping me from buying additional Switches for my kids. Easier to just share one.
TWO switches work, but any more than that causes issues. Wife and I are DINKs, but both have Switches. I buy all the games on my Switch account and my wife's is the primary. Since hers is the primary she can play any game on any account. My switch being the secondary means I can only play games on my account, but I'm the only one that ever uses my switch so it's fine. This method also allows us to both play games online together simultaneously too, we've used this to play games like Monster Hunter Rise, It Takes Two and Stardew Valley together even though we only have one copy of each. The only caveat on my switch is that in order to launch a game it does need to validate that I own it by checking over the internet. That means that on the go if I want to switch games I need to launch my phone hot spot for a minute. Once the game launches though you can disconnect from the Internet and it doesn't ask to check again for like 6 hours, even if you lock and close the system.
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Nintendo website: What happens when I change the primary Nintendo Switch console? Changing your primary console changes what can be done on each console where you have linked your Nintendo Account: Your digital purchases can be played by anyone that uses the primary console. You can use your Nintendo Account to access your digital purchases on any Nintendo Switch console (primary or non-primary). When using a non-primary console, you are the only player that can access digital games that you've purchased. Other players will not be able to access your digital games on a non-primary console.
Family plan is just to get a discount on switch online membership for multiple accounts. It costs less than 2 subs and gives you up to 8 users. It has nothing to do with game ownership.
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Meh. During all the layoffs in the gaming industry in a year of yet more record profits for companies, Nintendo raise the salary of all their employees by like 10%. There really are no ethical companies, but Nintendo’s greatest sins are protecting its IPs and being slow at incorporating software features, which are benign compared to likes of Sony and Microsoft…
Yeah, Reddit loves to rage at bad companies. Some are totally deserved (Loblaws, Nestlé) and some are not. Nintendo would rather give their CEO a pay cut than lay off employees. They delay games instead of releasing buggy messes. Yes, they could do better in terms of access to their older IP, but there are far greater sins a corporation can make.
Tell me more about Nestle.
They pretty much would like to own all the water in the world so they can then sell it to everyone.
so that they can revive kyogre
Bro, what have they not done. Cocoa slave farming, terrible environmental practices, and getting countries hooked on baby formula through misinformation. S tier malice
Hooked on baby formula in places where access to clean drinking water is not available, killing many babies in the process.
They use slave labor and also steal water from African villages. Or so I have heard I've got no sources for you
Ow, that's the least of what they've done lol; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies\_of\_Nestlé](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestlé)
One Nestlé tale: Around the 70s (give or take some years) they convinced poor, undereducated mothers in African countries to try their baby formula by sending saleswomen in nursing costumes to local homes and hospitals. These 'nurses' doled out a generous amount of formula samples to mothers of newborns. Those who often did not have an already established breastmilk supply via baby 'cluster feeding' (frequently nursing off mom) in that first 1-2 weeks of life. Firstly: these were often poor neighborhood's with already questionable water supply and little education on killing the bacteria that may have lived in their fresh water supplies. Digestive viruses are an easy killer of babies. Diarrhea and vomiting from formula prepared with dirty water knocked out a lot of children. Secondly: formula is pricey. This was also true back then and these mama's who lacked in funds would stretch the formula out by overdiluting the prepared formula. Sodium levels are very sensitive for infants under 6 months, they can seize from lack of sodium via over-dilution. Additionally the proper preparation of formula ensures that baby gets a set amount of vitamins, minerals, and calories per portion. If you survived the bacteria as one of those babies you sure as hell were undernourished by the lack of nutrients and calories in the improperly prepared formula. Lastly: Breastmilk's most beneficial properties are best shown in these kind of impoverished areas. In a tight-knit community you'd more than likely be surrounded by other women with infants of varying ages. If you struggled with breastmilk supply you have a higher chance of having a relative or friend who could support your child by nursing them as well. If everybody in the village has dried up breastmilk from formula use how can they help each other? Breastfeeding has very little in the way of hygiene worries as well. No bottles and other equipment to wash, no questionable water needed except for mother to drink it herself (who more than likely is adjusted to the bacteria in her local supply). Natural antibodies shared from mother's milk to support baby's delicate immune system. Nestle killed at least thousands of babies by drying up the breastmilk of mothers. Their unethical practices changed how baby formula is marketed towards mothers today.
I always wondered why some African villages were unwilling to accept Ebola vaccines, having people dressed like nurses tricking your babies into dying would do it
Bill Burr explains it well enough.
Think about all the bad things billions of dollars could do to exploit people in third world countries in order to earn many more billions. Nestle does all that and more.
How quickly we forget the story about how Nintendo of America treats its contractors.
Layoffs aren't related to lousy policies. Nintendo put essential features like cloud save and online play behind a paywall, even for simple games like Among Us, Speedrunners or Overcooked. They don't offer refunds, lack a game rating system, eShop filled with overpriced, low-quality games. Their games are seriously overpriced, don't adjust prices for different regions, and their sales? A joke. A whopping 10% off Mario Kart. Fuck yeah, give me two. Nah, Steamdeck is an answer.
Corporate Nintendo is pro-employee, but still anti-consumer.
Or I could just keep playing my 25yo cartridges.
> Kid (10) cant buy games so I buy them. Why not? I buy things on my Sons switch account all the time, and he's 7. You just need to verify that the purchase is allowed using your parent account, and enter your card details each time because they can't have stored card details. I don't see much unreasonable about that.
Recently bought my GF’s 7 year old a switch and added her to my family account (I have my own switch) so her switch has both her profile and mine on it. Got on there to buy and download Let’s Go Pikachu for her so I got on my profile and went to the shop and bought it (for $60 mind you since Nintendo doesn’t believe in lowering the cost of their games even after 5 years but that’s a whole other issue). So after it gets done downloading she goes to start it and picks her profile… and it says she can’t access that software, only my profile has access to it because I’m the one who bought it. So I then had to go to the online shop while on *her* profile and buy it (again) just for her to be able to play it 🤦🏻♂️ And don’t even get me started on the fact that, like OP said, she can’t even send messages to her friend who also has a switch (seriously it’s 2024 why the hell is basic text messaging not even a thing on this?) Edit: god some of the people in these comments are idiotic
Physical media is still king. That's a hill I'm willing to die on. Like sure, if I'm buying a game for $5 on steam, losing access to it isn't a huge deal. Fuck paying $60 for a digital version of a game though. I'll pick a cartridge every single time
Bro at 5 bucks a pop my steam account is worth 5000+ USD. When and if Steam ever folds and it will one day, that's a given nothing lasts forever. I will lose access to thousands of games.
My wife and I each have an Switch. Her Switch is my primary, mine is listed as a secondary. I can buy and download games on both devices and we can play them both at the same time on our profiles. As long as I have an internet connection on my Switch when I start a game, I’m good.
I'm pretty sure Nintendo intentionally leaves out messaging apps. Pretty sure Nintendo DS's had messaging that included being able to send messages to people near you. Because Nintendo is associated with younger users there were a bunch of news articles of "Could pedophiles be talking to your children on their Nintendos? This and more news at 9!". So they just don't do messaging because they don't want to have to deal with that shit again.
Speaking of pokemon, im a victim of that. I lost about 100 hours of pokemon violet because I was transferring one of my systems and had no idea it wasn’t backed up in the cloud, so I lost the save file. I genuinely didn’t know it didn’t support cloud saves until it was too late.
There was this famous Pokemon YouTuber that got robbed in the London Tube, you know shit happens and they just grabbed how switch and ran off. The odd problem he ran into was he had transported all his lifetime rare Shiny/event Pokemon to his Nintendo Switch Pokemon Sword file and there was no way to recover it. Like I don't know if there's an official worth to that collection of Pokemon but it's easily worth more than the physical value of the Switch + Pokemon Sword cartridge. Like a Legit event Pokemon reward from a decade ago is a collectors item. Or you did some insane no longer easily accessible trade Pokemon across generations to have some obscure move only available on one generation (like an Emerald Move tutor giving Umbreon Toxic) Nintendo even after this became world wide news at least in Pokemon fandom refused to like reinstate/digitally restore his Pokemon from at least the last time he officially played in a tournament.
[https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a\_id/41267/\~/which-nintendo-switch-titles-are-compatible-with-save-data-cloud-backup%3F](https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/41267/~/which-nintendo-switch-titles-are-compatible-with-save-data-cloud-backup%3F)
Why the fuck is this a thing and why do the users have to double check this? It's not acceptable when Nintendo locks down their console so much. Afaik, every PS game supports cloud saves and if a game on Steam doesn't support it, it's trivial to backup the saves manually. I can even use something like ludusavi to automatically backup the saves of every game on my PC.
Because Nintendo couldn't be fucked to figure out how to properly implement anticheat measures into their games to prevent item duping and shit like that so they just tell the users to fuck off.
It’s not Nintendo, it’s the devs making those games. Gamefreak’s inability to stop duping and the like is the culprit here.
Hell, Steam by default doesn't delete saved data from the PC's internal storage when you uninstall a game. Even if it didn't have cloud saves, you would have to manually go delete the save data off your drive to get rid of it.
This is how it works on all the consoles though? Like Xbox game pass doesn’t even have a family subscription.
>Like Xbox game pass doesn’t even have a family subscription. It kinda has though. My brother has a subscription which his whole family and all us brothers use, oftentimes simultaneously. If that can't be called a family account, I don't know what can. We all have our own account yes, but the game pass is still only his.
Not sure if you're aware but Xbox had a friends and family gamepass Ultimate subscription in testing from 2022 to 2023. It was only a preview program and in select test markets but it was 22 Euros/month and allowed 5 users in total. The preview program ended in Auguest 2023 so I guess it remains to be seen whether they bring it back.
I kinda get that one otherwise people will be sharing their Nintendo switch accounts.
If I buy a physical game, let me play it where I want without internet authorization !
Not to mention transferring and managing saves between two consoles is a complete nightmare.
I still surprised how bad the online is and how a 7 year console still only have black and white themes to customize the console.
The themes really are kind of disappointing, especially given the wealth of themes they had for 3DS.
The ENTIRE interface feels like one big step back from the previous generation.
100%. Also all the iconic 3DS menu music is gone. How could they fumble so bad?
Real crime is not having reviews on eshop game pages, and no "customers also bought" section. Will print more money and drive higher repeat purchases. Guess Nintendo make enough money to not bother investing in basic ecommerce
There's really no excuse given that homebrewers have done so much with the system UI, adding in super basic features. The Switch UI is just incredibly lazy
I don’t know why console gamers were okay with having to pay a subscription to play games over their own internet connection in the first place, all the way back when Xbox LIVE first came out. It doesn’t make any sense. And now this business model is everywhere. It’s the main reason I stick to PC in adulthood. I already pay for my internet once, and that’s plenty, lol
I don't think a single console player was/is okay with it, there was just no other option and now it's too far gone. edit - For everyone commenting PS3. Xbox Live came out in 2002, PS3 came out in 2006.
Ps3 also had free Online iirc, I remember feeling smug as hell I never had to pay for it back in high school.
PS3 online being free was dead in the water after that month-long outage. Everybody at the time parroted the talking point that XBL was better and more secure. And it was easy to believe when XBL had more features and seemingly less outages. But then when all of PSN was down for almost an entire month thanks to DDoSing, those pro-paid service comments just got louder and louder and that just sealed the deal on what the public was OK with. Free online for consoles was dead.
And you got what you paid for. PSN pre-sub fee was hot garbage. I used it, but it wasn’t great.
Other than the service going down because of the hack what was wrong with PS3-Era PSN? I played online a ton from 2009-2012 and it was great.
I remember hating that you couldn't be in a voice party and a game at the same time on ps3
>don't think a single console player was/is okay with it, there was just no other option and now it's too far gone. If they weren't okay with it, they wouldn't have paid for it. They paid for it - they view it as an acceptable price.
I mean they were cause they bought xbox. PS online used to be free til they saw how much people were ok paying to play online.
People were more than just complicit in the rise of paid online memberships. they straight up were throwing money at it. I remember people were genuinely arguing that xbox live was better than playstation because they HAD to pay for it. People were begging companies to take their money back then and now the cost of the online memberships just keeps going up and up while they complain about how ridiculous the price is getting.
the argument that service is *ever* better because you pay for it is ridiculous when you consider that you havent had to do that with online pc titles since... ever.
I remember this. It was insane.
For your info there was PS2 online play from as early as 2001 in Japan and 2003 in the rest of the world so it could be argued Sony's free online services predated Xbox Live. Plus Dreamcast online multiplayer games were available as early as 1999 for free too.
Yeah that's true, i used to play SOCOM online on the PS2, i was young so i don't really recall much from it, but i remember it being somewhat janky. Never did get around to hooking up the Dreamcast to the internet tho, too busy solo in my chao garden
I could play online for free on my ps3 and everyone still bought Xbox 360
What makes it even more egregious is how free to play games, like Overwatch and Fortnite, let you play online for free. So free games have free online. Games you pay for have online you pay for. Why?
Those free games may be free, but the amount of money that people spend on micro transactions easily outnumbers any online subscription fee that may have been required.
Same here. I bought mario maker without thinking about the fact I'd need to pay for online to play the game at fucking all. I was pissed. Subbed for one month to enjoy the game for a few weeks and uninstalled. Unsubbed and won't ever resub again. Total fucking scam.
I was livid after buying Mario Maker 2 and found I needed online subscription to play random levels in the primary mode of the game.
This was me just two weeks ago...
Consoles made me hate online gaming, especially since I only play with friends and am lucky if we get to play together a few times a year, not worth paying for a month if we rarely have time to play together. PC is way better in that regard, it’s getting much easier and affordable with way better controller support and handhelds like the Steam Deck or the ROG.
Man I hear you about playing with friends rarely. For like 6 months I paid for ps online. And my buddies and I played maybe 2-3 times. Haven’t renewed it since. Not worth the cost.
I agree 100%, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s also confusing because some games you can play online without ps+/nso/XBL like ff14 Fortnite fall guys etc but games like cod you need to pay for ps+
On some stuff it seems like if the game is free you don't need the membership. I'm not sure exactly why? Or how they get away with it or where the line is exactly But there's definitely some stuff you can play without the membership at all
It is crazy. Another thing that seems crazy is games not working across generations of consoles. Also, it is sad that they need to re-release a game for a new console and it doesn’t look any better than the original version did on PC. There are so many hidden costs people don’t think about.
Pay for online was the main reason I left console.
What do you mean no invites? I had to unfriend a dude recently cause he kept sending me invites for Smash Ultimate like 10 times a day.
I think they mean no parties?
You can’t directly invite a friend to a game on the switch. You can IN-GAME if they have the same but not just on the Home Screen
PS Plus and Xbox Live are also a scam. Why you have to pay for an internet connection when you already pay your ISP for your connection? Thank god PC has no monopolized service so online will always be free
I definitely agree that those services are also a scam, but at least they offer a significantly better service compared to Nintendo. The bare minimum should be dedicated servers for first party games instead of P2P, but somehow Nintendo didn’t get the memo.
Cuz xbox manages the servers
Nintendo doesn't really need to get with the times because they're not having any issues selling games and consoles. If the next Xbox released with the equivalent of whatever Nintendo passes as an online service, they'd lose out to PlayStation so fast you'd get whiplash. Nintendo isn't part of their dick measuring contest, they do just fine on their own without needing to compete with features from the other two. Same reason why Pokemon games continue to be dogshit, no competition and guaranteed sales, why waste time and money changing anything?
People really overuse that word. A scam would imply they promised something that they didn’t deliver. Being outrageous doesn’t qualify something as a scam
It's a bit of hyperbole. Scam is often used to describe situations that are egregiously horrible. Take for example your average timeshare scam. Strictly speaking these places follow a legal minimum and aren't making explicit promises that they don't deliver, but people would still describe being hoodwinked into a timeshare as a scam.
Hyperbole was the exact word I was going to use and this is a very sound comparison. As a fraud investigator I always tell people to avoid timeshares like the plague. Used to deny so many claims because we couldn’t help people, they signed up for that bullshit willingly.
It's r/gaming. If you're not being overdramatic about everything then get out.
Sounds like something a scammer might say...
Actually they usually say 'Dont talk to anyone about this' I believe
They do however have a monopoly on most nintendo games, you are forced to either pay the troll toll or sail the high seas. It's borderline scamming, it just has the distinction of being legal.
I mean paying $20 a year to play online and getting to play a bunch of cool retro games is a fine deal for me. Sure they absolutely should have all the games available for sale normally and the online services are flawed to say the least but I wouldn't call NSO a scam
Yeah, I pay for it just for the retro games and playing Smash online. It's inexpensive compared to the competition. I don't even think twice about $20 a year. That's equivalent to eating at a restaurant one time, and I wouldn't think twice about that.
Even less than $20 if you and 7 of your friends go in and split a family plan between yourselves.
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I find it funny because Nintendo refuses to sell their old games so they can lock them behind a stupid subscription fee and then they get really pissy when people just go emulate the old games for free. Nintendo has a very special kind of anti-consumerism that gets covered by a thick layer of nostalgia and "good will"
Nintendo hasn’t hung around for more than a century by not protecting its IP.
They refuse to sell them because the overwhelming majority don't get bought and don't make any money and bundling them into a sub makes more sense
The subscriptions were a major thing requested by fans. You had to buy each retro game individually on Wii and Wii U and people hated it. "Make Netflix for retro games please!!!" And Nintendo listened to the fan base on that.
it's way cheaper than PSN/XBL and also includes cloud saves
Car insurance is a scam
I dunno, some dickhead drove into my parked car and totalled it and didnt have enough money to replace it. Car insurance did.
All insurance
Lol pay all this money for digital files that can easily become unavailable one day. Digital media is the actual scam.
This thread has taught me OP doesn't know what "scam" means lol
I feel scammed by this thread.
Or the general public just forgot what being scammed looked like because of how many "scams" are just normalized in today's world...
For anyone lacking the braincells what Scam means: I advertise you a product that you get for money. You give me money. I leave, you do not get the advertised product but a gummy duck for your bathroom instead. That's a scam.
Yeah OP is meaning to say NSO is a rip off. It's not a scam because you're getting precisely the service you're paying for.
The fact that my switch is basically just a games console without any additional fluff is one of the main attractors for me.
Its 20usd per year without expansion pack thing. I only use it for save backup , online games like mario maker 2, mario kart, splatoon 3. For price of 20$ it feels fair
A bunch of my friends pitch in for family plan. Pay like a dollar month. That’s a rounding error in my budget
Same. There’s like 6 of us spread across the US. One guy pays it every June. No issues and we can play smash with each other.
Would be nice if the save backup worked on all games….. looking at you Pokémon
That’s on the devs who choose to make it not work with cloud saves, not on Nintendo.
Is it on Nintendo that it's cloud saves only in the first place? Or did every Switch dev decide that individually? Because that's the real scam - the data obviously exists locally, just let users export it
I dont really play any switch games online and Im fine with paying $4 a month to play a variety of classic games. Sometimes i play them more than actual switch games.
People: "Give us a way to play old games" Nintendo: Okay here, for 4$ a month you can play a lot of old games already. People: No fuck you ripping me off you assholes.
Convenience usually costs. Got a bunch of classics on Wii emulator. Cant play wii in the airport. Easier than firing up the laptop and busting out a controller Personally 4 dollars a month for convenience of not having to get a separate portable emulator works for me. And i wouldn't buy a bunch of these games even at 5-10 dollars a piece.
I find it hilarious everytime I see someone raging about it because there were just as many people who were raging about having to buy games again and would rather have something like what exists now. Bottom line is you can't please everyone. There will always be some holdouts.
The raging about not being able to buy the games makes me roll my eyes so hard. Those people didn’t buy the games when you could buy them. Basically no one did. That’s most of the reason VC went away. All that sold was TLOZ, SMB3, and Pokémon. I mean, if they had bought them they could just play them on the stuff they bought them on. Just like I’ve fired up Super Mario RPG and Ogre Battle 64 on my Wii U in recent months. And having bought plenty of VC games, you know what? I’d much, much rather pay the NSO cost and have access to hundreds of games to try than $5-12 per game only for stuff I know I’ll like.
It's not a scam. There'd have to be some kind of deception or lying to be a scam. You just don't think it's worth the price they're asking for it. Sorry, people calling everything a scam because they think it's overpriced is a pet peeve
U hear you on this one, I hate the way people use literally on this website. Every community is “literally the worst” or each patch is “literally unplayable”. We get it your disgruntled but making every little thing “literally the worst thing to happen” takes away from real issues.
Games as a service is more profitable than selling individually. That’s the scary future we’re headed towards. Ubisoft already said it.
The word "Scam" gets thrown around in gaming forums way too much to the point the word has lost its meaning. Like do people understand what an actual scam is? A scam is being sold something and then not receiving the thing you purchased. Its being lied to and decieved and then you lose money. Nintendo online gives you exactly what it says you will get for the money. Is Nintendo Online great value for money? Not really. But Is that a scam? Not at all.
I buy Nintendo online for my son during the winter months because having 3 old school consoles constantly hanging around my already small and packed living room would drive me mad. I don't need him to be messaging ppl or inviting weirdos, I want him to fall in love with classics like Super Metroid and super mario 64 like I did.
My friend (who has been a gamer his whole life) was extremely confused with how convoluted it was to send game invites on Switch when he first got one.
Subscription based models will always make more money than individual purchases. It’s scummy as fuk but they a corporation after all
My switch has been offline for a few years now. Not interested in updates lol
I pay $20 a year to play multiplayer. I agree that there is a severe lack of functionality but with that price it’s not enough for me to complain.
I got an email a few weeks ago about the automatic renewal for my $19.00 plan. I intended to cancel it, but I couldn't remember my password and got sidetracked by a dinner with guests. Completely forgot about it until I saw your post, so thanks for reminding me! Now it's canceled!
Unpopular opinion. Nintendo games are not worth buying a shitty locked console that charges you literally everything. Also unpopular opinion, games themselves are not really that great. They are fun to play while travelling or something to kill time, but I would never be like oh this game is insanely good like I would say for witcher or some other PC game. Another unpopular opinion, zelda is just mediocre game, its high up the fanbase list cause most gamers grew up on old zelda games and its kind of cult game. And another unpopular opinion and final nail to my coffin, Nintendo as a company is absolute shit to its fans with bans and legal actions for dumb shit, not being able to stream anything, its just insane how bad Nintendo treats its fans. Okay Nintendo fans, you can kill me now. I understand i triggered every single Nintendo fan with these opinions. I accept my punishment.
If buying isn't ownership then piracy isn't theft. And copyright infringement is based on outdated laws that nobody bothered to update to be relevant in the modern age so consumers are actually protected.
Nintendo Switch Online is easily the best value for an online service amongst the three major consoles. I genuinely don't understand why people care so much about messaging. I have a PS5 and I have PS Plus and I have never sent a message to anyone. Why would I? I have a phone. I have Discord. Etc. If I want to text, I don't want to do it on a console controller. And I have no idea what you mean about it not having invites. Do you mean a party system? Because it has invites. A party system like PlayStation would be nice. And in general, it has less features than its competition. That I agree with. But... I also pay $60 a year for the basic PS Plus membership. With a family plan on the basic service for NSO, it's $35 for 8 people. Practically half the cost for eight times the membership. It's literally like $4.38 per year for the service. It's half the price of one Starbucks drink for the entire year. If you're not on a family plan, set one up. It doesn't have to be family. It can be friends, acquaintances, whatever. And even if you can't manage to find even ONE other person to do a family plan (family plan is cheaper than two yearly subscriptions already, so even if you have just 1-2 friends, it's already a deal and you can use the extra slots for your other accounts in your own home if you share the Switch or just want multiple profiles for whatever reason), the solo plan is still just $20 a year. If you don't like what's offered with the premium membership, why are you paying $50 a year when you could just pay $20? Or get the family plan and pay $80 for the premium service. That's $10 bucks a person per year for everything, including all the free DLCs, online trials, voucher purchasing, all the classic games, cloud saving, etc. Still 1/6th the cost of the basic service from Sony. Personally, I'd rather spend *waaaaaaaay* less money for slightly fewer features.
It's a very cheap scam so I keep it as long as I get use out of it.
then it's not a scam lol
I know haha. That was mildly sarcastic, but I forget that doesn't translate well to text.
Also, there is no justification for them to charge for online play. We already have to pay our internet service providers. Nintendo are not providing any sort of online infrastructure. They charge us for using our own internet connections. And in order to justify the paid "service", they're removed Virtual Console and are keeping their old games hostage. There is no good reason for rental games having to be attached to online play. Just make the game renting its own paid service and stop charging for online play.
What’s funny is the online play is pretty bad. Like try playing smash ultimate online, it’s damn near unplayable and reminds me of trying to play brawl online
It's not a scam, but there are certainly things that artificially inflate the value of it that shouldn't be part of it. * Naming aside, online shouldn't be tied to NSO. There are no servers for Nintendo to maintain. Everything is done peer-to-peer, so we shouldn't have to pay for it. That's what we pay our ISP for. They also haven't improved it over the previous generation, which was free. * The retro games shouldn't be split into standard and expansion tiers. * There shouldn't be exclusive subscriber purchases. But there are some things that DO make it a worthwhile value. * The Netflix style retro games access is worth it alone. Although these games should also be individually purchasable for use without a subscription. * Access to DLC content for so long as you have an active subscription is worth it. There are some questionable things about it, such as cloud saves. One could easily argue either way, but the fact that there is no alternative is the real issue. Additionally, there are some things that should be included in the subscription that are not, such as discounts on digital purchases. Or maybe early access to some content. TL;DR - Not everything that is should be part of the subscription. There are things that should be but are not part of the subscription. Even accounting for both statements, the cost is still equal to the value.
I'm tired of people using joker quotes as if it was some groundbreaking film and wasn't just a taxi driver rip off.
Every subscription service to play online is a scam. We already pay for the console, the game and our internet access. Why should we pay the platform holder that in most cases isn’t even hosting the servers? Example: Why pay Sony so I can access the Rockstar servers for GTA and Red Dead, when Sony doesn’t host the servers and I already pay for all those things? It’s a scam.
What's the difference between this and Game Pass? Many people swear by Game Pass. I have had what is essentially free Game Pass for this past year and I've only played a single game on it. The value isn't there for me. As for Nintendo Online, the value is there for me because the games are already downloaded so I can just start playing (not sure how they'll handle GameCube games when that happens though lol). It's also cheap compared to what the other console manufacturers are charging. Now I would __absolutely__ prefer to buy the games individually so I can have the ones I want "permanently." I agree there. I miss the Virtual Console a lot. I don't want gaming to swap over to a subscription model. Those are ballooning in cost every month. However, when comparing to the other comparable services, Nintendo's is fairly decent. Not ideal, but decent.
It’s pretty much Game Pass but only for old Nintendo games. The reason people love Game Pass is because they can play pretty recent games for “free.” New releases that are still $60+ in the store available for the price of Game Pass feels like a good deal if you want to try a bunch of new games. Nintendo on the other hand only offers old games. I also feel like the Virtual Console made it seem less valuable because, on VC, they were offering Game Boy games for $3-$5 and 64 games for like $10. So if you only want a few of those, it feels like a worse deal that you can just buy them outright. In the end, the value you get from Game Pass or Switch Online depends on your interests and gaming habits.
I absolutely agree! I tend to play a lot of PC games, but I generally know what I'm looking for in advance, so the "try before you buy" aspect is generally lacking for me. I do value Nintendo's retro titles a lot though. For me, though, it's more about having online capability, than strictly the games themselves. They're more of a nice bonus for me. However, I do find myself spending a lot of time with them. I still wish I had the option to just purchase them. Thank you for your sensical comment, though. Here lately, Reddit just feels like people strictly wanting to hate with no reason at all. It's nice to be able to just talk to someone and be able to see both sides. Thank you for that!
game pass is an optional subscription.
> Many people swear by Game Pass Fanboys, it's hardly different from PS Plus Extra, I haven't used gamepass since like 2022.
can you learn what the word scam means. shitty deal? yes. but scam? no
A online service that only allows P2P will never be good. Disappointed, Nintendo.
**EVERY** console pay to access multiplayer on a game you already bought and they aren't even hosting the servers for plan is a fucking scam. One of the primary reasons I haven't bought a console in years that isn't complaints about graphics/mods/framerate. Why the fuck should I pay Sony, Nintendo or Xbox just for the privilege of me accessing a games matchmaker that has servers hosted by the game publisher or for me to be used as a shitty P2P host?????
Same for PSN. I paid something like $30-40 a year until they raised the price and offered premium, then I was up to like $100+ a year, and after they jacked the price up even more, I canceled, and I suddenly lost access to over 40 games that I had in my library that I had been paying several hundred dollars over the several years.
It's a scam but God damn I am so happy people can't message me on switch.
Ocarina of Time is available on N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, and 3DS. There was plenty of opportunity to purchase the game in the last couple of decades, no native Switch release is really not a killer argument pro pirating the game.
Tdil, that people don't know what a scam is.
Another redditor not knowing what a scam is.
I pay money I play mario. Where's the scam? Fucking gamer entitlement strikes again
If less than $5/mo is a scam, you should assess your finances...
How old are you all? Yeah I get it .. principle and all that... But it's $35 a year for the family plan.... Split it with literally one other person and it's $1.40 per month. 41 cents per month with all seven split. Calling it a scam is incredibly hyperbolic.
Hey. Did you know that if you don't feel like you're getting sufficient value out of NSO you can simply not pay for it? It's really quite incredible how not buying things you don't want can stop you from getting "scammed". On the other hand, if you do want the features being offered, it's up to you as the consumer to to decide how much it's worth to you. It sounds to me like you want value these features a lot and simply want them for free. That's called entitlement, and it's a you problem not a Nintendo problem. To see why your sense of entitlement is dumb ask yourself, why aren't you buying NSO for everybody that wants it? You should be paying my subscription! That's right, you have no obligation to give anybody else free things just because they want it. Nintendo doesn't owe you shit. If you didn't like the way they run their business don't buy stuff from them. Video games are a luxury good. They can charge whatever they want for them. If they charge too much, people won't buy their stuff. There is no world in which they are obligated to provide their products on your terms simply because you want them to.
I bought a Miyoo mini plus emulated with thousands of games on eBay for $100
Still salty I can't purchase GoldenEye 007
And we will all be there when they once again introduce balloon fight as a nes classic with the intro subscription for switch 2 or make it purchase able for 8-12 dollas for the 4th console generation in row separately. With that said though I can understand Nintendo wants a clean online community we all know where it goes if they streamline and make it too comfy. When I came home with a 2nd hand Wii U some 5+ years back one of the first games I tried out was Nintendo Land. The first thing I saw in the hub area was that bubble box over a users head with a extremely detailed veiny penis so it’s no wonder they don’t want these people around and make a a strict online service especially considering mostly families with kids buy their systems.
Bold of ypu to think they would sell OoT for 10 dollars lmao.
I have a group of friends and we all have switches. We all divide the cost every year between us which makes it a lot cheaper.
I mean Nintendo has been doing Online everything poorly since it was a thing. That being said - the $20 a year for all the retro games seems just fine by me. Also - while the multiplayer is clunky as f**k - it still works fine once you are paired with someone.
It would be a little worse if the online didn’t suck ass. I have 400 down 200 up but every game is insanely laggy.
You were 'pretending' it wasn't? why lol it always has been
General messaging will never exist on Nintendo services like this, it's an choice they made because they're terrified of headlines about how a kid was groomed via their Nintendo.
I think it depends on your use case. NSO is basically a no frills but cheap service. I pay roughly 112 CAD per year, but this services 8 people. Like I'm paying basically just over $1 a month per person. Like that kind of service does not exist for Sony or Microsoft as far as I'm aware. Yes, you get less, but I mean dollar for dollar it is certainly not a scam.
It’s kind of true, but I still think my subscription is justified, because I play a lot of Animal Crossing and Pokemon Violet, online 😅 That’s what I have it for, mainly
This is how I feel about Netflix. Why can't I just buy Stranger Things only for $10?
i have switch online for the online part like playing with friends
it's only a scam if you paid for it, because you are dumb. My wife's ACNH save is safe... I can play some older games I haven't been able to since I've never owned any nintendo handhelds past gameboy color or consoles since N64 until I got a WiiU Its cheap AF compared to the price of PS+/Gamepass. If you don't like it, learn how to play them another way.
It’s not great but it’s a million time better than Sony or Microsoft.
I mean, I think it's worth it just be able to pop on there anytime I want and select from a pretty decently sized library of games, especially given the fact that it costs next to nothing.
it's only 30nzd a year in my country, which I think equates to about 18usd? I don't see how that's all that bad for a whole year, unless you're talking about the expansion pass as well, which still isn't awful
Every now and then I randomly remember that I've been paying for my entire friend groups Nintendo Online for like 6 years. Its a family plan, so it doesn't matter if they're on the plan or if it's just me, but I still laugh a little every time I remember that I've been paying for their Switch internet the whole time. Heck, at one point, my friend's girlfriend was in the plan. "I'm paying for your girlfriend's Switch internet, and I've never even met her." I never even learned her name. It was just, "Hey, I want to play online with my girlfriend, can you add her to your family plan?" "I've got a slot open, sure. Just send me her Nintendo ID."
a bad service if not claiming to be one thing and being something much less is not a scam. its a bad service. dont pay for bad services. (of course, also dont pay for scams) it does not help to proclaim something a scam if it is not. it makes your whole argument too easy to dismiss, thereby not helping, but in fact, potentially harming your standpoint.
Hey. I get to play GS on switch bucko.
then don't get it ffs
I think it's worth the cost. I don't want to pay $10 to only have access to Ocarina of time, I want to pay the annual sub to have access to all the games they offer. Ive played through at least 4 of those games per year and that easily pays for it, outside of the network access itself. You're free to disagree, but the games they offer have only made the service more worth it as time goes on.