Originally Posted by
Bla1ze Playstation and XBox have built out pretty robust online offerings and now Nintendo is hopping into the mix with the Switch. What does Nintendo have to offer by way of online services to get you interested in it? They plan on charging for the service, so for me, it has to offer more than just the ability to play games with friends and family.
This is what will be available in March as a free trial:
Online Play on Nintendo Switch - You’ll be able to play compatible co-op and competitive games online by signing in with your Nintendo Account. Online play will be free for Nintendo Account holders until our paid online service launches in fall 2017.
This is what they currently have planned for 2017:
Online lobby and voice chat - Our new dedicated smart device app will connect to Nintendo Switch and let you invite friends to play online, set play appointments, and chat with friends during online matches in compatible games─all from your smart device. A free, limited version of this app will be available for download in summer 2017.
Monthly game download - Subscribers will get to download and play a Nintendo Entertainment System™ (NES) or Super Nintendo Entertainment System™ (Super NES) game (with newly-added online play) for free for a month.
Exclusive deals - Special offers for subscribers may include discounts on select digital games and content.
Nintendo Switch online service – Nintendo Switch™ Official site – Online gaming, multiplayer, voice chat Most of all I'd like to see cloud based game save data, so that no matter which console you're playing on, you can pick up from where you left off. This functionality already exists on Super Mario Run for iPhone, so is possible this might be where they're going anyway. )otherwise I can'tr really see much in in paying for the online services) but with this feature it would totally be worth it!
(I'd like to see this feature supported not just on regular games, but also to Virtual Console games aswell) I've bought so many of these for WiiU and 3DS, but I probably will not buy so many of them them all over again on Switch unless I can continue playing where I'm currently at. (or I'll simply lose all my progress). Without it I would have to just keep the old console with all my saves on to continue playing those, and not bother re-purchasing the titles again.
Now obviously, Nintendo want to be able to still sell Virtual Console games on every new console. Which is why they will probably be reluctant to do a straight system transfer of the game itself. However, the best way to solve this is to still charge for the game, but to just let our game save data be stored on the cloud, which would give us a good reason to want to re-download them again (even if we had to pay for the re-downloads again), as that would be a great way to keep all our gaming on the most recent console, without Nintendo having to lose any money in order to do it. (The subscription service would be totally worth the money if we could do this, but without it I'm struggling to see what I'd even need the subscription service for. Just monthly rentals of games doesn't really warrant the cost, but game progress data would be really useful and worth every penny!) Plus this would also be a great way to keep fans loyal to Nintendo, because we wouldn't want to give up our precious storage of our most beloved games.
Let's face it, most modern devices offer cloud storage anyway, so is really simple to set up. (all it is is essentially a cloud based hard drive for what you already do). If I was a Nintendo CEO or investor, I would also realize that this would provide Nintendo with a constant steady revenue stream (plus possibilities for storage upgrades if and when this starts to get large).
(Obviously, we'd always like everything to be free), but if they're going to be charging for Nintendo online services anyway, this is the feature that would make it worth it for me! (just monthly rentals of games just doesn't warrant the cost in my opinion, so I probably won't bother if that's all it is.
So Nintendo, if you're listening, CLOUD BASED GAME SAVE DATA is how you can earn my money for online services in a way that I'd do gladly!
