Sheikah

We'll wait and see, it's just worth bearing in mind that you can get Plus for about 30 quid quite easily every year. I'm not convinced we'll see this 35 quid N64 sub go as low as 10-15 quid via other sellers, which it would really need to be to justify the price against others. Put it this way, this 35 quid RRP N64 sub is 70% of the price of the PS Plus and XBL Gold RRPs. It's too high a price for what you're actually getting.

I'll just say as well, this smacks of absolute lack of faith in the offering from Nintendo. And they'd be right to lack faith. They know if they charge by the month then people will just use a month or two to play the few games in the offering they're actually interested in then drop it. 35 quid a year starts to bring this into PSN plus and XBL territory. I know the others are more than 35 quid officially but nobody buys them at that price. When you compare with the competitor offerings (which include new games as well as basic levels of online functionality) this looks like a raw deal.

There's only about 100 people using Nintendo's online service.

So how good would people say this is? I've never been the most massive fan of Metroid 2D games because of the amount of backtracking there tended to be, but I saw a bit of the Easy Allies review and it did look quite interesting.

I agree with you, the length of the tracks as well as the perceived speed of the karts felt all wrong.

I mean, it doesn't really matter how many people are saying it on this board, does it? I'm struggling to see what point you're making here other than point scoring? I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Nintendo will charge an amount of (as yet undisclosed) money to play these N64 and mega drive VC games. That's an amount of money that gets you access to these games and nothing else - it's the difference between the NSO and NSO+ cost. Netflix will similarly charge you an amount of money to access some content, too.

I'm comparing them because they both cost money, and they're both subscription services. Nine N64 games on a subscription model is not good. And I brought Netflix and Game Pass in to this discussion to make a clear point - if there were only 9 TV shows on Netflix, or only 9 games on Game Pass, people would quite rightly call those poor offerings. We will wait for a price from Nintendo (perhaps it starts out ultra cheap) but unless it's very cheap then it's hard for me to see this as good value. The problem is that the point you're actually trying to make doesn't make any sense. It's the kind of shoestring conclusion you might see somebody scrawl onto a beer mat after a long drinking session. Sony already have PlayStation Now, a subscription service which has over 800 games on it. By your reckoning, the very existence of this service would mean new software sales would be so severely impacted that any profit from PlayStation Now subs would be cancelled out by the loss of new game sales. Which obviously doesn't happen, because PlayStation Now continues to exist, and PS4/5 games continue to sell well. We can't continue to entertain this fiction any longer. There's no reason to believe what you're suggesting actually happens or would happen. If they wanted their customers to play new games they wouldn't be releasing N64 games and charging a sub for it. It's as simple as that.

But 99.9%? That's crazy, whichever way you spin it. Again, your question back at you - where's the data to back your hunch up? Where is any data to support the fact the £6 sub isn't the most popular option? I wouldn't be surprised if the cheaper option was the most popular. A lot of people aren't bothered about HD, but do want to pay less. And if we're going to compare subs it makes more sense to compare Nintendo's low frills offering (which actually has no tiers) to the £6 sub. The higher tier Netflix subs, as well as being higher resolution, also let you play on multiple devices simultaneously. That's not something Nintendo let you do with NSO and VC games, as far as I know. My point about Sony's games is they still sell several million, in line or higher than many games on other systems, despite the fact people get 3 games to play a month via Plus. If people had no time to play other games due to the Plus games then you wouldn't see Sony's games selling like that. Are you really telling me that Nintendo would be worried about releasing all their SNES games for fear people wouldn't buy the next big Mario game. That's just not how things work. People will get excited for the release of the next new Mario game, it's not like they'll think "nah why bother, I now have Mario All Stars on my subscription". Was there a noticeable dip in Switch software sales when Nintendo dumped a bunch of classic games on its NSO subscription? I think not.

I mean yeah, there is that. Pretty silly to say that 99.9% of customers subscribe to the higher tiers when there's no evidence of that. You mean like your "99.9%" figure yeah? Where's the data Ronnie? Anyway there is plenty of evidence that Sony's first party exclusives sell very well (data are available online). They are selling very well in spite of them including monthly games in the Plus subscription. If all people did was play the Plus games then they wouldn't be buying software. Many people have big backlogs (even by virtue of simply being subscribed to Plus) but still buy games they want when they release.

Regardless, it still answers your question. N64 games can be seen as costing more/having more value because the people who made the games even said so. And it does make sense. N64 games are more recent, more graphically advanced, with generally higher budgets. Why shouldn't they cost more?

You realise Nintendo themselves have previously charged more for N64 VC games than 16-bit SNES games, right?

I'm comparing like for like. The lowest Netflix subscription with videos in 480p vs emulated retro ROMs. Yet you said that having more games on a subscription would not increase subscribers. You're now getting sidetracked on the purpose of Game Pass which is not the point. The point was that far fewer people would subscribe to Game Pass if they only had 10 games on the service. The exact same point stands with a VC library. What does the sales of Switch games have to do with anything? I am looking solely at this subscription and its value. We don't know the price yet, but the launch offering is not great. They really ought to have a complete (or near complete) retro library that exists across generations. Why would it? Dedicated Switch games are not going to be included in this subscription plan. Are you saying that their game sales would suffer as people only have so much time? That concept is clearly not true, you only need to look at the sales of games on say PS4, despite full games being included every month on Plus. People will still buy the games they want to play, despite having the most absurd back catalogues of unplayed games.

What does that have to do with anything? Comparing the 480p service if anything is the most apt comparison - 480p videos compared with retro games. Of course it's the case, why do you think Game Pass has amassed a huge library of games people want to play. If they only had about 10 games on there do you think anywhere near as many people would subscribe? You really think having a larger/complete library would have no meaningful effect on subscriptions? The only way I see the drip feed approach as potentially being better for them is because they have enough fans who would subscribe and stay subscribed over a longer period of time than they would have than if all the games were there at once. That suggests a lack of confidence in their product though, which I really don't think is warranted.

The cheapest Netflix sub (which still gives you access to all content) is £5.99 a month - £71.88 a year. We don't know the cost of the Nintendo "extended" sub yet, right? The 18 quid a year is just for the basic NSO subscription, which doesn't include these N64 games. I expect Nintendo's subscription will be a fair bit cheaper than Netflix, but the offering from Nintendo still looks incredibly slim. When you consider that Nintendo aren't having to actually make any shows/games like Netflix - just dump emulated ROMs, basically - I'd expect a lot more. The more they add the more subscribers they're likely to attract. You only need to look at Game Pass to see that having a huge quantity of games people actually want to play is a great way of attracting subscribers.

But only 9 N64 games. If Netflix had only 9 shows (and let's say 14 short films) I doubt many people would subscribe. Nintendo is certainly in a unique situation; because of the types of fans they have it'll probably still have some uptake despite being a poor deal. The Netflix comparison gets stranger still if you consider how Nintendo tend to start their virtual console from square one again each console. Again, imagine if every 5 years Netflix cleared out their entire library and started adding them back slowly again each month or so. You might think comparing to Neflix is weird but now they've made their VC a subscription service, I'd say it becomes a valid comparison.

But those services are so basic, without it NSO is basically a bit of a joke. Using a phone to message people and voice chat completely defeats the purpose of using NSO in this way, you may as well use Discord or even Whatsapp. NSO might be half the price but it's not even a quarter of the offering of what the others are giving you. It's embarrassing, frankly - it's a service people subscribe to purely out of need, to play online. Reading these kinds of posts actually justifies Nintendo's approach. Nintendo fans are used to drip feeds and generally being ripped off, especially with regards to VC. How would you feel if Netflix had only 9 shows on it?

I disagree, if they're emulating the games and they've had years to do this they should really have a lot more than that to begin with - in fact I think they should have most games on there. If they want to get people to pay a subscription for it then they should really be looking to make it as attractive as possible. Right now it feels like a bit of a cash grab to get their most loyal fans subscribed over a long period of time to get the drip feed of content. I remember on past consoles they would release a few VC games every week over years. I actually think paying more for this as well isn't great, Switch online might be around half the price of the others but it's missing very fundamental features like voice chat and messaging. Having these games included in the basic subscription price would have sweetened the deal in what is otherwise a very limited offering. As it stands right now I see very little reason to subscribe to this extra service, especially as I've already got Mario from the anniversary edition.

Christ is that it? Only 9 games to begin with?

Mate after you won £250k I kind of thought you wouldn't ever need to work hard again. [emoji14]

Forgot to post but I bought the trilogy after seeing the discussion here and completed it recently. Without a doubt one of the finest game series there is. I'd forgotten a lot, probably because I played it all so long ago, but man. Seems crazy to me that nothing has really come close to this in terms of world building and story, and this was two generations ago. Such an amazing series.

Have to agree with Goafer here. @Sméagol you talk about not putting all your eggs in one basket, but that proverb doesn't work here. That proverb assumes that the website owner is the ones putting the eggs in the basket, where in actual fact in this case the eggs are making their own mind up about which basket they go in. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make an omelette.

For this OLED model, does this have the improved battery that the later Switch models have? Or the same bad battery as the launch Switch models?

If you look back at previous generations, some last way longer than others. It's impossible to definitively say that they're late. Wii U for instance had a fairly short life.

Of course. Hence, they're talking bollocks.

Seems weird that it apparently doesn't exist if there's reports that several companies are making games for such a device. Sounds like Nintendo are talking bollocks.