Nintendo Switch paid online coming 2018

[Pestneb]

On 5/8/2018 at 9:51 AM, Julius Caesar said:

The more and more we talk about it, the more I’m convinced that Pokémon Switch will be exempt. @Hero-of-Time‘s and @Glen-i‘s point about how cloud saves could lead to cloning is something I hadn’t even thought about

They just have the cloud back up in game. when you back up they give you an option to back up your pokemon, but warn you that you will only be able to trade backed up pokemon while connected to the internet. trading goes on through the internet, so the trade is set up online (pokemon A for pokemon b), the server registers the intended trade, then swaps the pokemon over. No internet connection? no trade. they could maybe have it in game, some kind of mark that binds a pokemon to it's owner, meaning it can't be traded without it registered by a central office, that only opens when there is an internet connection available.
As for having the conflict of paying two subs, in effect it's no different to the current situation, just the regular free subscription for online games is now going to be more expensive. Why did pokemon game owners have to pay extra when regular users got online functions for free?

[Rummy]

19 hours ago, Ronnie said:

I was going off the US price.

The UK price is £18/year, so £1.50 per month, 10 pence more a month than the above.

Why go off a US price converted into GBP when we have a UK price of £18, and after that also your maths still isn't adding up. Do you wilfully try to misrepresent information when it's not needed, or is it genuinely mistaken?

 

17 hours ago, killthenet said:

Cann someone explain to me how backing up saves to an SD card encourages piracy? Do you mean that it opens up the possibility for people to find exploits in games like they did with Twilight Princess on Wii?

EDIT: Huh, I just read the actual comment Kotaku got back from Nintendo and they mention that classic games won't be returning under the VC banner which you could interpret to mean they will be rebranding Virtual Console under a different name, so we could still get VC just under the Nintendo Classic branding instead. 

Pretty much modifying the saves off the system via PC or so and then using it to trigger flaws that can access the system - Twilight Princess and Smashstack and even Bannerbomb all utilised a method of modding the SD card contents and letting the system try to load it to then trigger a doorway in to run code etc. Iirc one of the early original Xbox softhacks utilised a specific game for a hack, I can't recall if it used custom saves/codes or if it was a harder in game thing to do though.

 

16 hours ago, Sméagol said:

Can we also talk about actual pirates?

Indeed!

[Dcubed]

9 minutes ago, Rummy said:

Pretty much modifying the saves off the system via PC or so and then using it to trigger flaws that can access the system - Twilight Princess and Smashstack and even Bannerbomb all utilised a method of modding the SD card contents and letting the system try to load it to then trigger a doorway in to run code etc. Iirc one of the early original Xbox softhacks utilised a specific game for a hack, I can't recall if it used custom saves/codes or if it was a harder in game thing to do.

3DS was hacked this way too.  Cubic Ninja was the first, followed by individual save file hacks for games like OoT3D and others.

 

Wii U was hacked via the web browser.

 

It's not hard to see why they removed access to save file transferring and the console web browser in Switch... 

 

Switch has ended up getting hacked thanks to a big, widespread CPU flaw inherent in many CPU designs, including the Tegra X1 in the Switch (And all the documentation for the X1 is also freely available online and has been for years).  The Switch's own security hasn't actually been compromised, but thanks to this security flaw inherent to the X1, hackers have been able to bypass Nintendo's security altogether.  Which is why Nintendo/Tegra is working on a revision to the Switch's X1 chip right now.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Dcubed

[Rummy]

Yeah they got a bit unfairly lumbered with this flaw given its a hardware flaw and on Tegra's side rather than their own, but again as a manufacturer you kinda have to suck that up as part your responsibility too. I do wonder if the simple oppurtunity of getting into the system like this now though will give others more oppurtunity to find new flaws and exploits.

Also quite interesting in the context of online - do they have any verification methods or safeguards against hacked switches potentially causing knock on effects to their online ecosystem?

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, Rummy said:

Why go off a US price converted into GBP when we have a UK price of £18, and after that also your maths still isn't adding up. Do you wilfully try to misrepresent information when it's not needed, or is it genuinely mistaken?

 

I went off the US price because that's the only price I had to go on at the time, and did the maths in my head.

Apologies everyone, when I said £1.40 a month sounded good to me, I should have said £1.50 a month sounded good to me. A whopping 10 pence more a month than I suggested. There we go. Was it really worth arguing over?

[Rummy]

21 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

 

I went off the US price because that's the only price I had to go on at the time, and did the maths in my head.

Apologies everyone, when I said £1.40 a month sounded good to me, I should have said £1.50 a month sounded good to me. A whopping 10 pence more a month than I suggested. There we go. Was it really worth arguing over?

You seem to still be misreprenting your own numbers - I mean making one or two mistakes I can understand but to repeatedly do it leads me to believe you ARE being intentionally misleading in order to troll.

These supposed small price differences are quite significant when you consider them relatively and especially in context of people who possibly don't feel they have the disposable income for the service. I mean implying a service 25% cheaper than it really is is quite a large room of error, is it not?

Not particularly helpful to the thread to have the wrong or misleading information in it, particularly when we know otherwise.

[Ashley]

Without going back and checking exact timings, the UK price was announced last (even after EU).

[Julius]

12 minutes ago, Rummy said:

You seem to still be misreprenting your own numbers - I mean making one or two mistakes I can understand but to repeatedly do it leads me to believe you ARE being intentionally misleading in order to troll.

These supposed small price differences are quite significant when you consider them relatively and especially in context of people who possibly don't feel they have the disposable income for the service. I mean implying a service 25% cheaper than it really is is quite a large room of error, is it not?

Not particularly helpful to the thread to have the wrong or misleading information in it, particularly when we know otherwise.

I don’t mean to the flames of this ‘discussion’, but £0.10/£1.40 is around a 7% price difference, not 25%. 

I certainly don’t mean to involve myself in this too much - because I respect and have had fruitful discussions with both of you, if not in this thread then in others - but I don’t think that @Ronnie was intentionally trying to mislead anyone, @Rummy, and I think it’s unfair to single him out for “wrong or misleading information”, when the 25% figure you just floated out can be seen as such given that it’s not contextually related to the current discussion. I’ve only been on these forums for a bit over two years, but I keep seeing heated debates between the two of you (and occasionally others) with ill-intentioned jabs at one another, and it has to stop. It’s not healthy for either of you, let alone the current discussion and other users here. I don’t know either of you personally, and so I don’t know whether your arguments are rooted in real life arguments or only online ones. 

As @Ashley points out, those UK subscription prices seem to be quite new. I certainly hadn’t seen them before, and I was even quoting the US$ prices as recently as yesterday in this very thread.

Back on topic, with regards to the pricing, a family account subscription for up to eight users to use is available which costs only £31.49/year. That’s what, around £0.33/month/user? 

I think Nintendo has made it quite accessible in terms of pricing, especially if you compare it at face value to the prices of Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus. Whether you’re getting your money’s worth in contrast to the other two major console online services is a different matter altogether, though, and one I’m sure we’ll see coming up time and time again until we learn more about their plans for the service.

[Ronnie]

31 minutes ago, Rummy said:

You seem to still be misreprenting your own numbers - I mean making one or two mistakes I can understand but to repeatedly do it leads me to believe you ARE being intentionally misleading in order to troll.

These supposed small price differences are quite significant when you consider them relatively and especially in context of people who possibly don't feel they have the disposable income for the service. I mean implying a service 25% cheaper than it really is is quite a large room of error, is it not?

Not particularly helpful to the thread to have the wrong or misleading information in it, particularly when we know otherwise.

"Intentionally misleading in order to troll?" Says the man who suggested I was 25% wrong in my figure? If you're going to accuse others of misleading information, at least make sure your own posts are accurate.

Why do you feel the need to pop on the Nintendo boards and start utterly pointless arguments where none was necessary? The previous time with @dazzybee a few months ago, now this. It's arguing over such small things. I made a mistake, I was off by 10 pence, apologies everyone.

Sorry @Julius Caesar, I won't say another word on this.

[Sheikah]

 

 

 

 

Back on topic, with regards to the pricing, a family account subscription for up to eight users to use is available which costs only £31.49/year. That’s what, around £0.33/month/user? 

I think Nintendo has made it quite accessible in terms of pricing, especially if you compare it at face value to the prices of Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus. Whether you’re getting your money’s worth in contrast to the other two major console online services is a different matter altogether, though, and one I’m sure we’ll see coming up time and time again until we learn more about their plans for the service.

 

 

I don't see the family account as particularly good value, purely because I think extra accounts on the same system should be able to play online without a more expensive sub.

 

Who has a family of 8 that they trust implicitly to share account details with anyway? I don't trust to share my PSN account with one person. Unless there's a way to make each account private with separate login details, but if that's the case then I don't see how they will prevent this system being abused. Surely people would just go on websites designed to hook 8 people up on one sub?

 

For the record, I'm sure there will be people with at least 2 other family members they trust enough (because you need 3 on it to make any real saving), but this seems rather niche to me. At least in my situation, none of my other direct family have a Switch.

 

For me, I'd want to share my Switch with my wife and for us to both be able to play online on our own accounts. Can't do that without the more expensive sub though. It all feels quite stingy to be honest, as this brings it up to XBL costs but with a far worse offering. There are so few games worth playing online on Switch, the online feature integration is poor and the NES game offering is extremely unappetising. As it stands I see little value in Nintendo's sub, even the standard priced one.

 

 

 

[Rummy]

2 hours ago, Julius Caesar said:

I don’t mean to the flames of this ‘discussion’, but £0.10/£1.40 is around a 7% price difference, not 25%. 

I certainly don’t mean to involve myself in this too much - because I respect and have had fruitful discussions with both of you, if not in this thread then in others - but I don’t think that @Ronnie was intentionally trying to mislead anyone, @Rummy, and I think it’s unfair to single him out for “wrong or misleading information”, when the 25% figure you just floated out can be seen as such given that it’s not contextually related to the current discussion. I’ve only been on these forums for a bit over two years, but I keep seeing heated debates between the two of you (and occasionally others) with ill-intentioned jabs at one another, and it has to stop. It’s not healthy for either of you, let alone the current discussion and other users here. I don’t know either of you personally, and so I don’t know whether your arguments are rooted in real life arguments or only online ones. 

As @Ashley points out, those UK subscription prices seem to be quite new. I certainly hadn’t seen them before, and I was even quoting the US$ prices as recently as yesterday in this very thread.

Back on topic, with regards to the pricing, a family account subscription for up to eight users to use is available which costs only £31.49/year. That’s what, around £0.33/month/user? 

I think Nintendo has made it quite accessible in terms of pricing, especially if you compare it at face value to the prices of Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus. Whether you’re getting your money’s worth in contrast to the other two major console online services is a different matter altogether, though, and one I’m sure we’ll see coming up time and time again until we learn more about their plans for the service.

I'm referring back to my original post calling it out - 14.40 is neither 10p short of 1.50 a month and 18-14.40=3.60 and 3.60/14.40 is 25%? Arguably do it the other way and it's 20% - that's still a significant room of error.

I have a benefit of a doubt on the original - but why is it constantly being claimed that different numbers were posted? I already knew the £18 figure before I'd seen his post made, so I felt it was disingenuous to suggest a price of £14.40 in comparison - let alone if you want me to go into a longstanding history of considering that UK digital prices do not convert in line with US digital prices and it's a bad comparison to take - as I said one mistake I can see, but it's repeated. Ronnie claims claiming a 10p difference which never happened - yet me working a 14.40 Vs 18 cost is apparently me being irrelevant? It's contextually related to a misrepresentation in price - and I'd say given we've had a few people talk about the value offered by the service I think it's relevant too(and glen-i for example has said he doesn't have the disposable income for it at the price, tho dcubed also offered the counter of sharing family membership). What's important is surely not to have wrong information floating around when it's not needed?

I am posting quite Ronnie specifically here - I'm happy to accept one mistake or two but it seems to run through, what does it serve for the thread if it gives people like me oppurtunity to call it out? Why post bad maths or bad information at all, why make speculative conversions with no basis at all, and try to downplay them when called out?

I'm all fine for accepting what's being said about relevance - but my numbers add up whereas Ronnie's don't. Whether I'm a mod or not I'm not going to just let people go about posting estimated numbers as if they're fact or what could be argued as straight up bullshit and not call them out. How is it ever going to be sensible to constantly let that happen?

 

Or let me put it to you another way : How many people here wouldn't be keen to pay £18 a month for the service as they see it to be now, but would possibly pay it if it was £14 instead? Or £14.40 to be precise?

 

[Julius]

I just finished reading an interesting article by Kotaku AU, and I think I agree with their stance on Virtual Console/their new service: they should not limit the ways in which people can access these games. If they want to buy it, then they should be able to; and, likewise, if they want to access it through Ninty’s new service, then they should be able to.

My biggest  problem with it is that they’re so vague about their plans; it would have been simple enough to explain that other legacy platforms were coming to the service at some point, or that they had plans to bring games to the eShop (which they did, but not in the initial release of information on the site, but rather in an interview later on), etc. Leaving us in the dark gives us a perfectly valid reason to madly scramble around, worried that we’ll never get to see [insert critically acclaimed legacy title here] on the Switch.

1 hour ago, Rummy said:

I'm referring back to my original post calling it out - 14.40 is neither 10p short of 1.50 a month and 18-14.40=3.60 and 3.60/14.40 is 25%? Arguably do it the other way and it's 20% - that's still a significant room of error.

I have a benefit of a doubt on the original - but why is it constantly being claimed that different numbers were posted? I already knew the £18 figure before I'd seen his post made, so I felt it was disingenuous to suggest a price of £14.40 in comparison - let alone if you want me to go into a longstanding history of considering that UK digital prices do not convert in line with US digital prices and it's a bad comparison to take - as I said one mistake I can see, but it's repeated. Ronnie claims claiming a 10p difference which never happened - yet me working a 14.40 Vs 18 cost is apparently me being irrelevant? It's contextually related to a misrepresentation in price - and I'd say given we've had a few people talk about the value offered by the service I think it's relevant too(and glen-i for example has said he doesn't have the disposable income for it at the price, tho dcubed also offered the counter of sharing family membership). What's important is surely not to have wrong information floating around when it's not needed?

I am posting quite Ronnie specifically here - I'm happy to accept one mistake or two but it seems to run through, what does it serve for the thread if it gives people like me oppurtunity to call it out? Why post bad maths or bad information at all, why make speculative conversions with no basis at all, and try to downplay them when called out?

I'm all fine for accepting what's being said about relevance - but my numbers add up whereas Ronnie's don't. Whether I'm a mod or not I'm not going to just let people go about posting estimated numbers as if they're fact or what could be argued as straight up bullshit and not call them out. How is it ever going to be sensible to constantly let that happen?

 

Or let me put it to you another way : How many people here wouldn't be keen to pay £18 a month for the service as they see it to be now, but would possibly pay it if it was £14 instead? Or £14.40 to be precise?

I think my problem with this particular ‘discussion’, though, is that it seems to based on a lot of misunderstandings between people over the Internet (which is to be expected, surely, in a more casual and laid back forum such as this) more so than any ill-intentioned misdirection. Heck, I even misunderstood the numbers you were putting out, but I didn’t mean to misdirect anyone. 

As far as I can tell, the £18 figure wasn’t featured in this thread until yesterday. If you saw it elsewhere before, that’s fine, but @Ronnie probably didn’t, which is why I’d imagine he was still using converted prices. Like I said before, I myself was still using the US$ price points yesterday morning, so it seems that the price of £18/year wasn’t officially out yet. 

Again, scrolling back through your exchange, it does seem that there have been a number of misunderstandings, but I think this is the one where the most confusion took place:

Ronnie originally quoted £1.20/month based purely on exchange rates. You then asked where he got the figure of £14.40/year came from, and he said that he’d just seen that it was £18/year, which is £1.50/month, as he went on to say. I think it’s likely that he simply misread/misinterpreted your £14.40/year figure as £1.40/month, because that’s the only place that £1.40/month is found in the entire exchange (which was alluded to by Ronnie saying that the £1.50/month is only 10p more). 

I really do think that it’s down to a few misunderstandings, misinterpretations and a fair share of miscommunication. Either way, I still don’t think @Ronnie was intentionally trying to mislead anyone. I genuinely don’t think that £3.60/year is going to be the difference between anyone here picking up a subscription or not, so I struggle to see why this has become a do-or-die situation. 

[bob]

Christ, guys, take it outside or something.

[Rummy]

So my numbers haven't actually been faulty anywhere whereas Ronnie's repeatedly have and I'm somehow mistaken by logically following them and pointing out the flaws in them, trying to see why this has occured?

Gotcha. It's not my fault he can't keep track of his own calculations and decided to repeatedly state different numbers. I wasn't inconsistent - this all stemmed from his portrayal of a price of 1.20 a month, which still even from there is 75% of the 1.50 it actually is (so 25% or 20% depending which way you work it). I wouldn't mind if there was acceptance of it - but somehow I'm wrong because of something Ronnie has continued to mistate and misrepresent; even after I've rather civilly highlighted the discrepancy.

Would it be ok for me to misrepesent the price the other way, claiming it to be more expensive or a rip off price designed to exploit the consumer when it isn't even the correct pricing for that market? I'm just saying I'm not gonna let bad numbers fly around unquestioned when they're incredibly weakly based (I would ask you to show me from the last 10 years any UK price that converted as a direct analogue from a USD price given the exchange rate of the time - I can't recall a single instance where the UK has recently gotten a digital service or product from Nintendo at a price directs let convertible from USD - it's generally always more expensive and if you're going to consider doing such a comparison (tho hopefully this is a lesson in why it's bad) the better idea would to use EURvGBP for your approximation as well as making that clear that's it's exactly that.

[drahkon]

[Ike]

@Rummy, sorry but take to PM if you want to discuss it further. I posted the EUR price shortly after. I don't think anyone was mislead unless some one has said so.

Personally I didn't know the UK prices were announcement (or I'm blind).

[Rummy]

Well as long as people aren't getting on my back for reasonably asking him where his figure came from, and can allow the fact I haven't changed my numbers repeatedly I'm fine with that - because it's a foundation for the points I wanted to come onto.

People have already mentioned the value of the service to them, something which you surely can't come up with without considering cost. There's going to be different ways to compare this too - which is also related. I wanted to avoid just getting repeats of the same issues people feel they have with it atm though.

So first off - for those who don't feel it's worth the £18 yearly(remember this at the moment is a minimum/cheapest price, and shorter term buys work out more expensive). Ignoring the family pass for the moment - for those who don't feel it's worth the £18 then what DO you feel it is worth? Is there a lower price threshold you'll pay for it in its current speculated state (I realise there's lot of room for movement and unknowns in here) or do you simply feel it's a service that does not currently offer enough to bother with at all?

Next up - how do you feel the price compared with alternatives; either both at advertised pricing and obtainable? My point here as an example is that ps+ has been recently raised to an official price of...£60 for 12 months? Though in reality you can often get it for less via places like CDKeys etc and Sony themselves often do small deals on it - this is something I think we're unlikely to see from Nintendo and I doubt anywhere will sell pre-paid 12 month cards etc for anything less than £18 so it's likely to be an absolute bottom.

What happens next if, as some are wondering, the service isn't up to scratch? There's already murmurs of potential issues of withdrawing currently existing free online play to behind the subscription; what happens if the service just doesn't get a good uptake? There's enough Switch owners here dithering on the fence and for me online has been a big question mark that's held me off purchasing a switch for a while.

Another reason I wonder about this came up in General sales etc - some suggesting that retail sales seem to be down more these days and someone else wondered if it was due to a proliferation of digital options for consumers now. What happens if this online service doesn't quite keep up with shifting patterns or trends, especially when we've seen retailers dump Nintendo lines previously with the Wii U? Tbh I don't see it really happening with the Switch as demand still seems to be going, but I do wonder what will happen after this online service is launched.

 

Questions also still hanging out there about piracy/hacked devices and whether this will be a service designed to counteract any negative effects of that. I'd like to hope they have designed a service smartly enough for it but given its been rather notably hacked relatively short into his lifespan I'm curious whether they'll be prepared for what could come(even if it was a Tegra vulnerability rather than their own).

I'd also be curious about the verification when it comes, and if someone clever might find ways to get hacked Switches online playing without paying etc. For me there's lots of questions about something we don't really have many answers to - I can't say it makes me keen to jump in with the system atm.

[Hero-of-Time]

To answer one of your questions, @Rummy, for me the issue isn't the price, it's what's on offer that I have an issue with. It's more the principal of the thing.

Firstly, the NES lineup is very poor, IMO. We've played a lot of these games to death now and had them spread across the Wii, Wii U, 3DS and NES Classic. I think this is where the promise of other consoles, such as N64 and GameCube would go a long way with Switch owners. As it stands, we have a selection of NES games  but no mention of if we can buy them outright, what the release schedule will be or if more consoles will available.

Secondly, the Switch hasn't got any online games that pull me in. Mario Kart and Splatoon were fun in short bursts but have I dropped them a while back. ARMS and Pokken also failed to grab my attention. The Switch also lacks a lot of the big 3rd party games that have online modes. 

My 3rd point is about the lack of ability to send messages, set up games with friends and Nintendo doubling down on the app for voice chat, are the BIG reasons why the games I previously mentioned don't hold my attention. Not being able to set up games with people without using a forum or using another device is flat out ridiculous in this day and age. These have been industry standards for 2 generations now but Nintendo refuse to get with times.

I would honestly pay a premium price for Nintendo's service if they allowed me to party chat via the console and send messages and set up games. Everything else they offer with the service is just a bonus, much like PSN and XBL.

Outside of the cloud saves, I don't think the service is worth dropping money on. I can afford it but why bother if the games aren't there and the service isn't actually giving me what I actually want? 

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I think the way this has been announced has been a bit of a mess. I think more clarity is needed in regards to the service but as it stands the whole thing seems half baked, just as it before it was delayed.

Speaking of the delay, what here has justified a whole year delay? I know there were rumours that they were having a bit of a nightmare getting the service up and running and that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence going forward.

[Helmsly]

I agree with a lot of what you wrote there @Hero-of-Time .

My problem is that, nothing about what they are offering with this directly improves the actual online infrastructure of the Switch. As far as gaming online on the Switch goes, it'll be exactly the same, only now with a price tag. All of the other stuff (Nes games, cloud saving, discounts) are just separate extras.

If paying for Switch's online gave us the ability to send messages and invites for example, then I would be all for it, but based on the information they've put out so far, seems like its going to be the same service. Couple that with the fact there are very few online games for the switch and I currently only have one that holds my interest, I'm struggling to see why I should get a subscription, no matter how cheap it is.

[Nicktendo]

If the money is going towards infrastructure and dedicated (read; decent) servers then I'll happily pay it.

£1.50 a month is minimal in the grand scheme of things and I'd consider paying that alone for decent cloud storage and for the app to be expanded to many other games beyond Splatoon 2, hopefully with some kind of messaging service. I'll likely ignore the VC feature. Discord seems like it would be better.

Anything else (including a few NES games with online) is a bonus. Expand that to N64 & GC with online capability in a Netflix style service and I'd happily be prepared to pay 2 or 3 times the current asking price, provided the service was up to Nintendo's usual standards (not online though, obviously...)

[Rummy]

15 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Outside of the cloud saves, I don't think the service is worth dropping money on. I can afford it but why bother if the games aren't there and the service isn't actually giving me what I actually want? 

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I think the way this has been announced has been a bit of a mess. I think more clarity is needed in regards to the service but as it stands the whole thing seems half baked, just as it before it was delayed.

Speaking of the delay, what here has justified a whole year delay? I know there were rumours that they were having a bit of a nightmare getting the service up and running and that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence going forward.

Kinda what I was expecting - I've cut the above quote but appreciated the whole post.

My concern/issue was this though. Rather than an issue of affordability some consumers(notably moreso ones like us) rather than seeing this is a service they might pay X Y or Z for would actually see it as offering so little or possibly being disappointing(without going into it Nintendo's online and promises have tended to be rigid at times) that they wouldn't subscribe at all. I wonder how this will affect the system as a whole - especially trying to foster online multi environments etc. Low player bases aren't ideal, and die off much quicker. In the short term it isn't great, but I feel like in the longer term it does more damage to make people feel less encouraged to adopt in future or continue to subscribing to the service once starting etc. I worry how well it'll thrive without that.

I agree on top of that the way of announcements and reveal and delays don't seem particularly rational given their lengths and reasons/features given.

I also recognise the difference of affordability and choosing not to use the service. I do wonder what might happen given the perceived lack of value but apparent...openness? of the family pass? If they don't lock down too tight on that I could certainly see more older single gamers coming together to share a family pass for much cheaper content if it's as easy and simply being tied to your NNID username/login. They said you'd be able to play on ANY switch with it, right? Not limited to a particular console or two or having a specific primary etc?

[Ashley]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-05-11-nintendo-still-wont-commit-to-online-services

I think this is a decent take on the whole thing. 

Quote

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that Nintendo finds itself conflicted over how best to handle its valuable back catalogue of IP and software. It knows there's value there, and has successfully exploited it for years, but it now finds itself at a crossroads. Using these ageing games as a value-add to boost subscription revenue makes sense from many perspectives, but the runaway success of the NES Classic threw a curveball into that thinking.

Nintendo didn't expect that level of success, obviously, and now it's left wondering if bundling up all of its back catalogue titles into a package to support an online service is really the most effective use of that asset, or whether it would effectively be shutting off its capacity to create more cheap, enormously profitable hardware like the NES and SNES Classic.

It's worth clarifying, though, that none of this is of existential importance to Switch. The console isn't primarily an online gaming platform, and while a failure to get better at that kind of service might be leaving revenue on the table, it won't harm the system's current market appeal either. It's less clear how many consumers might have bought into Switch with a background expectation of being able to eventually play back catalogue games on the system - probably not very many, but equally, the success of the Classic consoles does show just how enthusiastic people remain for these games, and if anything demonstrates how strong a selling point an extensive historical catalogue could be.

 

[Rummy]

Inclined to mostly agree - but they're fracturing and splitting themselves here. Backwards compatibility/VC stuff is just one part of the myriad of issues folks seem to be worried about with the system.

[Dcubed]

For me, the cloud saves, online classic games and the family sharing plan make it worth it.  If we would have to pay for subscriptions for each individual Switch we have amongst us, there’s no way I could justify it, but the family plan working across multiple devices makes a big difference and the price is low enough.  I just don’t play online all that much, but I’ll get enough value out of the service as a whole thanks to the low overall price we need to pay for everyone.

[Ronnie]

20+ online-enabled NES games for £18 a year is crazy good value, never mind the cloud saves, discounts and online stuff. NES games on VC would cost, what around 5 quid each?