There has been a lot of discussion of the Nintendo Switch ever since the conference, and there have been a lot of valid concerns and criticisms of the hybrid console as we approach the release date.
One of the main concerns surrounding the console is, of course, the paid online service which is a first for a Nintendo console. This is concerning in itself as Nintendo have yet to prove they can provide a multiplayer service worth paying for, and in all honesty, Nintendo’s online service has been pretty dreadful in comparison to the other consoles.
But shortly after the conference, we learned that the “free games” you get with the Switch are not actually free. They’re more like rentals, where you get a free SNES or NES game free for a month and after that period it disappears from your account. Compared to Xbox Live Gold and Playstation Plus, where you get to keep all your games as long as you are still subscribed, this is pretty subpar.
The TL;DR of all this is that it came down to the pricing. With the lackluster offering in comparison to their competitors, Nintendo absolutely had to get the price right and we may just know what that price tag actually is.
According to Dr. Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based games consultant, Nintendo President Kimishima confirmed to Nikkei that the online pricing will be 000 to 3,000 yen. This makes it about $17-$26 per year.
This is roughly half the price of Playstation Plus and Xbox Live Gold, which does lessen the sting of the pretty poor value proposition. To be honest, while the price does make this not as big of an ask to most people, I would still argue that they should let people keep their free games. Even with that, the value is still weaker than that of Sony and Microsoft given that the games will be limited to the SNES and NES.
