As you know, Nintendo Switch Online dropped September 18th. Many people decided to buy it, many did not. I myself haven't bought it yet cos I don't have the funds so we'll be talking about the cons for most of this rant. I will also focus primarily on how this affects Splatoon 2. Now time to get into it!
Oh no, I can't afford the online service
We all knew this would come at some point. Nintendo released the switch saying at some point in time they'll add an online service, which was supposed to come out in fall 2017, so we've been just living in a grace period. Also, Nintendo has been poking this for months so don't act so surprised. What you see about online service is that it's $20 a year, it's so cheap, just pay for it! What exactly are you paying for? To keep playing your online games, to "support" Nintendo? I see everyone paying for this service like, "It's not $20 in the trash, they'll improve servers!" Nintendo never said they'll improve servers, so they don't have to. You paid for a P2P game, disconnects are inevitable. What I hate seeing is people saying "Well I can't play sploon no more cos I can't afford the service." and then people say, "Go get a job, it's only $20 idiot, how'd you even get a switch if you can't afford $20?" Shut up. You don't know anybody's situation. $300 is $500 in Latin America. Not everyone is privileged like you and gets to throw out money as you do on the online service. Not everyone lives in a 1st world country so prices are different and jobs give less money. They could've received their switch as a gift, you don't know. I'm telling y'all, most of the people saying it's hella cheap and stuff have their parents paying for it.
The "Perks" of Online Service
So let's discuss what you're paying $20 a year for. (It's not that great)
I guess this was supposed to be the hype thing for the online service, it didn't work, obviously. But what's wrong with free games. Ah, but they aren't exactly free, hah. Instead, you're using a free trial of the games and have to pay for it by the end of the month or say bye bye to your "free" game. Now if you had to pay like $3-5 for each one, that wouldn't be too bad, but I'm not sure if Nintendo will charge their virtual console that cheap, being that they deliberately went after ROM sites just to put this up. You can buy NES controllers for $60 (And I thought their overpriced cardboard was bad) I mean it's a nice touch to playing NES games but nobody needs this, it's just a cash-in opportunity lol.
Also another thing (Boy will this one crack you up)
So apparently, this dude played Dr. Mario for 20 minutes and this happened. A screen burn-in. Top notch Nintendo right there
Cloud Save Backups
So another thing is saving up your data. The switch really needed this, as you can only save the system memory, even with a microSD. Obviously, if Nintendo kept the idea of saving memory to SD cards, this wouldn't be a problem, but gotta get rid of those hackers, right!! Now, this should've been a free feature, but gotta make a quick buck, right?? Now here's the problem. Not ALL games are supported, only some. This is kinda ironic since you paid to play online, yet you can't back up your online games. Online based games like Splatoon 2 and ARMS didn't get supported cos people would save-scum their way to the top, and that was an issue with Splatoon 1. Save-scumming is the process of saving data before you play and if you mess up, overwrite the new data with the old one to go back to where you left off. And when you think of that, the only thing that comes to mind is ranked. Imagine A+ skilled people in X rank, huh
Smartphone App
Ah, the smartphone app. For Splatoon 2, you'll use it to check battle stats and that's pretty much it. Nintendo always talks about their voice chat through the app, however since Discord and Skype exist, the app is hot garbage compared to them, and everyone knows that.
Online Play
This is the most anticipated part of the service, the online play. Luckily, this didn't affect free to play games or even Balloon World from SMO. However, Splatoon 2 being primarily an online game got hit hard. People who didn't pay for the service left with 2% of the game. (Octo Canyon and Octo Expansion) Oh and get this. You need the service to post drawings to the square. Good god, how greedy can you get Nintendo?
Free trial requires the use of a credit card, so kids can't get it. Imagine waking up one day to go sploon to see this shiz. They mentioned none of this in the news channels on the switch itself y'know.
Special Offers
This was left hidden even though the service is already out, we can only assume it's Nintendo Eshop deals, nothing much to say about this.
In Conclusion
I'm not saying if you should buy it or not. That should be left up to you. However, I'm explaining what Nintendo Switch Online offers you and from there you'll see if it's worth it to you. I personally think Nintendo is using your addiction to Splatoon 2, ARMS, etc against you to pay money. Remember that you're addicted to the game so you'd initially pay off the paywall so you can still play your favorite games. Nintendo Switch Online wasn't ready to launch yet and isn't worth paying for to me but hopefully, that changes in months to come, because rn it looks like a big fat donation box.
Bibliography
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/0...-splatoon-and-dark-souls-do-not-support-cloud (Games don't support cloud data saving)
https://nintendosoup.com/nintendo-switch-online-nes-games-causing-screen-burn-in-issues/ (NES Games Cause Screen Burn-ins)
(Save-Scumming)
(Nintendo Implies that Nintendo Switch Online will be worth paying for, just not a launch.)
Oh no, I can't afford the online service
We all knew this would come at some point. Nintendo released the switch saying at some point in time they'll add an online service, which was supposed to come out in fall 2017, so we've been just living in a grace period. Also, Nintendo has been poking this for months so don't act so surprised. What you see about online service is that it's $20 a year, it's so cheap, just pay for it! What exactly are you paying for? To keep playing your online games, to "support" Nintendo? I see everyone paying for this service like, "It's not $20 in the trash, they'll improve servers!" Nintendo never said they'll improve servers, so they don't have to. You paid for a P2P game, disconnects are inevitable. What I hate seeing is people saying "Well I can't play sploon no more cos I can't afford the service." and then people say, "Go get a job, it's only $20 idiot, how'd you even get a switch if you can't afford $20?" Shut up. You don't know anybody's situation. $300 is $500 in Latin America. Not everyone is privileged like you and gets to throw out money as you do on the online service. Not everyone lives in a 1st world country so prices are different and jobs give less money. They could've received their switch as a gift, you don't know. I'm telling y'all, most of the people saying it's hella cheap and stuff have their parents paying for it.
The "Perks" of Online Service
So let's discuss what you're paying $20 a year for. (It's not that great)
- NES games
- Cloud Save Backups
- Smartphone App
- Online Play
- Special Offers??
I guess this was supposed to be the hype thing for the online service, it didn't work, obviously. But what's wrong with free games. Ah, but they aren't exactly free, hah. Instead, you're using a free trial of the games and have to pay for it by the end of the month or say bye bye to your "free" game. Now if you had to pay like $3-5 for each one, that wouldn't be too bad, but I'm not sure if Nintendo will charge their virtual console that cheap, being that they deliberately went after ROM sites just to put this up. You can buy NES controllers for $60 (And I thought their overpriced cardboard was bad) I mean it's a nice touch to playing NES games but nobody needs this, it's just a cash-in opportunity lol.
Also another thing (Boy will this one crack you up)
So apparently, this dude played Dr. Mario for 20 minutes and this happened. A screen burn-in. Top notch Nintendo right there
Cloud Save Backups
So another thing is saving up your data. The switch really needed this, as you can only save the system memory, even with a microSD. Obviously, if Nintendo kept the idea of saving memory to SD cards, this wouldn't be a problem, but gotta get rid of those hackers, right!! Now, this should've been a free feature, but gotta make a quick buck, right?? Now here's the problem. Not ALL games are supported, only some. This is kinda ironic since you paid to play online, yet you can't back up your online games. Online based games like Splatoon 2 and ARMS didn't get supported cos people would save-scum their way to the top, and that was an issue with Splatoon 1. Save-scumming is the process of saving data before you play and if you mess up, overwrite the new data with the old one to go back to where you left off. And when you think of that, the only thing that comes to mind is ranked. Imagine A+ skilled people in X rank, huh
Smartphone App
Ah, the smartphone app. For Splatoon 2, you'll use it to check battle stats and that's pretty much it. Nintendo always talks about their voice chat through the app, however since Discord and Skype exist, the app is hot garbage compared to them, and everyone knows that.
Online Play
This is the most anticipated part of the service, the online play. Luckily, this didn't affect free to play games or even Balloon World from SMO. However, Splatoon 2 being primarily an online game got hit hard. People who didn't pay for the service left with 2% of the game. (Octo Canyon and Octo Expansion) Oh and get this. You need the service to post drawings to the square. Good god, how greedy can you get Nintendo?
Free trial requires the use of a credit card, so kids can't get it. Imagine waking up one day to go sploon to see this shiz. They mentioned none of this in the news channels on the switch itself y'know.
Special Offers
This was left hidden even though the service is already out, we can only assume it's Nintendo Eshop deals, nothing much to say about this.
In Conclusion
I'm not saying if you should buy it or not. That should be left up to you. However, I'm explaining what Nintendo Switch Online offers you and from there you'll see if it's worth it to you. I personally think Nintendo is using your addiction to Splatoon 2, ARMS, etc against you to pay money. Remember that you're addicted to the game so you'd initially pay off the paywall so you can still play your favorite games. Nintendo Switch Online wasn't ready to launch yet and isn't worth paying for to me but hopefully, that changes in months to come, because rn it looks like a big fat donation box.
Bibliography
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/0...-splatoon-and-dark-souls-do-not-support-cloud (Games don't support cloud data saving)
https://nintendosoup.com/nintendo-switch-online-nes-games-causing-screen-burn-in-issues/ (NES Games Cause Screen Burn-ins)
