I don't think $20 is a good price for Nintendo's abysmal offering, but it's not entirely true that P2P is free for the developers. They still have to maintain a set of master servers to match people together, which - granted - isn't very expensive, but definitely not free. That said, it's so cheap that they can probably comfortably fund it with sales for a while.
Also, the argument that Japanese people don't play online seems bunk. Sony is Japanese, the PS4 is arguably as big as the Nintendo Switch in Japan. If they can do it, Nintendo can do it too.
I always find it interesting that Xbox console players are still paying their monthly subscription fees, however the same games being played on PC have no cost at all.
Even with crossplay nothing has changed.
What has changed is that microsoft will offer a combined Game Pass subscription with their Gold membership, because these are two different reoccurring payments. I knew they would combine the two eventually (somehow), and they did so by offering a reduced price.
If you think Sony has a good reputation for an online service.
Never forget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_PlayStation_Network_outage
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2018/10/15/psa-change-your-message-settings-on-ps4-or-risk-getting-hacked/#a457ee67c0fa
Didn't even have fucking name changes until THIS YEAR
while the service is much more expansive that what nintendo do offer. Damn I don't want to sound racist or anything, but there's just something fucked up about what these companies in the East offer, and I have no intelligence on what they could even be, because company internal shit is internal. And any leaks I have don't cover it
If Microsoft adapted a free online model, like they do on PC, then honestly they'd be the fucking better version of Epic Games, who are trying hard to change the industry standard. Changing the standard for paying for console online services, fuck why not.
This all being said, I still pay my ninte online subscriptions, and my MMO subs.
FF14 doesn't required PS+, thank you Sony.
And your FF14 sub pays for
GMs
Ongoing content updates (other than major expansions)
Dedicated servers for both world servers and dungeon instances
I've subbed to FFXIV for about three years now, which means, not including buying expansions and the actual game, I've given SquareEnix as much money as it'd cost to prepay 30 years of Switch Online. For Switch Online specifically, I have given Nintendo $0. The difference is that with 14 I can tell my money's being put to good use, even if it's for powering a Skinner box.
Oh yeah for sure,
Yeah, I'm happy paying my sub fees. There's still a lot of work that goes into MMOs, general upkeep is mandatory at the scale at which these games run at.
There's so much other good shit that comes out of this game other than these bullet-points
Even when I'm not playing, I sub to keep my house active, totally fine in doing so
And the argument completely falls apart when you consider that most games locked behind that Subscription Fee aren't Nintendo games:
Game Guide
I seriously doubt a cent of that $20 goes to any of these developers.
You realize Microsoft is the one that successfully popularized the Paid-Online model? What does Sony have to do with this?
the inherent joke here is that $20 a year to online multiplayer means that splatoon 2, the one game that is multiplayer-focused, goes from $60 to $80 just because without online you basically got a $60 short singleplayer paperweight. any other switch game that benefits from it can be played with multiplayer local or has enough singleplayer content, can be played anywhere else or simply doesnt need it.
its less of a scam and more of a ransom.
"but online services are expensive and the game is frequently updated"
we're talking about nintendo here - not some small studio struggling to pay the bills.
Oh no 4$ a month for NES games and to play Smash online the horror what will we do
Nice strawman, did you build it yourself?
It would be great if you could keep those NES games, but you have to pay each month to play them.
So basically you if you want to play online of switch you have to rent old NES games even if you don't need or like them...
I didn't know facts we're strawmen
Literally ignoring everyone's points to throw out "zingers". How cheap a service is doesn't magically undermine the horseshit and anti-consumer choices behind it, but keep on strawmanning, maybe you can build a house some time in twenty years with enough of it.
I'm pretty frugal so I only spend about $100 on games every year. $20 feels like a ripoff for something you get completely for free on another platform.
The only other free platform is PC
On PC I can play Rocket League online without paying for anything other than the game itself; on Switch I have to pay $20 a year to do the same.
It's a massive ripoff.
My main problem with the sub fee is that it doesn't feel like anything is going towards making the service better in any way. It's just an arbitrary shakedown I have to pay in order to play Smash online with my friends. The service is missing a lot of basic features that a drip-feed of 30-year-old games can't make up for, even when I'm self-admittedly getting use out of them.
Until now, I was tolerant of it because personally speaking the cost was trivial and Smash Bros. is huge in my friend group. This recent horseshit with Mario Maker though is just untenable. If I'm going to buy a game and pay for a stupid subscription service then at the very least I shouldn't have to deal with intentionally obtuse restrictions on using it the way I want and the way I should logically be able to.
The 3DS version of Mario Maker 1 has more options to play user made levels than mario maker 2 without a subscription and the 3DS port was pretty much universally panned for being a shit port.
Didn't the 3ds version only allow sharing levels via streetpass though?
Yeah you couldn't share levels online from the 3DS version and had to be physically close to the other console to share them. It's the same deal with Mario Maker 2 if you don't have a subscription.
The 3DS version however had a level browser you could use and input codes into to play WiiU levels. MM2 doesn't let you do that if you don't have a subscription.
Oh, that's better than I thought. I was under the impression that SMM1 for 3DS had no online whatsoever, where you couldn't upload OR download.
I don't care if it's cheap or at least cheaper than other platforms, if I'm paying for a service I fucking expect it to work well and have it support standard features at the very least instead of blindly defending it like a corporate drone.
Nintendo know how bullshit their service is and paid online in general, but do it anyways because people will still buy it endlessly.
Also I don't get how people see NES games as a worthwhile bonus when I can just download an emulator and roms onto my phone and still have portable NES and even SNES games but for free (I'm not paying for a limited number of 30+ year old games).
Boy am I glad I was smart about this and split the cost of online between friends in the family plan. It's only $5 a year for me so I really can't complain about the service I'm getting and I'd gladly do that over other options.
Sad to see others in a different situation though.
$4 a month for NES game is trash. That should not be a service.
Also, Smash Online is trash. The online feels worse than it did on Wii U and Wii for gods sake, you PAY for it. Stop defending it.
Yo, I'm glad you're having fun and you can do what you want, but getting a steep discount on bad service is still paying for bad service. I complained about Switch's half-defective online when it was free and I'm going to complain even louder now that Nintendo expects consumers to pay a premium for bad online service. If you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant and there are like a hundred flies crawling on the sweet & sour chicken, you don't turn to your mates and go "hey let's not complain we each only paid $7".
As I've said in this thread, I've spent the equivalent of 30 years of Switch Online service on three years of my FF14 sub -- I have no problem paying for things, but I refuse to buy into shit. Getting a steep discount for the privilege of being shat on by poor P2P connectivity is still paying to be shat on.
Xbox Live was paid from the start. Sony proved that you can move from a free model to a paid model during the move to a new console - without even upgrading your service at all to justify the new fee - and gamers will not only eat it up, they'll eat it up so readily that it won't even impede the sales of the system.
Nintendo saw the PS4 selling far better than the PS3 ever did despite moving to a paid model for PSN, and meanwhile the Wii U got curbstomped despite being the last holdout of free online. Why would they not follow Sony's example? Gamers voted with their wallets and sent the message that they wanted this.
Sony did initially move to the PS+ model during the latter third or so of the PS3 lifespan. But it wasn't required. Despite that it still saw reasonable uptake as Sony were actually offering reasons to buy in in the first place, rather than strong-arming consumers like LIVE was. Thanks to Sony having the foresight to actually give people content when they pay for their sub, rather than giving them just a basic feature, their competitors started doing the same.
I genuinely have no doubts that Games for Gold would not exist if people didn't realise MS were fucking them when Sony started giving away free games for their sub. Shame Sony didn't do fucking anything to make the PSN less miserable on the PS3. Outages, extensive maintenance times and just peculiar networking plagued the fucking thing until the PS4 where it at least started to stay up consistently.
Though I would much prefer we went back to the entirely free systems we had on the PS3 and Wii (U). I'd likely still sub for PS+ to access the games they offer, they sometimes offer some genuinely good shit. Technically there is no requirement for a game on the PS4 to require a PS+ sub, there's a number of free to play games that don't require one after all. It's entirely up to the developers. But I'd assume this locks them out of using the PSN infrastructure for match making and the likes. Which is a ball-ache.
How is this not Xbox's fault, since the 360 sold like hotcakes before that?
You're blaming only Sony in this which is absurd because most paid online with very little benefits was a Microsoft thing with XBOX Live.
PS+ was still never required for online play for PS3, it was just for the extra content. PS4 is when they forced it to be a requirement for online play. In fact, you can still play PS3 games online without a PS+ subscription. And Vita games, for that matter. Only PS4 requires it for online, which proves how unnecessary said move was. They did it simply because they thought - and indeed proved - they could get away with it.
I agree that both Nintendo and Sony should move back to free online, and hell, that Microsoft should join them in doing so. If they want to keep a paid subscription for their on-demand and rewards programs, that's one thing (and even then, Club/My Nintendo showed that you can have the rewards part be free at least), but online play should never require a paid subscription, not when the myriad of PC services from Steam to Origin to uPlay can do it for free. I know all three companies make more than enough money to support what infrastructure they need for online play from all their other services and products.
cough cough rocket league uses their own infrastructure entirely, including for friends. I bought it with the expectation that it wouldn't require NSO as well, but HA HA HA HA
On top of the initial promises of SNES games, the lack of fucking messaging, etc, this really is a scam.
Also note: Microsoft has recently been moving to dedicated servers. In fact, P2P is of last resort in the Master Chief Collection now.
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