I've always had pretty strong objections to paid subscriptions for online gameplay. Logically I understand it's supposed to help fund the costs of running and maintaining the servers, but I also feel like it's the developer's responsibility to make their game fully playable for the asking price, and factor these costs into said price. If I'm paying $60 for an infinitely-copyable series of ones and zeroes, I shouldn't then need to pay a recurring fee to enjoy it to its full extent.

All that said, the current cost of Nintendo's online servies + NES/SNES library is pretty much low enough that I don't notice paying it. But I don't know right now if I'm comfortable paying more just to unlock some arbitrarily-paywalled content. Does anyone remember back in like 2008 when you could just buy all these games on the Wii? If you bought any of those, you still own them today, and they can even be transferred to the Wii U. It kinda pains me to imagine how much I would've spent over the last ~13 years if this same functionality came with a monthly bill.

What happens with save files, anyway? If I stop paying this subscription do my saved games disappear? Dystopian if true.

Anyway it seems like Super Mario 3D All-Stars was the tech demo for N64/GC/Wii emulators on the Switch, so I guess eventually the whole gang will be included in this service for progressively-higher costs, until I'm paying $50/month for 10,000 games when I only want to play ~5 of them every couple months. It's cable TV for video games lol

i'd get it for the genesis games tbh

Depends on the pricing.

As it is now the family membership is such a damn good deal that it blows the VC out of the water. I imagine this is to sidestep that.

Isn't this shit like 50 a year lmao I might actually not buy it now

I still want to know what happens to my save files if I stop paying

Depends on the pricing.

As it is now the family membership is such a damn good deal that it blows the VC out of the water. I imagine this is to sidestep that.

i was right. its expensive as sin.

this video was pretty good touching on the topic:

I still want to know what happens to my save files if I stop paying

probably fine. I downloaded the nes app before I had a subscription and it just doesnt let you access it, the app is still there.

now if you delete the saves off your switch (idk how to even do that) I doubt there's any cloud save stuff

The expansion pack is incredibly underwhelming. First of all, no Blast Corps? Come on. N64 has some great, legendary games for sure, but there's only a few, and for that price? No thanks. N64 may be a weird console to emulate so maybe Nintendo's first-party emulators have some value there, but that much for early 3d games where everyone was still figuring everything out? hard pass.

Secondly, while I think the Genesis could be an exciting system to release games for, as there's probably plenty of games we haven't seen released on one of these platforms, the reality is we're probably just going to see the same games SEGA has already ported to everything on earth again and again.

As far as the subscription service in general goes... I guess it's alright. I think that recurring income based on these old games might be good in the long run for them and Nintendo respecting them, if people pay up. I could see potential for feature updates or translations or things keeping things interesting.

Virtual console was great, and I really missed the boat on that one. I think we won't see it again because Nintendo will have to answer people- "Why can't I transfer the games I already purchased over?"- and we all know they don't have any good answer for that.

eagerly awaiting to get scammed by these guys instead:
https://www.analogue.co/pocket

I missed the first chance to order (I was ordering but it sold out forever while I had some kind of credit card issue boooo) and with the ~global parts shortage~ it seems like it's a while out before even the people who ordered it get their system.

I'm sure they'll get the stuff out and I'm sure it'll be a high quality product. But I'm also sure with every system they've released so far... emulation is near perfect around anyway. I can't really argue there's that much value in buying their hardware solutions.

But hey, at least it's interesting, unlike whatever Nintendo does with its old games. You can almost feel their disdain for their own history.

my boy mario puts it pretty well. hard pass on this service for me.

if they had come out swinging with a wider n64 library, and if they had thrown in something like gameboy and gameboy advance games, or at least, you know, fucking SONIC 3 AND KNUCKLES at the very least so that it'd be clear sega would be going for a wider selection than what they rerelease literally everywhere else (WHY IS THAT SO HARD SEGA), i would've been more into it

i'd get it for the genesis games tbh

never mind fuck this

@Mario Virtual Console really was great. I have some fun memories of picking up those Wii Points cards from the toy store. Everything I bought circa 2008 is still available on my Wii U, which I haven't set up in years but I appreciate the ownership on principle

I think for people who actually use their Switch as a portable console this might be worth the asking price. If it mainly stays hooked up to the TV, it's looking like a better idea to just set up a cheap HTPC that will be able to run all these games in 4K, legality aside. I wonder if there's a Plex equivalent for console emulators

There are a lot of cool things that could be done with these old games. I've been saying for at least 10 years that Nintendo should leverage their massive fanbase, many of whom already make fangames for free, to release paid DLC for classic games. There are so many impressive mods out there and I'd love to see what those devs could do if they were paid a few bucks to work on official content. Left 4 Dead did this last year (idk if anyone was paid though honestly)

you can get a portable console that can play n64 games for the price of this expansion pack lol

I wonder if there's a Plex equivalent for console emulators

there is. Plex makes it. https://www.retrorgb.com/plex-arcade-announced.html

There are a lot of cool things that could be done with these old games. I've been saying for at least 10 years that Nintendo should leverage their massive fanbase, many of whom already make fangames for free, to release paid DLC for classic games. There are so many impressive mods out there and I'd love to see what those devs could do if they were paid a few bucks to work on official content. Left 4 Dead did this last year (idk if anyone was paid though honestly)

DLC for old games would be weird. I think hobbyists have figured it out to a huge degree, but who knows if that's something that's commercially viable- I think the work that goes into that might not be worth it, and even with the source code I dunno how well these old games would hold up to more traditional DLC approaches.

For newer games though, that's the other aspect of it, the animal crossing DLC suggests this could function as a Nintendo DLC Season Pass, which wouldn't sound so bad if... Nintendo regularly released DLC for things. There's been no announcements or plans we've seen to change that so it seems unlikely. And to add insult to injury, this gets announced immediately after Nintendo's final smash ultimate update, the game that has the most potential for rewarding updates this way

This post was last modified: Oct 21, 2021 at 3:08 PM by Spritanium.

I think something like Super Mario 64: Star Road is way more commercially-viable than the same SM64 everyone has already owned and played for 20 years, and if people are willing to pay $50/year for the latter I'm sure they'd splurge on the former

It's not worth as much as a modern game of course; I'm thinking like a $5 one-time fee to permanently unlock extra content for a certain game on the subscription service

As someone who was very excited for N64 games on Switch, I find the asking price of NSO Expansion Pack to be way too much. I was prepared to spend 10, maybe 15 additional bucks a year but 30 bucks? No way.

I don't like the idea of tying DLC to a subscription service unless you're free to keep it after your subscription ends, which in the case of Happy Home Paradise you are not. Also, I think people are being optimistic in assuming future Nintendo DLC will be offered through Expansion Pack. Nintendo isn't above making vague promises of future content, so if this were true I think they would have said as much. I think they just saw an opportunity to get New Horizons players to subscribe to their new subscription tier. They either get them on the hook forever, or they get fucked when they realize they now gotta spend 25 bucks to access the DLC they became accustomed to.

I wouldn't mind subscribing to Expansion Pack at this price point if additional console libraries find their way to the service, Gameboy and Gameboy Advance are likely candidates. I think if those consoles get added I might bite the bullet in the future, but until then I'm gonna say no to Banjo-Kazooie and Paper Mario on Switch.

This post was last modified: Oct 22, 2021 at 4:00 PM by Spritanium.

I'd be more OK with the subscription model if they'd just charge me like 10 cents a month for every game I actually want to play