Gadgetory

last week Nintendo finally started shedding some light on their Nintendo switch online service something we've been waiting a long time for in fall and considering the fact that it now is coming out well less than a week from now and the info we got was initially pretty cool sounding but there's a lot of fine print that's sounding a little bit rough now before we start getting into some of the problems with it and things that Nintendo can improve upon let's give some credit where it's due right away with one of the biggest strengths that has affordability paid online services for gaming consoles are kind of a weird subject for some people this last decade because some people view it as a necessary thing you have to pay for that make sure servers are running nice and smoothly other people view it as an unnecessary ingredient way though I think you can kind of groove at least looking at the online service this is one of the most fairly priced introductory wise whereas for PlayStation next box you're spending at minimum $60 a year if you're doing the cheapest package possible switch online is only costing $20 for a full year which is pretty easy to do and even when you break it down to some of the more expensive packages like paying month-to-month it ultimately boils down to only being 4 bucks a month and if you really want to save some money you have the option of doing a family plan for only $35 covering 8 accounts whether you're family or just a group of friends joining up so that alone is some good news I think it's a sign that Nintendo knows they need to competitively price themselves a bit against Sony and Microsoft but where it starts to run into some problems is this is the first time Nintendo's really tried something like this a paid online service that gives certain benefits and it feels very much like this is a situation where they're trying out online services for the first time back in the mid-2000s for instance let's talk about one of the biggest most look for two features of Nintendo switch online cloud saves one of the big problems the switch has is the fact that there's not really any way to backup your save data at all and everything is locked to a single console so that console breaks you literally lose everything as far as your actual progress in a game goes and wasn't into the switch online we're finally getting a way to do cloud saves kind of there's a couple caveats here now first off the cloud saving service has some very unclear terms about how it's handled a tree or subscription goes up a lot of people are interpreting some vague wording from Nintendo as the fact that as soon as you no longer pay for online services your save data is immediately deleted there's some other wording in other locations on Nintendo's website where it kind of sounds like maybe there's a grace period but it's not clear now compare this to what Sony and Microsoft intend Microsoft cloud saves are just an automatic thing it's not even part of a gold membership you just have that for free indefinitely Sony on the other hand it is something you need to pay for but if you don't pay for the service they at least pay per cloud saves around for six months Nintendo like I said we don't know for sure but either way it's sounding not as remotely strong as either of those now once again Nintendo's wording on this has been very vague so it's possible that's going to be better than what a lot of people are fearing but there's other aspects of the online service that's in much plainer speech that's a little more worrisome for instance the fact that not all games actually support cloud saves specifically split tomb 2 and Pokemon let's go now the reason in Tendo was given for this is because basically these are games were designed with not a lot of foresight as far as how online services and being able to do backup saves would work so if they did support cloud saves it would give people a very easy way to do things like duplicate Pokemon duplicate items trade stuff away and then just get it back again and while that is kind of a good reason I do that it raises the question of why wasn't this planned for a ahead of time especially if Nintendo switch online was a thing we were expecting because it's really rough we're especially in a competitive game where you can spend tons of hours building up a lot of stuff that's the one thing you can't properly backup or save that's not good now along with allowing you to play games online and cloud saves one of the other big aspects of Nintendo switch online is the ability to play kind of their new retro console they're calling it in a 1000 Entertainment System Nintendo switch online which is quite a mouthful now this works a bit differently from Nintendo's past attempts at bringing retro games to modern consoles instead of being a system where you're just buying individual games as long as you're a paying member of Nintendo switch online you'll be able to access a currently small library of Nintendo titles currently numbering at 20 but they're gonna be releasing more as time goes on kind of similar to what PlayStation does a PlayStation now or Xbox with game paths but it's all much older games the cool side about this though is that kind of similar to what they did with the Nintendo classic editions that does update these games to run nice and smoothly in 1080p resolution and interesting new facet is that you will be able to actually do online play with the small handful of titles where would actually be relevant and I gotta admit by far one of the coolest aspects about it to me is that tying in with this release they are releasing some special limited Nintendo Entertainment System controllers that act like joy Kahn's being able to slide on the side you can't use them for any other games because they don't really have enough buttons but if you're a paying member and you're playing in ask games you can use an actual NES style controller which i think is an awesome little touch this to me is potentially the coolest part of what Nintendo online could eventually be because right now with only 20 games it's not a lot but they have already shown that you're planning on releasing a lot of games in the near future and hopefully down the line it couldn't come to something more than just NES you know one of the things about Nintendo at least in the modern age it's always been a little weird to me is how all over the place their way of accessing retro games has been they've done different methods they've released standalone systems I really really want just one easy way to access a large library of Nintendo games and if this list continues to grow the rate they're currently doing I think the intent of switch online could be that service and I think this would go a long way in really helping make a Nintendo switch online seem a lot more worth it even if they eventually up the price a little bit as that library of games grew because as of right now at least yes it is the cheapest online subscription model out of the three major systems but what you're getting out of these honestly a bit limited right now the 20 games is a cool idea but it's a small number and some of the other functionality of it like cloud saves while present don't exactly work the way that I think a lot of people would want them to work whereas with PlayStation and Microsoft you're getting free games there's all these other additional services cloud saves are just straight-up free on Microsoft this is just the service you're getting what you pay for right now but it's not quite what it should be now I don't want to just have this entire video be oh no everything's awful Nintendo's basic up online and you shouldn't buy it no look it's a rough start but I think that especially at the current lower price point it's something that's at least worth getting into right now and there's just areas that Nintendo could really you know work on whether that's increasing memory games available for the NES console or adding other platforms down the line improving in fixing up cloud saves work and let's not even start on the still continuing issue have use a separate phone for offline chat it's just it's a start right now but Nintendo can do better