Nintendo Switch Online EXPENSIVE Pack

Image from Nintendo

After that wonderful Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct, which showed off a plethora of new content coming to the game in November, Nintendo dished out the details about Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, which includes N64 and SEGA Genesis games. I guess Nintendo didn't like leaving their fans feeling all happy and giddy with that New Horizon free update because they wasted no time getting us fuming by letting it be known to all that the price of Nintendo Switch Online along with the Expansion Pack would run solo payers $49.99 a year, a thirty dollar price increase. Doing the family plan? That'll be $79.99. This has lead some to calling it the Expensive Pack, a name I find quite fitting.

Given that Nintedno did not divulge the details on the NSO Expansion Pack during September's Direct, we were left to speculate on the price. I thought it might be $10 added to the $20 solo year plan. Maybe $40, which I would find more acceptable. But fifty freaking dollars?! For real?! You need only look at that massive dislike ratio on Nintendo's price announcement video of NSO Expansion Pack to see that the bulk of Switch owners are not cool with this. 

I can already hear the most die hard loyal Nintendo fans saying "But you're getting more games!" You know, you can be a mega fan of a company and still criticize them when they do something stupid and this is definitely one of those times.

Yes, we are getting more games with the Expansion Pack. But three years into NSO and the NES and SNES have come out at a snail's pace. Nintendo has been addicted to the drip feed style of game releases since the freaking Wii era. Nintendo has one of the richest libraries of retro games and not only do they move slow as molasses when it comes to releasing them, they don't even give you all of them. There is no reason we should not have access to every single one of Nintendo's NES and SNES games even the more obscure, Japan only titles such as Devil World and Joy Mecha fight and we should not have to create Japanese accounts to get them.

The other issue with NSO is that the online experience is TRASH. GARBO. DOO DOO! I'm not even talking lack of voice chat, though that is a problem, but the online play experience is a nightmare. How many lag filled matches of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have you played? Or the atrocious slowdown that can take up Super Mario Maker 2 in co-op or versus matches? Yeah, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe runs great but it is the only exception to the rule. 

No longer can we say "At least NSO is cheap" because that argument was tossed out a ten story building and by Nintendo themselves. We're now paying $50 or more for an online experience with their games that isn't even decent. When everyone has good connection, games run great. But all it takes is that one player lagging to screw everything up.

The Genesis games, with the exception of some such as MUSHA and Strider are readily available via the SEGA Genesis Collection, with a ton of other games that you won't have to wait for to be squeezed out like the last bit of tooth paste from a tube that should have been chucked a long time ago. Contra Hard Corps and Castlevania Bloodlines can be played on the very excellent Contra Anniversay Collection and Castlevania Anniversary Collection. If you desire to play any of the aforemetnioned games, it will cost you less than what Nintendo is asking.

I will give Nintendo some credit. Two of the best battle royal experiences can only be played on the Switch with Tetris 99 and Pac-Man 99. It helps that these games also run very smoothly I only wish Nintendo would give us more games like these more often. Super Mario Bros. 35 was fantastic while it lasted. Also props to Nintendo for finally let us English speaking gamers play Panel de Pon and Mario's Super Picross, two Super Famicom games that were released on the SNES NSO app in the west for the first time ever. This marked the first time Panel de Pon was released in America under it's original name and not Tetris Attack.

Even if licensing costs for third party publishers is an issue, Nintendo is still charging way too much for a sub par online experience and games that crawl out to on their chin. I'm a huge Animal Crossing fan and I have a lot of love for N64 and Genesis titles, but this is just wrong. Nintendo deserves every bit of negative press and criticism they get for this one.