Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has said that Nintendo now intends to make a number of different Nintendo Switch Online changes that will help more people become attracted to the service. Currently Nintendo Switch Online offers a number of free retro games to rent for a low yearly price, but that might not be enough.
Nintendo Switch Online allows things like NES games to be used, competitive online play across the world, saves to the Cloud, a smartphone app to use to chat with your friends while playing games, and special offers for those who use it. However, Nintendo believes that’s not enough.
According to Furukawa, while they believe that the service had a strong launch (likely helped by its advertised services), there are more Nintendo Switch Online changes that are being discussed to bring more games, fun, and features to the service. All of this, hopefully, will help the service reach a certain audience.
While the Switch’s online service brought out a lot of people, there were still a few bits of controversy surrounding its release. While Nintendo games for many years have had online play (though others like Diablo 3: Eternal Edition don’t require it to play with friends), the Switch Online service requiring a monthly subscription rubs a few players the wrong way. Along with that, the online app is the only way for Switch players to be able to talk to their friends online, and it’s a very convoluted way on top of that.
However, with more Nintendo games that require online functionality now coming out in the next few months, particularly Super Smash Bros Ultimate, it’s no surprise that Nintendo is hoping that more players will come to it, and if players want to be competitive in Smash and take part in online tournaments, they’ll have to sign up.
Either way, hopefully the Nintendo Switch Online changes that we’ll be seeing over the coming months will attract more players to the service beyond just utility for playing games.
