Nintendo has a very shady history when it comes to its online offerings. But the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass is a new low for the otherwise well-loved developer.
The reaction when the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass was announced was rather lukewarm. Yes, people were excited that N64 and Sega Genesis games were coming to the Nintendo Switch Online service. However, folks weren't as excited about these games coming through an expansion pass. Had this been offered alongside the base NSO service, then things would have been different – players would have been more excited, and it could have converted more subscribers.
But voila, the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass would be revealed later on to cost an additional $30 annually. They must have known that there'd be negative reaction to this – otherwise, why would they not announce the pricing upon announcement? Naturally, fans weren't happy with this. But to be honest, $30 for this theoretically would have been worth it. But there's a bigger problem to the NSO Expansion Pass than its pricing alone.
Now that the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass has been released and fans got their hands on the N64 and Sega Genesis games, and they haven't been entirely happy. Fans have had a long history with emulation that they have grown to expect some things from emulated games, and expectations were high for Nintendo to deliver high-quality emulations. However, Nintendo's own emulations pale in comparison with what the emulation community has done.
It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth that Nintendo – so adamantly taking down emulation sites in protection of their own IP – could not even give the same satisfaction these emulation sites give. Granted, it is within Nintendo's rights to take down sites hosting ROMs of their games. However, they should have learned by now that there's a big demand for their old games to be playable in today's machines. They must have already, which is why they're blatant enough to charge this much money for their emulations. The big problem is, they didn't do a good job with their emulations.
And so, because of the many technical issues that the emulated N64 and Sega Genesis games available so far, getting the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass is not worth it. We do not condone piracy, but if you have legally owned ROMs lying around, sites like Afterplay.io provide a better experience and provide more features than NSO Expansion Pass currently has. We do hope that moving forward, Nintendo would provide better emulations of their old games so that we all can legally enjoy their old games without fear of getting hit with a lawsuit from Nintendo.
Follow Us
Subscribe