Switch Online + Expansion Pack Survey Asks Users To Share Their Experience

I got the survey and definitely let them know why I was unlikely to renew my subscription.

I like my online but Ionline is friends only and it should be worldwide. Not played a single game online with friends, just do it worldwide friends and friend code is so backward. Looking at you anamail crossing especially with the friend code rubbish.

Got the survey yesterday. Nso is honestly not a terrible deal, especially compared to Sony and Microsoft's online service. Like seriously, game pass core is a scam. But anyway, even with expansion pack, it's like 4 dollars a month. Which is pretty solid for the retro titles and dlc alone. EDIT. How did I forget about Tetris 99? I would pay 50$ a year for that game alone. I jest of course, but man is it awesome.

Can we move all the games to the next switch, or whatever it is? Please 🥺

The Expansion Pack does seem to be improving with the addition of game DLC and more classic games alongside the online, but the improvements seem to be coming somewhat slowly unfortunately, and I think that was my only issue with the service when I used to have it.

They take too long to update some of the classic game libraries and sometimes go dead silent on a few of them, especially the NES and SNES libraries, and I think with one of those two, they didn’t release a new game on there until almost a year later. They tend to not give roadmaps or release schedules for them as well, and I wish they did so like with the launch of the N64 game library years ago to sort of give people something to look forward to and a possible reason to stay subscribed. The controls on a couple of the games were a bit hard to get used to I might add.

They need to let us had the option to purchase the games on NSO. There are some that I really want to buy and own, just renting until I stopped subscribing isn't that fulfilling to me.

and here come the pretzels...

@Serpenterror you would only own the right for download not on the game like a physical game …

And I think the subscription is even better. If I had to buy those I games I wouldn’t even try out some games …

It's simple. The base NSO is a good deal. But the expansion is certainly not worth it.

@TKundNobody The thing is most of those games are games I would want to come back to every time but I don't like that they are tie to the service so if buying and just having a download copy of those on my Switch is possible then that's good enough for me. Games like Demon's Crest, MUSHA, Perfect Dark, Metroid Fusion, Breath of Fire I & II, Super Metroid, Ocarina of Time, Eternal Champions, Killer Instinct, etc. I'm the kind of person that if I play a game and like it, then I buy it. I don't blindly buy a game, then found out later that it's not for me and then had to waste my time returning it. In the case of digital you can't refund a game anyways. As for physical game, I would only buy it after I try it too meaning I usually play someone else's copy first or a demo copy before I decide if I would buy it.

@dojmin Yes, and I'd like to tell them that but they only sent it out to Expansion Pack subscribers and I refuse to pay for that overpriced garbage until it becomes FAR better value.

Really wish the Expansion Pack had a monthly subscription available and not just yearly.

So I was really hoping I'd get this survey too when I saw the article and for Father's Day my wife got me a SNES controller, which was sweet, on my account and she just told me that she was asked to fill out the survey and she turned it down haha.

Everyone who does get to participate tell them I would like to own my retro games! Please and thank you.

It's worth it now, but there are just too many games to play to even justify the expansion tier. Until I clear out my backlog, I just don't have time to commit to retro games.

@Serpenterror fair enough.

I think the very best solution would be to be able to buy Roms. But unfortunately that will never happen.

I just cancelled the auto renew on the plus part this year. SNES and gameboy games hold up really well, not so much N64. I completed the Gameboy Colour games I wanted to play and the MK8 DLC was pretty bland. I need the basic pack for if I and my nephew need to move our save data over to the next console, but I’d prefer to save the almost £30 for the extra stuff.

$50 for an entire year on the service is fine by me. I don't have enough physical room for multiple consoles, and I also am not going to pay ridiculous prices for every console, and game I used to own. I don't mind owning a few of my favorite retro consoles, and having them plugged-in, Ret-2-Go. I also don't mind having a majority of my retro library be digital in one place. Of course, I'm aware I don't actually own anything, except a temporary right to access those games. It's a nice setup, as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't have it at start but have it now. I think service good give me a chance to play games I never own. Growing up in a poor family didn't have video games. At 15 my uncle brought me a gameboy game with Tetris and super mario land. I bought myself wave race only games every had for it. Then 2001 I save up my work money got a ps1. I playing some amazing games on the service earthbound some the Kirby games some that I wouldn't bought but play my partner's switch versions now and excite bike that he games so good

The only appealing proposition of the expansion pack is easily accessible on any modern mobile phone. I'd happily pay up on Switch if we were given a la carte and/or physical purchase options, but I'm not paying to merely rent decades-old ROMs.

You have to have the expansion pak to get a survey? They should survey me as to why I’m not wasting money on the expansion pak. Even the regular service is only worth it with a family plan split 5 ways.

Yearly fee to play Roms I already bought on Wii and Wii U and 3ds kinda sucks, especially when they’re not all there. Not even all the first party ones are there.

I think the expansion pack is still way too much. They're trying to sell you on retro games and very old DLC. I mean really, the Splatoon 2 DLC? The fact that they haven't added any other DLC is just one problem of many.

Maybe its just me, but the Sega fan in me is baffled they continued to offer Genesis titles over and over again. I understand that's the console that people remember Sega for, but they also made other consoles I would like to see get some attention one day. I understand the Sega Saturn is a difficult console to emulate even to this day, but it still is like come on. Sega Genesis games, again?

Base NSO is fine, you can do worse, but you can't convince me that the expansion pack is worth it.

i think nso really isnt that bad of a deal, scott the woz's vid on it on covers the whole topic pretty well (its on his second channel, scott's stash)

@ShonenJump121 do it for your company futaba you know its the right thing to do

I let them know that I love having so many classic games, that I look forward to seeing it crossover to the "Switch 2", and look forward to other consoles like "GameCube" being added in future.

I have only the basic NSO but received and completed the survey anyway. I told them I was satisfied with the basic service and never planning to get the expansion. I did have that expansion briefly awhile back, and hated it, and very rarely used it, found the tiny screen of the n64 (handheld mode) to be terribly disappointing and there were zero GBA games I liked. And certainly no need for the Genesis console since I own almost all of those on the Sega Genesis Classics cartridge. Nintendo was kind enough to refund me for the expansion and I’ve been happily using the cheap NSO service and enjoying the NES, GB, and SNES games with it.

Filled mine out already.

I have a family sub with the max amount of peeps, so we only pay like 8 Euros each year. It's certainly not a bad deal that way! But I really cannot justify the full price for a single person sub.

The only thing I really want is for Nintendo to carry this service over to ALL future Nintendo consoles. It's extremely lame to continue the drip feed with every new console.

Having said all of this, I agree that it would be better if we could actually choose to own certain games, but we're living in the age where ownership is fading fast and everything becomes a subscription service instead. For some media this works great, but there are definitely some where people will want to own their own copies of books, records and video games.

For me personally, I love owning and looking at my physical collection of games and books. Nothing beats browsing a physical collection for something to read, or play.

Remember, lots of people moaned that they didn't want to have to buy the games, rather have a Netflix style model.

Well, here you go. And now you all want to just buy them.

Problem is, if that was the case most publishers wouldn't bother. We already saw that with the move from Wii to Wii U and 3DS. Loads of games and systems on Wii that just weren't elsewhere.

Why? The sales didn't warrant the effort of licensing to Nintendo to sell the games.

I want to be able to change the controls in N64 NSO. Currently X is C-Up, but I want to be able to change X to be C-Right (alongside Y which is C-Left), so I can use it for strafing in Perfect Dark & GoldenEye

@Haruki_NLI And Netflix and other subscription services are losing customers fast these days, so maybe people changed their minds. Same will happen here I wager.

I'm annoyed I haven't gotten this survey yet, nor did I get the one about TTYD. Nintendo's northern-European customer service is pretty awful regardless though so not surprised... We pay way more and get way less.

Well, I tried it out but I’m unlikely to return to it for classic game selection.

Unfortunately I haven’t gotten the survey. I am satisfied with the Expansion Pack, but I do want to know what’s up with the Sega Genesis Online. Been a good while since we got any games on there.

This is going to be bombarded with 'C'mon Reggie/Doug/Furukawa, give us Mother 3' and Nintendo are going to be like 'Nah, forget it. They keep quoting an old meme. Give 'em Mario Pinball Land as punishment'

(To be clear, i don't know if MPL is bad or not. I just get the impression it's just OK. Also, don't blame if it is in the next GBA NSO update 😛)

Happy with the Expansion Pack, as long as N64/GBA games keep getting added monthly. We've had good value from the Animal Crossing and Mario Kart dlc too. I already owned the Splatoon 2 dlc when it was added to the bundle.

Mine is due in October, and currently I'm unsure whether I'll be renewing. Not Nintendo's fault, but like a lot of people I'm asking the question "can I live without this?" about a lot of things at the moment due to the way things are going with bills, and unlikely to change under the next government.

I gave up on this pack ages ago. I was hoping for Nintendo to add more games and improve online without increasing the price but it took a 5 year wait + 30$ increase.

So I refuse to pay for the pass unless they lower the price but I know they won’t do that unfortunately.

I received the survey and told them it's great and to keep doing what they're doing!

The only subscription service that’s healthy for the industry. NSO+ expansion pack puts the scam that is Game Pass and the currently broken PS plus to shame.

Worst online service I have ever seen in my 30 years of video gaming. Truly a scam to make you pay for subpar online service, renting 25 year old games and pretending like offering a "free trial" for really old games that are on sale for $5 is some sort of equal to GanePass is just absurd. The Dreamcast had a better online setup.

The literally only good thing about NSO is that you don't need it to play f2p games online.

@ShonenJump121 I would love for them to add Fire Emblem DLC for free as well, or Xenoblade DLC. Hopefully in the future...

I would probably spend some time complaining about N64 if I had access to the survey

Hope they intend to do rollback netcode for N64 multiplayer on Switch 2.

I don’t have the EP, and I got the survey.

Our family has been an NSO + Expansion Pack subscriber since it was available. I have logged hundreds of hours on the N64 app alone. I love it – the games from the golden age of my childhood, available to play with my kids. Banjo-Kazooie, MK64, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark! We've played through Mario 64 and Ocarina together. My son now prefers Mario 64 to any other Mario game, even though others have substantially better graphics. My wife loves Wave Race and smokes us all because she was a master at that game back in the day. I still have my original N64 upstairs, but we hardly play it. NSO is just too convenient!

By the way, Nintendo, if you are reading this comments section– please also add Ogre Battle 64, Starcraft 64, Banjo-Tooie, DK64, Quest 64, Smash Bros., Diddy Kong Racing, and Bomberman and I think that should do it. Oh, and my wife really wants Pokemon Blue, Red and Yellow for the Game Boy app.

I like two things about NSO+:
1) It costs me like $11 a year, rather than Sony's $80. They could double the cost twice and it'd still be 50% less. (Please don't get any ideas.)
2) Online multiplayer for games I never got to do multiplayer for (Kirby's Amazing Mirror, etc.).

Those who HAD also should receive it

fine enough value with the retro games, but i buy NSO for the online. it still stings knowing theres no actual improvements to the online from what we can tell, and it makes me wish there was an even cheaper tier that was just the online strictly

or idk keep the online free and have the game subscription be a separate thing, but that would drastically lower its value for a lot of people

I filled out mine yesterday as an Expansion Pack subscriber, I used it to suggest Nintendo add GameCube on the Nintendo Switch successor down the line. That's the only way I may be able to try out titles like Star Fox Adventures or F-Zero GX which I never got around to owning.

Nintendo can you please get Konami to add the SNES version of Gradius III?! I've been waiting centuries for that game.

Got the survey, told them that I'll be renewing it again( had it since it released) and that I love having access to the n64 games that I grew up with.
Could the service use some improvements? Sure.
Is it as bad as the vocal bandwagon (which simply repeat the same things over and over) makes it out to be? No.

Netflix has movies it can add all the time and they are streaming. NSO retro libraries are by their nature finite as they only have maybe a few hundred or so games on each platform and that’s it. Unlike Netflix the consumer doesn’t get to pick and choose you either get all of them or none of them.

My main point of contention is there is no option to purchase them outright and play offline. I had the best time with the VC on 3ds. Being able to go to a WiFi hotspot a few times a month and buying games and playing them basically anywhere I wanted and didn’t have to be tethered to an online service. I had a similar experience with the psp and vita. Had Nintendo had crossbuy from 3ds to switch like Sony had on all its platforms we would be miles ahead and we wouldn’t be in this situation. You should own your digital content. To me it’s no different from buying a retron and using the games I already have and just playing them on it. I didn’t have to buy my games again so why do the majority of you accept it as that is the way it has to be?

@GameOtaku I just wanted to say that you don't need an Internet connection to access the retro game libraries. You can play them on the go. And there would really be no feasible way to carry 3ds/wiiu digital purchases to switch. The consoles are just completely different.

@boxyguy This. The fact that so many people have accepted paying for online is crazy. It's just a scam from console manufacturers to milk money from people. Good thing nso is only 20$ a year for online, unlike Microsoft's scam of 120$ a year for online.

@Bigmanfan
You do need the internet. You have to check in every 7 days. I’d have access one week and then the next it would be gone until I went to public WiFi again. Every Saturday it was the same thing. I’d be on public WiFi for most of the day and open and close the libraries constantly but it never wanted to perform one UNTIL I was home that night with no internet connection and I wasn’t about to make a special trip just to access them again.

You should certainly be able to transfer certain purchases like Virtual Console titles and the like. It’s no different from buying a retron and playing nes and snes games you already purchased. And the service for all the libraries is $50 a year!

@GameOtaku
yeah its the online checks which turn me off it, if it had something like what the psone games do on ps+ and let you purchase them seperately but give subscribers full access then it would be the best of both worlds, as @Serpenterror mentioned there are those who like to return to their favourite games, and while in the future once switch support stops there will still be modders to the rescue i do like the idea of officially purchasable legacy content.

@Mgalens
Exactly. Plus why should I even have to sub to an online service when I spend the vast majority of my gaming offline? I wouldn’t even use the price of the admission! Online multiplayer? No. Cloud Saves? No. DLC (which can be owned separately not exclusively to the service? No. The only part I’m interested in is a self curated library of games that I’ll never lose access to and have year after year whenever or whenever I want to play.

@GameOtaku Okay but no offense meant at all or anything, but most people have no problem accessing wifi at least once a week. And I do agree it would be awesome if games transfered, but it would become a slippery slope. They can't only transfer some games over and not others. (Even though I wish they could.)

@Arkay : Exactly. It's 50 dollars for the year. With Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Metroid Fusion, etc, it's more than worth it. That's less than 5 dollars a month. I recommend folks skip out on that bag of chips and a soda, and subscribe to NSO Expansion pass instead.

@Cyberbotv2 $50 a year is nothing. People will just complain because it's Nintendo 🤷🏾‍♂️

@Bigmanfan
They could allow us to transfer them ourselves. Back it up on a pc or the like then transfer it to the new system. Of course if it’s a proper account system then we shouldn’t really have any issues. As far as I can see there’s no difference in buying a piece of physical media and using it in all applicable devices for one price and its digital counterpart. Same logic really should apply to both.

Everyone I know won’t be happy unless all NSO games will become available for purchase too! There are so many games that are already available like this-Contra, Turok, Mario 64,… why not make everyone happy! Please support this!

One of the biggest perks of NSO, retro games rereleased with online multiplayer, is dead in the water unless you go out of your way to search online for social boards exchanging FC's, all time spent outside of Nintendo's ecosystem, which is a problem. All NSO games with online multiplayer needs a matchmaking option, regardless of present or future communication options.

This also is a problem for Pokemon SV; the ability to jump in with other players is a wonderful evolution from Sword/Shield's Wild Area, except for the fact that you can only play with friends or shared room codes. Most days it's just too time consuming to skip between various socials trying to find a group to exchange codes, all of this being time taken away from the short amount of free time I may have on a busy day or week.

The other hope I have is for more GBA games added to NSO, but the licensing worries me. I understand Nintendo doesn't want to do the Netflix model where licensing can be a little more loose when media comes and goes on the platform, but there needs to be a middle ground. Tons of great third party retro games may never be seen on NSO.

Another way Nintendo can think outside the box is to do the thing that fans have always asked for: DEmakes. How fun would that be to see a Mario Odyssey-inspired Game Boy demake, or a GBA demake of FE Three Houses? How about a SNES demake of Super Mario Party? or a GBA demake of Metroid Dread?

This idea seemed farfetched while the Nintendo Switch was the main console, but once we have moved on to the Switch 2 generation, Switch 1 games are fair game in my opinion!

I got the survey for regular NSO. I will probably keep it as it is cheap for a family plan, but it has little value. 2-3 NES, GB, or SNES games a month from lower tier companies like Jaleco isn’t appealing enough. The online is only used to access Minecraft Realms which I can do for free on PC. The cloud save really doesn’t matter if you can only afford a single console. Finally, I’ve only used the trials once as who has the time to waste downloading a full game for a few hours of play. Just release a demo already.

The NSO apps are what I'm playing most lately. So yes, I'm renewing. It helps that I missed out on so much — or literally everything — from GB, GBA, SNES, NES, Genesis, and even N64, which I did own. I'm still revisiting some old favorites, but most are first-time playthroughs. (Finished Zero Mission just last night.)

Now if they just added in-app button remapping...

The Expansion Pass tier hasn’t ever felt worth it to me, not even with the additional retro console games. The collections on those systems needs to be more extensive and up my alley to be worthwhile. Give me the GB/GBC and GBA Pokémon games and then maybe we can talk, though I’d rather just buy those flat out than maintain an indefinite subscription for access. 🙈

If only they did this survey when VC was still a thing. . .

The only way to play Splatoon is through the NSO. I told them this.