Nintendo Switch 'free' monthly games come with a huge catch

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Part of the Nintendo Switch’s forthcoming paid online service will be a “monthly game download,” an offering seemingly similar to Microsoft’s Games with Gold and Sony’s PlayStation Plus. Here’s the description of the service from Nintendo’s site:

Monthly game download

Subscribers will get to download and play a Nintendo Entertainment System™ (NES) or Super Nintendo Entertainment System™ (Super NES) game (with newly-added online play) for free for a month.

If you are familiar with how the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 offerings go, you’d be forgiven for reading that as if you had a month to add a specific game to your library and then, so long as you remain a subscriber to Nintendo’s paid online service, you have access to those “free” games. For Xbox One, the backward compatible Xbox 360 games are actually yours to own ... forever. But on Nintendo Switch, it means you have a month to play the game and then it’s no longer available, you’d need to buy it to continue playing.

Even though we don't know what this paid service will cost (maybe it's really cheap?), this is making people very upset. You can click through to read the replies to Wired’s Chris Kohler after he confirmed the news.
The point about Virtual Console games is a good one because, while the idea of digital rights and ownership of digital goods has gone from something new and challenging in the media space over the last 20 years to something more or less settled, here’s Nintendo continuing to extract maximum value from its back catalog. When players upgraded from the Wii to the Wii U, many were surprised to learn that they had to rebuy the often decades-old games they had already purchased. This is true, again, on the Nintendo 3DS systems.

While purchases made on an Xbox 360 work on an Xbox One (if the game is supported at least), and while purchases made on a Kindle or an iPhone or any number of digital media devices follow you across generations, Nintendo has historically resisted giving customers that kind of ownership.

It’s unclear how Nintendo plans to handle ownership of Wii U Virtual Console games — will you need to buy them again? — but this initiative, in addition to being a markedly lesser value than its own competition, continues Nintendo’s tradition of treating its library as a premium offering and not something to be given away.

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Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://www.polygon.com/2017/1/13/14266290/nintendo-switch-monthly-games-not-free

Comments

"Nintendo Switch 'free' monthly games come with a huge catch" :: Login/Create an Account :: 20 comments

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NathanPosted:

Their trying to hard, theirs too many ups amd downs to tell if it's gonna be good or not

LokePosted:

I mean it's not the best thing but it's not that bad TBH

BPMPosted:

I think this is a great idea. I look at this as a great way to get people to try new games, with Xbox and Sony you can download a game and say I will play this someday but probably won't, whereas with the Nintendo system you are forced to play it now rather later. I mean how many games have people downloaded through Xbox/PS and actually played them instead of downloading a game for the sake of it.

DiscPosted:

i will not be buying it. honestly they need to stop trying

Mr_RobotPosted:

this is dumb. i wont be buying the switch

ZydrinPosted:

That's complete shit. Lmao. This thing is going to flop so hard.

SkatesPosted:

Pretty lame tbh but I guess if people do enjoy the game they would consider buying it.

9ntyPosted:

Eh... not sure myself on this one but time will tell. If the price drops or I want to see the price / get a free game. Ummmm

XboxPosted:

Uhmm no thank you I will pass on this bullshit.

RobPosted:

I probably won't be buying the switch just because of how pricey everything is. If everything was for a more reasonable price I deff would buy it.