Nintendo has explained why they will be charging Switch owners to access the platform’s online service when it launches later this year in a recent interview with Famitsu.
According to Nintendo’s managing executive officer, Shinya Takahashi, Nintendo are charging for the online service so that they can maintain it and keep providing new services. Takahashi also revealed that the company is “concerned with customer satisfaction”, and so they are aiming to provide the best possible online service for the Switch. However, it costs money to maintain such a service, and therefore, Nintendo are offloading some of the cost onto gamers.
“We decided to charge for the service because we are concerned with customer satisfaction,” said Takahasi. “We’ll be maintaining the online service and providing new services that we haven’t had up until now, and there are costs associated with those.”
“We’d also like to maintain a stable playing experience and provide proper support. We are working to prepare all of the features until the service begins in the fall of 2017, and details on the service will be available at a later time.”
While Nintendo’s decision to charge for its online service won’t go down well with some gamers, it is, of course, expected in this day and age. After all, Sony and Microsoft both charge for their online services, PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live. Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money to sustain servers and keep them running to a standard that gamers expect.
To make the deal a little bit sweeter though, Nintendo have confirmed that they will be giving away one free classic game every month to subscribers of its online service. However, there is a catch: The game is only a trial for a month with gamers having to purchase it to continue playing it after a month.
Source: *Famitsu
Via: *Nintendo Everything