Now that the Expansion Pass for Nintendo Switch Online is released, here’s my mini-breakdown and why you should take the plunge.
Since the Expansion Pass was announced, its increased price point seemed to irritate people After all, if the Microsoft Game Pass is giving stuff away for free, then why shouldn’t Nintendo?
The reality of Nintendo Switch Online is that it’s there to offer a backend solution for online multiplayer. This is not a trivial setup to maintain and while many other platforms work at a loss, Nintendo has always been more frugal and sustainable in its approach.
In addition to cloud saves and a VOIP setup that uses smartphones, the “free” stuff we initially got were the NES and SNES games. These were slowly beefed up in terms of their respective libraries and now we have the N64 and Genesis to contend with.
While these newer additions have fewer games to start off with, people have already datamined the service and found out, rather obviously, that a lot more games are on the way. Not to mention another retro platform is likely on the cards too, with that most probably being the Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
The current N64 and Genesis games offer a solid selection too and I was happily playing Musha and Sin and Punishment into the early hours last night. The new bespoke Genesis and N64 pads are also great too and worth getting.
So even at launch, the Expansion Pass is already worth it, at least for me, and it’s clear there are more games on the way.
It’s also looking increasingly like the Nintendo Switch Online service is slowly building its way towards a fully comprehensive retro game library service. My guess is that this will migrate cross-platform too, as Nintendo has clearly invested a lot in making this setup pretty comprehensive already, compared to the fractured Virtual Console setup we used to have.
While the slower pace may seem strange, a lot of this is down to sustainably maintaining the backend online infrastructure and working through the legal quagmire of classic game licenses. The latter is especially an issue for many of the third party releases. This is because many of those games no longer have a clear rights holder, as the original companies are gone.
So as someone that paid for the new Expansion Pass and the new N64 and Genesis pads with their own money, it’s worth it and there’s clearly a lot more to look forward to in the coming months.
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