Nintendo announced its Nintendo Switch Online service alongside the console itself in January of last year, but it's taken some time for the service to come online. It was initially planned for late last year, but it's been delayed a few times and is now planned for September.
However, details have been fairly scarce since the initial announcement, as Nintendo has worked to improve on its initial offering. Today, the company revealed a significant amount of new details about the paid online service coming later this year.
First off, the price. Some information on pricing had already been made available, but now the full details have been made available for all major regions, including a new Family Subscription option. For single users, a year of the service will run 19,99 USD/19,99 EUR/£17,99, and a family subscription will cost 34,99 USD/34,99 EUR/£31,49. The Family subscription allows up to eight Nintendo Accounts, which makes for a very compelling offer considering the price is less than that of just two single-user subscriptions. The full pricing details for America can be seen below, and you can find information for Europe here, while Australia and New Zealand users can visit this page for more info.
Nintendo also elaborated on what exactly is offered to those who pay for the subscription. Aside from the ability to play online games and use the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app (which will presumably be more useful than it is now), users will get access to a variety of Nintendo Entertainment System games - 20 at launch - which have been updated to include online multiplayer and make use of the various play modes of the Nintendo Switch.
Additionally, Nintendo is apparently delivering one of the most highly requested features with the service - the ability to backup save data to the cloud. It isn't clear yet how the feature will work, but the company says to expect more details prior to the launch of the service. The biggest gaming event in the world, E3, takes place next month, which would be a good opportunity for Nintendo to expand on this.
Users who subscribe to the online service will also get special offers, but no specifics have been provided on what they might be. It's fair to expect special discounts on games, similar to what the competition is doing, but this hasn't been made official yet.
What might be a bit more disappointing to some is that the company has said in an e-mail to Kotaku that it will not be bringing the Virtual Console series to the Nintendo Switch. This doesn't mean that classic games won't be coming to the console, but it seems that at least they won't use the same branding that's been used in past Nintendo hardware.
Sources: Nintendo via GoNintendo | Kotaku via GoNintendo
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