Nintendo Switch Online Service Annual Subscritpion Price Announced

Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima revealed the price of the Switch yearly subscription in a recent interview. The annual service will cost between 2000 and 3000 yen in Japan. It’s still unknown what the price will be on other markets.

In his interview with Nikkei, Mr Kimishima revealed how much Nintendo’s yearly subscription service will cost, at least in Japan. The exact price isn’t set yet, but it seems it’ll be somewhere between two and three thousand yen. That translates into $17.50 – $26.50, though we still don’t know if it’ll be the same price in western countries.

Nintendo is new to the concept of paid subscriptions. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, they’ve kept their online services free up to now. Mr Kimishima explained the reason behind the move.

With paid [services], we will be able to fully commit to customers.

We’ve discussed the Nintendo Switch paid online service, but here’s a quick rundown. The service includes, obviously, online play. Paying customers will also get a smartphone voice chat app. The reason for it being a separate app is probably to keep the cost of the system down.

Like with PlayStation and Xbox, you’ll also get special discounts, offers and exclusive deals on digital games and other content. However, seeing how small the console’s internal memory is, this might prove to be a bit of a hassle.

Finally, you’ll get a free monthly download of select NES and SNES games. However, it appears that the game you download for free will stop being free after the month is over. It’s more of a lease with an option to buy, if that’s really the case. Selling ROMs of decade-old games probably isn’t the best PR move ever, though, I have to say.

At $26.50 dollars below, the price is way under PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold. However, Nintendo still hasn’t been completely clear about what paying customers will actually get. Considering all the free games you get over at Plus and Live Gold, they’ll have to make one hell of a service to compete, even at such a low price.