The Immense Potential of Nintendo Switch Online

The Nintendo Switch Online feature in the highly-successful line of Switch consoles has become a resounding success. I have personally enjoyed the service for years.

But what’s bigger than its success is the sheer potential moving forward.

For starters, there are now over 38 million Nintendo Switch Online paid subscribers, which is a pretty good number considering their software focus is much more nostalgic as opposed to modern-day games like what is happening out in the Game Pass and Playstation Plus. Doing the math, this likely equates to over a billion dollars in revenue for Nintendo, and this is with many many games yet to be available on the service.

Nintendo, where is my Plok???

(you probably thought I was going to say Mother 3, right?)

There is a very healthy number of great games from the 1980s, 1990s, and even early 2000s available to play at all times, and can even be played with friends, which used to be more complicated when we’re talking about the multi-player Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games. Instead of the Game Link Cable, now all you need are a few friend codes, and now you’re playing certain games at its maximum potential, especially the Mario Advance’s underrated Mario Bros. mode. And just wait until we finally get those handheld Pokemon games of the first three generations, the amount of Switch owners playing online will quadruple instantly.

While most will recognize the expected Nintendo classics like Mario 64, Link to the Past, Mario Bros. 3, etc., but I’m more fascinated by the obscure software that has landed on the service. Claymates, Prehistorik Man, Harvest Moon 64, Castlevania: Bloodlines are all games that would have otherwise disappeared off the modern-day complications of gaming if not for this service reviving ambiguous titles as well as the expected classics.

But it can be so much better.

I do hope that the obscureness and the variety of available games from the past can expand significantly, and I’ll even be willing to fork over extra money if necessary. And I’m not just talking about more games from the consoles already on display. For the Switch 2 era, I would love to see Nintendo Switch Online also include games from the consoles that offered software in the Wii’s Virtual Console: Neo Geo, TurboGrafx-16, Sega Master System. Taking it a step further, I’d love to see games from the other Sega consoles of the 1990s like the Saturn, CD, Game Gear, and Dreamcast. Sticking with the 1990s, what about the Neo Geo Pocket and Atari Jaguar? Nintendo Switch Online can become the ultimate mecca of emulation of 20th and early 21st century gaming.

We can even go the more obscure route with these three: N64 DD, Virtual Boy, and the Sattellaview hardware.

Even if these three examples were whether failures or never really saw exposure outside Japan, I think adding these consoles would be spectacular for longtime Nintendo fans, longtime gamers, or even for video game preservationists and fans of gaming history. The Virtual Boy itself can be re-adjusted so that it doesn’t have to use the visually-difficult color scheme of red/black, making it easier to play forgotten gems like Wario Land VB. The N64 DD was historically doomed from the beginning, but it was full of excellent ideas, whether it be the Mario Paint series of games that could work well with the touchscreen functions within the Switch hardware, or the course-creation feature from F-Zero DD. With the Sattellaview, we can finally play the long-lost Zelda games that utilizes the original Legend of Zelda map with Link to the Past graphics and gameplay style.

Then, of course, we have to include the legendary and forever-underrated Nintendo Gamecube.

It does appear Nintendo’s strategy moving forward is remaking/remastering games from this console rather than going the emulation route, but I can see a future where both options succeed. Link’s Awakening’s awesome remake sold 6 million copies despite the DX/Game Boy Color version remaining available. Then of course, having past Mario Karts hasn’t prevented Mario Kart 8 Deluxe from becoming one of the best-selling video games of all-time I do strongly appreciate Metroid Prime Remastered and the upcoming remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, but there are so many excellent games during the Gamecube era that it would be an absolute shame if NSO didn’t expand to include all that amazing software.

The best versions of Mario Tennis and Mario Golf can be found here (as well as some Sega gems like Super Monkey Ball 2 and Sonic Adventure’s two titles), and of course we can’t forget the Prime trilogy, Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Eternal Darkness, and of course Smash Bros. Melee----which as a “launch title” on a Gamecube NSO service for the next Nintendo console would make it even more of an instant purchase. Imagine competitive Melee community finally having the opportunity to take their beloved game online, this would be an instant game-changer.

Lastly, the Nintendo Switch Online service doesn’t have to just be a beacon for beloved Nintendo and non-Nintendo emulated games of the past, it can also become a hub for spins and variations of these classics. Imagine creating NES Remix, SNES Remix, Game Boy Remix, N64 Remix, maybe even Sega Remix games to play directly within the service. This could be a place to bring back the beloved (and also in need of some re-adjusting) Mario Bros. 35, while making “99” versions of Panel de Pon, Puyo-Puyo, Dr. Mario, and other Tetris-like games (Tetrisphere anyone?). A treasure trove of online multi-player potential here.

What about a Metroid Prime: Hunters 99? Or even a Goldeneye 99? Or even create speedrunning events like a Super Metroid 99 or a Super Mario 64 99? We now have the technology and resources to truly take these old games and play around with their mechanics and functionality to appeal to gamers young, rookie, older, and veterans. The interest has always been there, just look at the depth of the professional gaming and speedrunning communities online. Why not try to reach out to those groups by offering them games and contests that you don’t really see in the XBox Game Pass and Playstation Plus? Nintendo Switch Online can be much more than just a collection of games, it can become a hub for gamers to compete and have fun together.

Under my laundry list of ideas and suggestions, there will definitely be some increased development costs and perhaps some licensing issues that will get in the way of a full slate of games from the retro consoles already being offered and future retro consoles. Personally, it will always hurt to expectedly not see classic Square Enix games or even fun arcade sports games like NBA Jam or NBA Street Vol. 2 because EA likely will obstruct and because companies like Namco and Square would rather profit off the older games on their own. But I personally believe that for the sake of the gaming industry, the value far outweighs the costs, and I do believe you will find a vast audience of gamers willing to fork over extra money.

I can see a Nintendo Switch Online service with an additional tier for those who want to really deep dive into retro gaming, lost games, and different ways to play said retro games. The Virtual Console was an excellent service during he Wii, WiiU, and 3DS era, but it lost a lot of steam towards the end. General interest dipped, the number of new downloadable options dwindled towards the latter years in each console’s lifespan, and I know the sales dipped a bit as well.

Nintendo Switch Online does not have to go that same route, the door has been opened and the success has remained consistent in a console that has attracted a brand-new generation of gamers. The service has so much room for growth and potential, I can see it succeeding for at least another decade with proper planning, budgeting, and effort. I have loved Nintendo Switch Online for more than just the online play of Switch games, I have thoroughly enjoyed the retro games being offered and the ease of playing said games wherever there’s good wi-fi. But I’m essentially begging for this service to continue growing, continue expanding, and then start experimenting with new ideas and branch out to more obscure corners of gaming history, whether it be the Sega Saturn or the long-lost Nintendo-developed games of the Satellaview era.

The future of Nintendo Switch Online can be very bright, profitable, and expansive. It just requires the necessary love and devotion from the one company capable of providing it.