N64 and Genesis – Nintendo Switch Online Library

[Moonface]

Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis Games Coming to Nintendo Switch Online
A new subscription tier for Nintendo Switch Online was announced during todays Nintendo Direct, which will give you the ability to play a selection of Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games!



The new tier will roll out some time in October, although no pricing was given. If you're looking to experience these games with their original controllers, Nintendo Switch Online members can purchase a Nintendo 64 controller and/or a Sega Genesis Control Pad for $49.99 each. There will also be additional Nintendo 64 games added over time, so don't give up hope if one of your favourites didn't make the cut!

What do you think about the games being offered? Does the pay wall turn you off from the offerings, or will you happily subscribe to the higher tier if the price is right?

[Moonface]

As an update to the Expansion Pack news above, today's Animal Crossing Direct confirmed that a Nintendo Switch Online Subscription that includes the content of the Expansion Pack will cost $49.99 for 12 months. A NSO subscription without the Expansion Pack will continue to cost $19.99 for 12 months.

[Dragon Lord]

$30 more for the expansion. lmfao, get out of here Nintendo. What an absolute joke.

Also lol @ the N64 controllers already being sold out, and tons of listings for them already up on eBay. You'd think with all the bullshit that has happened with the PS5 and XSX the last year, they'd think twice about making it so you can buy 4 per order of these things. Absolutely idiocy coming from Nintendo on all fronts right now.

The expansion should have been $10-$15 tops. Nice inflation of the price with that Animal Crossing DLC, Nintendo.

[Moonface]

I bet this was the price even without the DLC. Nintendo may have just stuffed it in to make the deal seem better because the news was announced in a Direct where only AC fans would be watching and so would find the deal more appealing than the average person. I doubt any other games would get DLC thrown into this like Splatoon 3 or something.

It would work out cheaper to just get the DLC and then go for the cheaper subscription because I doubt most people would see a need to retain access to N64 games for longer than a year because you'll have played anything you care for in that time frame.

Also notice how Nintendo isn't offering monthly packages for this like you can do on the cheaper option.

[Dragon Lord]

Also funny how they baited everyone into rushing for that limited release of SM64 on Switch, only to have SM64 in here. Though that actually might be a negative for this expansion, because a lot of people who actually care about playing SM64 in 2021 probably got the previous release of it (especially since it had Sunshine and Galaxy with it), or have a working N64 to play it on.

OoT is kind of meh too since there's a much better 3DS version of it. Starfox 64 is a good get, but it's a very short game that you're not going to really put a whole lot of time into.

As much as I loved Mario Kart 64 back in the day, there's really not much reason to play a clunky oudated MK game on Switch when you have Mario Kart 8 already. Yoshi Story is alright, but again you're not going to sit there and play it 100 times over and over again.

Sadly there's a lack of a lot of great N64 games here. 007 Goldeneye, Banjo-Kazoiee and Perfect Dark would have made this expansion a hell of a lot more worth it, and yes, I know that those IPs are now in the hands of Microsoft, but we've seen in the past many times that MS is willing to work with Nintendo about these kinds of things, and I don't imagine MS would be opposed to letting Nintendo slap up those games on NSO. All three of them were major staples of the N64 era though, and lacking them in this really hurts the quality of it.

Maybe they get added down the line, but the launch list of N64 games for NSO is pretty ass. The Genesis side is pretty god awful too, and a lot of those games are available on Steam which would be a much better option for them over playing bad emulations of them on the Switch.

[Karo]

I honestly don't think this deal is going to be that interesting to me. I haven't played AC in quite a while and I don't really see myself playing the N64 games enough to justify that price hike really.

[Mr EliteL]

Ouch, that hefty $30 on top of the normal price. Thank goodness I wasn't super into the Expansion for the NSO and will only bother with either the standard subscription for a year, or one of the set month prices. Since once again I'm wasting a full year benefit for NSO, not playing my Switch. I must play again very soon on MK8 and Smash Ultimate!

[Moonface]

Also lol @ the N64 controllers already being sold out, and tons of listings for them already up on eBay. You'd think with all the bullshit that has happened with the PS5 and XSX the last year, they'd think twice about making it so you can buy 4 per order of these things. Absolutely idiocy coming from Nintendo on all fronts right now.

I always thought the limit was two per customer. Allowing four is excessive; I doubt there are many people who legitimately needed all four.

I honestly don't think this deal is going to be that interesting to me. I haven't played AC in quite a while and I don't really see myself playing the N64 games enough to justify that price hike really.

I take it the new content shown in the Direct didn't entice you back to the game at all?

[Maniakkid25]

So it seems that we aren't the only ones who disagree with the price hike for N64 games. The announcement trailer on Youtube is now getting bombed with dislikes, currently sitting at around 59k as of this writing compared to 15k likes, and the comments aren't much better. So, yeah, this is not going over well, but ten bucks says they'll just hunker down and endure rather than do anything about it.

[Moonface]

Has Nintendo ever back tracked or toned down the pricing on anything for any reason other than sales are actually being hurt, such as when the 3DS got a notable price drop shortly after launch?

[Maniakkid25]

Literally the only thing that comes to mind is NOA's decision to publish Devil's Third. They tried to wriggle their way out of it, but fan outcry to see Itagaki's solo debut in the West was loud enough that their hand was forced, and EVERYONE got to experience the shoddy, shoddy game that it was. Outside of that, no; they dig their heels in, and refuse to budge until it actively hurts their wallets.

[Moonface]

So it looks like whatever is emulating the N64 games for the Switch isn't working properly:

The alpha blending for the water transparency/reflection isn't functioning in the Switch version which results in the water looking like it does, and the fog isn't rendered either.

No idea if other games are affected too but if they're all being emulated the same way I wouldn't be surprised.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, I've been seeing a lot of complaints around about the quality of the games. Apparently nearly every single one of them has worse input lag/delay than they did on the actual N64. Only by like a second or two, but still, the fact that it's worse is not a good sign at all.

Nintendo once again banking on their fans being loyally blind enough to buy whatever they are feeding them without question.

[Moonface]

I didn't know about the input lag. As much as I shouldn't be, I'm surprised they dropped the ball on this considering how good the emulation was for the Virtual Console.

I also wonder how bad the water temple looks considering how prevalent water is there. I wonder if the alpha blending not functioning to make water transparent from above also affects it visually when you're underwater too.

[Dragon Lord]

To be 100% fair, the input delay isn't something people are going to really notice playing casually, but it's definitely something speedrunners will notice.

And yes, speedrunning isn't the focus when companies release games, but the fact that overall these releases on the Switch are worse in several aspects over their original 20+ year old versions are very concerning. While not everyone will be affected by the increase in input delay, the fact that it's still there is a bad thing either way.