In response to a fan question about the Nintendo Switch Online service, Kit Ellis & Krysta Yang, who left the company in December and went on to form their own channel Kit & Krysta, took the time to share their opinions on it in Episode 6 of their new podcast. The most interesting opinion came from Kit Ellis, who admitted he has felt a bit frustrated with Nintendo’s messaging on it.
Speaking on retro titles, Ellis stated that he feels that the initial offering of NES and SNES games were great, but that everything else “was kind of bad” and that adding games to the services quickly became inconsistent as well.
“I think the initial NES and Super Nintendo games – those were awesome groups of games, but then everything after that has been kind of bad for the most part, and it became very inconsistent…”
Partial quote from Kit Ellis, former Nintendo of America employee
On the new secondary tier, with Nintendo 64 and Genesis games included (“Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack”), Ellis said he feels their is a lack of a transparent plan, and “almost [has] more confidence in Sega” to deliver “their best […] stuff” than he does with the other offerings:
…that’s what I get worried about where they added Nintendo 64 and Genesis – it’s like what is the plan? I almost have more confidence in Sega to deliver their best Genesis stuff, than I do with the other platforms.
Ellis believes that it’s “hard to get a handle on” what he’s getting out of the Expansion Pack tier, and says that it “would help a lot if they were just a bit more transparent about what the plan is for each of these tiers.”
Since both Ellis and Yang are no longer part of Nintendo, they are able to speak freely about their thoughts and feelings on various Nintendo services and even other platforms entirely. Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) is simply no exception. None what Ellis went into is part of a new conversation, either. In fact, it is in addition to years of discussions occurring across the internet since NSO’s launch.
Nintendo has regularly been “dislike-bombed” on their promotional materials for the service uploaded to their YouTube channel. Something that, with the removal of dislikes from the platform, has only become less apparent unless you use an extension like Return YouTube Dislike. Furthermore, scrolling through the comments on the most recent Overview Trailer for the NSO + Expansion Pack service quickly reveals just how many people are upset with the current state of NSO and, especially, its offering of retro content.
It will be interesting to see how NSO continues to evolve, especially with growing pressure coming from the impending shutdown of the Wii U and 3DS eShop storefronts, the last two storefronts to be home to Nintendo’s previous (and many argue, “better”) retro content offerings.
[Source: Kit & Krysta, Nintendo Life, NSO + Expansion Pack Trailer with data from Return YouTube Dislike]
