How Should Nintendo Grow Nintendo Switch Online Subscriptions?

[BTB123]

Actually a double coin offer could get me to upgrade, but only if it is for all games and is year-long - because I have a family plan, and to upgrade the family plan is on the costly side when no one in my family is really interested in the retro games and the DLCs.

They did say the double coin offer is for all games, but it's only for a few months.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

The Switch has eMMC which is basically a SD card "glued" onto the main board. (Simplified. SD != MM)
From my limited understanding both MMC and SSD use flash storage/memory but they are different categories of storage devices and MMC is far slower and has less capacity than e.g. a NVMe SSD.

NVMe consume too much power to be in a devices like the Switch. This is not a reasonable ask.
________

Anyway, best thing they can do is juat add more value through additional retro consoles and DLC.

 

[Flightlessfancies]

Seeing PS plus numbers I think these things just naturally have a cap relative to userbase.

I do like what they've been doing recently with DLC and hope they continue to do it with story expansions like Splatoon 3, Xenoblade 3 and maybe Pokemon at some point (though gamefreak might have a say in that). I find more value in getting DLC. They should also make the game trials a little more consistent? I don't know if they're monthly. Sometimes it feels monthly but then they go a few months with none.

 

[BassForever]

The retro systems need to allow random matchmaking. Right now it's friends only and that's not ideal for actually just jumping in online.

N64's online is pretty rough too since it's delay based. NES, SNES and Genesis all use rollback.

I really can't imagine a world where random match making is ever gonna find someone who wants to play Kung-Fu Heroes with you on NES. There are really only a handful of nso games I think would make sense for a more modern style of match making like

Mario Kart 64
Smash 64 (whenever it gets added)
Mario Party 1-3
Goldeneye
Panel de Pon

The other problem is that none of these games were designed with a random matchmaking system in mind. You'd realistically need to make new versions of some of these games better equipped to handle random people joining your game.

 

[Ishaan]

Looks like Call of Duty is going to be on Nintendo platforms. That's going to be a big step for NSO.

 

[Aostia82]

Looks like Call of Duty is going to be on Nintendo platforms. That's going to be a big step for NSO.

So the answer to OP question is:

Let 1 of your 2 actual competitors to acquire 1 of the biggest third partirs out there

Basically:

Keep quite
Look MS buy Activision
???
Profit

 

[EnergyDrink]

First the basics: The next Switch needs better WLan. I have three Wlan router, because walls are thick. The Switch is the only mobile device, that is not automatically switching to the better Wlan if I enter another room. I have to turn Switch Wlan off and on to get it using the nearest connection.

 

[Ishaan]

From the most recent financials and Q&A:

• Growth of "annual playing users" has reached 114 million Nintendo Accounts
• This means that 114 million unique Nintendo Accounts opened at least one game on Switch between Apr 1, 2022 - Mar 31, 2023
• Note that this is not paid subscribers, just all Nintendo Accounts that opened at least one game during the year

• Growth in playing users has become "more gradual" compared to 3-4 years ago
• Playing habits on a platform fluctuate depending on the timing/release of major software, so goal is to release steady stream of titles
• Nintendo also saw an increase in revenue from Nintendo Switch Online due to the release of Game Boy Advance titles
• Very important to maintain high level of engaged consumers when transitioning to next hardware

That's all the info we have at the moment. No updates on total Nintendo Accounts or paid subscriber numbers.

 

[Pooroomoo]

"Very important to maintain high level of engaged consumers when transitioning to next hardware" - between the Mario movie and ToTK, engagement is probably the highest it will be moving forward, so now would be a great time for Switch 2!

More on topic, I wonder how much vouchers are an incentive for people to get an NSO subscription. At the very least vouchers are an incentive to keep a subscription from dying, so adding back vouchers to the US should have had some effect on US NSO subscriptions. Especially now with ToTK being a shoo-in voucher game given its $70 price tag.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

There's been a lot to digest from Nintendo's earnings report, but I wanted to focus this discussion primarily around one topic, using a simple chart.

Nintendo Accounts and Nintendo Switch Online:

• Nintendo says 290 million Nintendo Accounts have been created to date.
• Nintendo wants their paid NSO subscribers (the red bar) to grow. The easiest targets are the unpaid, but active users (the blue bar).
• Online multiplayer games are the biggest driver of NSO subscriptions, so expect to see a lot more of them in the years ahead.
• The yellow bar represents users that have Nintendo Accounts, but haven't played any Switch games in a long time (maybe even ever).
• This is the largest segment of Nintendo Account holders, and is a largely untapped audience for their console business.

• Nintendo is ready to invest "up to 300 billion yen" (around 2 billion USD) to facilitate the growth of their digital business. Of all their ongoing investments, this one is the largest by far. They will:

a) Form Nintendo Systems with DeNA​

b) Expand Nintendo Switch Online features​

c) Create more Nintendo eShops across Asia and South America to reach more users​

d) Strengthen their presence on e-commerce sites​

e) Set up more physical Nintendo stores​

Questions for us to discuss:

1. What kind of online/multiplayer games should Nintendo be putting on Switch to grow Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions? What genres should they be looking at? How should they go about developing (or soliciting from third-parties) these games?

2. What other features should they attach to Nintendo Accounts and NSO, in order to strengthen their digital business and bolster retention of paid subscribers? Is the answer to have more legacy content available? Is it to do something along the lines of PS Plus or Gamepass? Is it something else entirely?

Quick note: A lot of the figures in the chart above have been back-calculated using various figures and percentages in Nintendo's own report.

this is my uneducated opinion, but I feel as though one of the main thing Nintendo would need to focus on is improving the social aspect of the online system. Having a game that goes online only takes it so far before people see where it is lacking in features to make it a talking point.

a social media-like structure where other players can interact even modestly can help a lot in improving its appeal and better engagement with software and adoption I think.


I suppose another thing is getting those games that have an online component attached but are also popular like Genshin Impact or FF14 to give it a better appeal.

One of the contributors for online on other platforms is the juggernaut that is GTAO

And CoD.



The “freebies” that you get for subscription can be more improved I guess. But my biggest point is still the social element being improved, for better engagement.

The Switch has eMMC which is basically a SD card "glued" onto the main board. (Simplified. SD != MM)
From my limited understanding both MMC and SSD use flash storage/memory but they are different categories of storage devices and MMC is far slower and has less capacity than e.g. a NVMe SSD.

NVMe isn’t the only type of SSD though, the eMMC in the switch if used at anything near it’s fuller capacity would be 300-400MB/s which isn’t too far off from the SATA type of SSDs which are 450-550MB/s

NVMe is simply a protocol though, in which an SSD must adhere to, but it is not limited to.

UFS/eUFS is another kind of SSD that outclassed a SATA drive in speeds being >2GB/s and the newest being about 4.2GB/s or so which is faster than the one in the series X|S that do 2.4GB/s compressed (4.8GB/s compressed)

It’s a common misconception that only NVMe is an SSD, but there are several others that are also SSDs.

That said, Nintendo does not need to have all that speed. It’s overkill for the bracket they’ll operate in imo.

Just 1GB/s is enough.

 

[BTB123]

From the most recent financials and Q&A:

• Growth of "annual playing users" has reached 114 million Nintendo Accounts
• This means that 114 million unique Nintendo Accounts opened at least one game on Switch between Apr 1, 2022 - Mar 31, 2023
• Note that this is not paid subscribers, just all Nintendo Accounts that opened at least one game during the year

Also note that also only consumers that connected to the internet and agreed to provide statistical information to Nintendo are counted.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I think they need more games that facilitate online/social play. some of their games would benefit for mmo-lite elements, like Animal Crossing, Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition, and some new online focused game.

NSO being a boost through new systems like DS, GCN/Wii, and maybe even 3DS somehow on next gen would also help a lot

 

[Phenom08]

this is my uneducated opinion, but I feel as though one of the main thing Nintendo would need to focus on is improving the social aspect of the online system. Having a game that goes online only takes it so far before people see where it is lacking in features to make it a talking point.

a social media-like structure where other players can interact even modestly can help a lot in improving its appeal and better engagement with software and adoption I think.

Miiverse! WiiU had some pretty dope features back in the day. Miiverse and Nintendo TVii.

 

[MadMax]

New update for NSO expansion pass. Four Genesis titles this time. Probably the best update to date:

Revenge of Shinobi
Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Landstalker
Crusader of Centy

Link to the Past fans should check out Centy. It's Sega's version of old school Zelda.

 

[FinalLarry]

I thought Nintendo had a thing going with the various battle royale games on NSO: Tetris 99, Mario 35, Pac Man 99. Rotating these games, and introducing new ones, every couple months can keep existing subs engaged while bringing in new users. By funneling everyone into 1 or 2 battle royales players can always find matches too. Ice Climbers 99 would be chaos and get attention.

 

[Aostia82]

Odama99

 

[Ishaan]

The State of Nintendo Accounts and Nintendo Switch Online:

• Total non-paying, but active Nintendo Accounts are at 79 million (+7 mn YoY)
• Total paying NSO subscribers are at 38 million (+2 mn YoY)
• Total offline/lapsed/mobile-only Nintendo Accounts are at 213 million YoY (+29 million YoY)

There's still a lot of work Nintendo needs to do in terms of converting their 79 million active users to paying subscribers. As has been discussed already, Call of Duty (potentially coming from next year) and GTA Online (if it ever happens) would be the biggest needle-movers.

The main question is, what kind of games should they be focusing on developing internally?

 

[Lelouch0612]

The State of Nintendo Accounts and Nintendo Switch Online:

• Total non-paying, but active Nintendo Accounts are at 79 million (+7 mn YoY)
• Total paying NSO subscribers are at 38 million (+2 mn YoY)
• Total offline/lapsed/mobile-only Nintendo Accounts are at 213 million YoY (+29 million YoY)

There's still a lot of work Nintendo needs to do in terms of converting their 79 million active users to paying subscribers. As has been discussed already, Call of Duty (potentially coming from next year) and GTA Online (if it ever happens) would be the biggest needle-movers.

The main question is, what kind of games should they be focusing on developing internally?

Like you said, I think people interested in their own efforts are already subscribing. You won't have much bigger than the combined force of Mario Kart, Smash, Splatoon and even Animal Crossing/Pokémon.

The incremental subs will come from other franchises like CoD, Madden and hopefully GTA at some point.

 

[Aostia82]

Like you said, I think people interested in their own efforts are already subscribing. You won't have much bigger than the combined force of Mario Kart, Smash, Splatoon and even Animal Crossing/Pokémon.

The incremental subs will come from other franchises like CoD, Madden and hopefully GTA at some point.

apart from online multiplayer from other big, third party games I think they should push more for "additional contents" like the voucher program (re-introduced by NoA maybe exactly to incentivize the subs? still not as interesting in the West as in Japan, where the saving are much more valuable) or the "99 games" (so maybe F-Zero won't be the last one, right?) or even more "Virtual console-like" contents (adding more modern contents, like N64/GC games, at least on Switch 2?)

or even more sales for subscribers, not linked only to vouchers?

my 2 cents of course


EDIT:

Apparently, people have been asking Nintendo CS if Momotetsu World could be bought using NSO vouchers.

You can't.



This goes back to what I remember posting (at least once) before: Nintendo should really look into third-party vouchers.

Third party vouchers program too, would be neat for subs.