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StarTopic Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack |ST| New 2024 Poll Up

How will Nintendo handle the NSO with the launch of the Switch 2

  • Everything on the service becomes playable on launch day of the new system.

    Votes: 139 76.4%
  • A slow roll out with a promise to move everything over within 12 months from launch day

    Votes: 24 13.2%
  • LOL Nintendo is going to start all over with just NES games in late 2025

    Votes: 17 9.3%
  • Nothing will transfer over because the Switch 2 won't be backwards compatible with the Switch 1

    Votes: 2 1.1%

  • Total voters
    182
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.
NES: Fire 'n Ice, Vice Project Doom, Mighty Bomb Jack, Joy Mech Fight (JP app only), also played tons of Pinball and Balloon Fight.
SNES: Pilotwings, Demon's Crest, Super Mario All-Stars, Operation Logic Bomb, Joe and Mac, Congo's Caper, Spanky's Quest, Kirby no Kira Kira Kids (JP app only)
N64: Pilotwings 64... that's it I did play a bunch of others but didn't finish them
MD: None, played a bunch, didn't finish a game
GB: Kirby's Dream Land 1
GBA: None
 
Never mentioned what I beat on the app specifically:

NES:
  • Fire n' Ice
  • Chrysalis
  • Mario 1-3
  • Zelda 1+2
  • Earthbound Beginnings
  • Wario's Woods
  • Kirby's Adventure
  • Kid Icarus
  • Rygar
SNES:
  • Demon's Crest
  • Mario All-Stars
  • Super Metroid
  • Link to the Past
  • Mario World
  • Donkey Kong Country 1-2
  • Super Mario Picross
  • Joe and Mac 2
  • Wild Guns
  • Breath of Fire
  • Star Fox 1-2
  • Kirby's Dreamland 3
N64:
  • Super Mario 64
  • Paper Mario
  • Dr Mario 64
  • Star Fox 64
  • Ocarina of Time
  • Majora's Mask
  • Banjo Kazooie
  • Kirby 64
Genesis:
  • Sonic 2
  • Sonic Spinball
  • Megaman Wily Wars
  • Mean Bean Machine
  • Golden Axe
  • Comix Zone
  • Ecco the Dolphin
  • Ristar
    Sword of Vermillion
  • Shining Force 1
Gameboy:
  • Super Mario Land 2
  • Kirby's Dreamland
  • Game and Watch Gallery 3
GBA:
  • Mario Advance 4 (+World e)
  • Mario and Luigi

Color me a little shocked. I beat way more games than I thought I did.

I never even grew up with an NES, SNES or N64 just the handhelds and a hand-me-down Genesis.
 
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.
NES: nothing
SNES: Super Metroid (4 times even), Super Mario World, FZero (on normal only)
N64: Pokémon Snap
MegaDrive: nothing
Gameboy: Super Mario Land 2
Gameboy Advance: Kurukurukururin

I've started many games on SNES though: DKC1, DKC2, Yoshi's Island, Earthbound, LoZ lttp. Not even just started for some, but even halfway through, just haven't finished them yet.
 
In Australia, the MyNintendo Store is going to be restocking the NSO N64 controllers later this week


Might be good odds other regions get their restocks before long as well; I don't think the controller has been restocked on the NA store since June 2022? Well overdue by now, especially with more people having subscribed for GoldenEye no doubt
Sure enough, it's up now and already sold out for MyNintendo Australia/New Zealand. Might be good odds some updates for other regions are around the corner.
 
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I subbed for a year back in... whenever the SNES games came out. This whole NSO thing was in its infancy then. That entire year, the only game I completed was Super Metroid.

Couple weeks back, I joined an ERA family plan and I'm hoping this NSO year sees more app usage. I'm already eyeing Earthbound Origins and Earthbound as my first two targets. It's about time I give the Mother series a look-see. After that, I want to run through the DKC Trilogy (to get a little KONG hype going for myself).
 
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.
NES: --
SNES: F ZERO
Mega Drive: Gunstar Heroes; Phantasy Star IV; Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
N64: Star Fox 64; F ZERO X; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
GameBoy: Super Mario Land 2
GameBoy Advance: The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

I played through a lot of NES and SNES stuff on Wii and SNES Mini, the latter of which especially led to me not really engaging with that stuff on Switch. I'm gradually getting more use out of NSO now; I'm currently playing Wario Land 3, and Superstar Saga, Metroid Fusion and Goldeneye are all on my radar.
 
A ton, actually. All of the main Mario games. Super Metroid. LoZ, LTTP, MM. Most of the Kirby games.

I have like 15 hours on NES, 30 on N64 and SNES, and like 5 on GB/GBA so far.
I think Snes is my most used part of the service, and I blame a lot of that on Super Mario Picross. Damn those later puzzles wrack your brain.
 
0
I beat smb1 on the nes app a while ago. At some point once I clear the jrpg backlog a bit I'm gonna play earthbound and earthbound beggingings on their apps.
 
0
NES: --
SNES: F ZERO
Mega Drive: Gunstar Heroes; Phantasy Star IV; Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
N64: Star Fox 64; F ZERO X; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
GameBoy: Super Mario Land 2
GameBoy Advance: The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

I played through a lot of NES and SNES stuff on Wii and SNES Mini, the latter of which especially led to me not really engaging with that stuff on Switch. I'm gradually getting more use out of NSO now; I'm currently playing Wario Land 3, and Superstar Saga, Metroid Fusion and Goldeneye are all on my radar.
If you like Mean Bean Machine, try Avalanche for more of that Puyo goodness, and the added hilarity of Kirby smack talk.
 
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.
Let’s see

NES: Kirby’s Adventure, Super Mario Bros, Metroid

SNES: Super Metroid, Link to the Past, Kirby Super Star, SMB1 in All Stars, Kirby’s Dream Course, Super Mario World

Genesis: Sonic 2

N64: Banjo Kazooie, Wave Race 64, Yoshi’s Story

GB: None so far

GBA: Kuru Kuru Kuruin


There are lots of games on each system that I’d love to get to eventually!
 
0
Actually I said a bunch of games that I did finish but I didn't even mention the obvious ones, I actually finished Zelda II for the first time ever on NES NSO, same deal with Super Metroid on SNES NSO when I was doing a Metroid marathon.
 
0
I wonder how Nintendo negotiates licenses for this service, as someone pointed out that no games have left NSO. It's why I don't want it to become "the Netflix of retro games" as it's incredibly frustrating with streaming services to get half-way through a box set and then have it leave the service (X-Files and Prime Video spring to mind). Do Nintendo pay a one-off fee for use in perpetuity on this particular service? Or an annual fee? Or do they share a percentage of NSO revenue based on engagement (minutes played)? I'm curious.

Game Pass suffers immeasurably in my eyes by it's impermanence. Is it the same with Sony's equivalent? Games come and go?
 
I don't see any of the games currently on NSO being delisted, other than GoldenEye.

Rare games used to be in a weird space back on Wii, but now Microsoft is in bed with Nintendo, so no worries about losing those.
 
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I wonder how Nintendo negotiates licenses for this service, as someone pointed out that no games have left NSO. It's why I don't want it to become "the Netflix of retro games" as it's incredibly frustrating with streaming services to get half-way through a box set and then have it leave the service (X-Files and Prime Video spring to mind). Do Nintendo pay a one-off fee for use in perpetuity on this particular service? Or an annual fee? Or do they share a percentage of NSO revenue based on engagement (minutes played)? I'm curious.

Game Pass suffers immeasurably in my eyes by it's impermanence. Is it the same with Sony's equivalent? Games come and go?

No games have left yet, but there's no way they have a permanent license for Goldeneye, at the bare minimum. They just simply would not be able to get a perpetual license for that franchise, given it changes hands so often.. At some point they're going to have to renegotiate that. It's not like delisting was a huge problem on the virtual console either though, the Wii Shop in the EU only ever had 12 titles delisted through the things entire life according to the wikipedia page, and only 3 of them were from Nintendo's own consoles. This might even be why certain titles haven't reappeared; 'Yoshi's cookie' in particular might not be getting added to the service for this very reason, being the only software with the dubious honour of having a Nintendo ip in it, yet being permanently discontinued from the VC service.

We probably won't ever know the terms that games are on the service under though.
 
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.

Mostly my basic SNES and N64 favorites that I've already beaten a dozen times each:

NES: Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3
SNES: Super Metroid (many times), Super Mario World, Link to the Past
N64: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye
GBA: Minish Cap (first time finishing it)
 
No games have left yet, but there's no way they have a permanent license for Goldeneye, at the bare minimum. They just simply would not be able to get a perpetual license for that franchise, given it changes hands so often.. At some point they're going to have to renegotiate that. It's not like delisting was a huge problem on the virtual console either though, the Wii Shop in the EU only ever had 12 titles delisted through the things entire life according to the wikipedia page, and only 3 of them were from Nintendo's own consoles. This might even be why certain titles haven't reappeared; 'Yoshi's cookie' in particular might not be getting added to the service for this very reason, being the only software with the dubious honour of having a Nintendo ip in it, yet being permanently discontinued from the VC service.

We probably won't ever know the terms that games are on the service under though.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the approach of Nintendo is different as the one Microsoft and Sony have on their subscription. Personally I don't see any of the games leaving the service, not even Goldeneye. They want to have a great library of retro games, so they probably will have a permanent license for the NSO apps, which is one of the reasons the next system will almost surely be backwards compatible, so they don't have to get those games again.

Regarding Goldeneye, I don't think they even have a license for the franchise, just that one game. That's why I think it can be permanent, it's not a case in which they are able to use Bond to do more games, so it probably isn't like the usual license renting.
 
So I recently got the Expansion Pack and started playing Paper Mario, and was surprised at how laggy the game gets upon opening the pause menu. Looked into it a little more and apparently it's something that was intentionally done by Nintendo? Like people have gone into the code and found that they artificially limited the frame rate not just when pausing, but also during the Lava Piranha boss fight for some reason.

Even worse, people have tried removing those lines of code and... the game runs just fine without any bugs. Really weird stuff and it kinda bums me out a bit that they did that, even if it's only in a couple spots.
 
0
With 2 weeks left in the month, we could well be due Mega Drive and N64 updates. There's the obvious question of whether updating every system in a single month is something Nintendo would want to do, but N64 hasn't been updated since January and Mega Drive hasn't had an update since December.

What's the feeling, gang? It feels like maybe there isn't quite space for it; the N64 release would presumably get a week's warning before release, while Mega Drive would come out of the blue. If Nintendo announce an N64 game this week for release the following week, then dropping MD games around that might not be something Nintendo want to do.

And, sadly, I'm also not expecting that to be a regular occurrence. NES/SNES drops likely only happen a few times a year; MD gets a drop roughly once a quarter; GB is too soon to tell; GBA is likely monthly; N64 may have been demoted to every other month.
 
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.
Let's see...

NES: SMB3
SNES: DKC1, DKC2, DKC3, SMW, Mario All-Stars (all games), Kirby's Dream Land 3
N64: SM64, Banjo-Kazooie, Paper Mario, Kirby 64
Game Boy: Metroid II, Wario Land 3
Game Boy Advance: Metroid Fusion (as of an hour ago lol)

Will probably beat Kirby's Dream Land 2 this weekend.

With 2 weeks left in the month, we could well be due Mega Drive and N64 updates. There's the obvious question of whether updating every system in a single month is something Nintendo would want to do, but N64 hasn't been updated since January and Mega Drive hasn't had an update since December.

What's the feeling, gang? It feels like maybe there isn't quite space for it; the N64 release would presumably get a week's warning before release, while Mega Drive would come out of the blue. If Nintendo announce an N64 game this week for release the following week, then dropping MD games around that might not be something Nintendo want to do.

And, sadly, I'm also not expecting that to be a regular occurrence. NES/SNES drops likely only happen a few times a year; MD gets a drop roughly once a quarter; GB is too soon to tell; GBA is likely monthly; N64 may have been demoted to every other month.
Yeah, I'm expecting them to milk the N64 library for a while. But if we get a GB and GBA game every month (and like, a notable one, like Metroid Fusion and Kirby's Dream Land 2), I can live with that.
 
0
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the approach of Nintendo is different as the one Microsoft and Sony have on their subscription. Personally I don't see any of the games leaving the service, not even Goldeneye. They want to have a great library of retro games, so they probably will have a permanent license for the NSO apps, which is one of the reasons the next system will almost surely be backwards compatible, so they don't have to get those games again.

Regarding Goldeneye, I don't think they even have a license for the franchise, just that one game. That's why I think it can be permanent, it's not a case in which they are able to use Bond to do more games, so it probably isn't like the usual license renting.

Nobody would ever offer a license like James Bond in perpetuity. It would be downright stupid from the license holders Especially since the film license holders MGM, just in the last year completed a sale to Amazon, when it comes to negotiating extension of the license, they probably won't even be negotiating with the same people as the first time.

Inevitably, eventually, something will leave the service, and golden eye remains the most likely
 
Games I've finished on NSO (* means first time)

Super Mario Bros
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr
Super Metroid
Link to the Past
Super Mario World
Golden Axe*
Sonic Spinball*
Banjo Kazooie

These for sure off the top of my head
 
I think half the games I've played this year were on NSO so it would be better asking me what I'm playing besides that.

NSO is a great value for retro gamers because it includes so many amazing games that aren't available anywhere else and haven't been forever. And it's only going to get exponentially better with GBC and GBA.
 
Mostly my basic SNES and N64 favorites that I've already beaten a dozen times each:

GBA: Minish Cap (first time finishing it)
What'd ya think of it?

Games I've finished on NSO (* means first time)

Sonic Spinball*


These for sure off the top of my head

I beat it for the first time too, but that's because I'm stubborn. What possessed you to beat a game like Spinball? Most folks just give up at the 2nd level, 3rd tops.
 
What'd ya think of it?
I liked Minish Cap a lot and glad I finally finished it. Wasn't for lack of options though - I had a GBA SP, a DS, a Wii U and it's on my ambassador 3DS. I think it's a terrific 2D Zelda. It's far more ambitious than Link's Awakening and not the same formula as Link to the Past. Good variety in bosses, items, dungeons, areas and other challenges. The 2D pixel art and animation looked great and I enjoyed the shrinking mechanic. Combat felt good and length was just right. I liked combining the kinstone pieces but I collected 999 mysterious shells and never knew what to do with those!
 
Nobody would ever offer a license like James Bond in perpetuity. It would be downright stupid from the license holders Especially since the film license holders MGM, just in the last year completed a sale to Amazon, when it comes to negotiating extension of the license, they probably won't even be negotiating with the same people as the first time.

Inevitably, eventually, something will leave the service, and golden eye remains the most likely
The goldeneye situation has me curious. Because if I understood correctly, the Xbox version is on game pass but also a free "purchase" for those with rare replay, which is my case, I don't have game pass. So technically they wouldn't be able to take from you the game as you have "purchased" it, it's not the same as leaving a subscription. We have seen licensed games being delisted from shops, but if you bought it you can keep it. Then Nintendo would be on an inferior situation as they only have the game on the subs, which would lead to a hypothetical future situation in which the game leaves NSO but owners of rare replay can keep it on Xbox.

I don't see Nintendo agreeing on that deal, that's why I think the license for the game (not for bond as a full character) could be permanent, but who knows. Hopefully we won't need to worry about this for several years.
 
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I finally found my least favorite Nintendo developed Mario stage: “Magical Note Blocks” in World-e of Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. Woof.

Anyway, I had the port of Super Mario Bros. 2 in 2001 then never bought the others. With Nintendo Switch Online, I’m finally getting a chance to play the Super Mario Advance series. I have to say these ports back in the day represent Nintendo at its worst:
  1. Reselling almost exact ports at full price (the occasional voice samples as not good additions).
  2. Locking new content behind a niche peripheral and fragile cards. This only applies Super Mario Advance 4. the others didn’t support the e-Reader, and only Yoshi’s Island included some bonus stages.
  3. The naming structure is needlessly confusing.
A lot of words have already been written about how Nintendo never released a new 2D Mario platformer on GBA so I don’t want to dwell on that part. I’d merely add that the e-Reader stages show what could have been a nice compromise/middle ground of using existing assets to create new/remixed content. In an alternate universe, “Super Mario Bros. 2: Advance” would include the original SMB2 plus a second quest of GBA exclusive stages.
 
What games has anyone here beaten on NSO? Just wondering.

NES- Nothing. I've messed around with some games, but I want to get the NES controllers before getting deep into any of them.
SNES (10)- Zelda: LttP, Super Metroid, Psycho Dream, Joe & Mac 1, Yoshi's Island, Star Fox, Star Fox 2, F-Zero, DKC, Kart
Game Boy (2)- Kirby 1, Mario Land 2
N64 (8)- Banjo, Kart, Golf, Party 1, Snap, Star Fox, Wave Race, Yoshi's Story
Genesis- Nothing. I feel bad that I barely touch this app.
GBA (1)- Kart
 
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I finally found my least favorite Nintendo developed Mario stage: “Magical Note Blocks” in World-e of Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. Woof.

Anyway, I had the port of Super Mario Bros. 2 in 2001 then never bought the others. With Nintendo Switch Online, I’m finally getting a chance to play the Super Mario Advance series. I have to say these ports back in the day represent Nintendo at its worst:
  1. Reselling almost exact ports at full price (the occasional voice samples as not good additions).
  2. Locking new content behind a niche peripheral and fragile cards. This only applies Super Mario Advance 4. the others didn’t support the e-Reader, and only Yoshi’s Island included some bonus stages.
  3. The naming structure is needlessly confusing.
A lot of words have already been written about how Nintendo never released a new 2D Mario platformer on GBA so I don’t want to dwell on that part. I’d merely add that the e-Reader stages show what could have been a nice compromise/middle ground of using existing assets to create new/remixed content. In an alternate universe, “Super Mario Bros. 2: Advance” would include the original SMB2 plus a second quest of GBA exclusive stages.
Well, the Yoshi Eggs and Ace coins are nice additions to the challenge of the original, and the many remixed bonus rooms and boss are nice upgrades. It at the least is a solid remastering of SMB2. Now Advance 2 and 3... PHEW those are absolutely the barest of bones, they are so bare the marrow is gone.
 
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So uh.....

We've gotten ONE N64 game in 5 months of NSO Expansion Pack, and while it was a very notable game...

What the actual fuck Nintendo??? If we were to get one game a month as we did last year it would straight up take us to a September Direct now and I'm upset that ESPECIALLY with Virtual Console going away they don't seem to be taking the N64 service seriously for NSO anymore. Now a whole bunch of games are not accessible that could be very reasonably released on the service in the future (and even some still need to be released like Excitebike and 1080). I know they put GBA games on the service, but we've just straight up ONLY had those and Goldeneye since December. Genesis also hasn't had an update since then and N64's double Mario Party offering was really just a curse in disguise as a blessing.

GBA seems to either be potentially swapping on and off with N64 or outright replacing a consistent schedule for N64 at still one slow roll of a game at a time. I thought GBA and Goldeneye were going to be a pretty substantial sort of new bright period for the service, but nope, it's just totally petered out again and feels even worse than it did when we at least knew to expect a game a month.

Sorry for the rant, just frustrated as I realize that this service seems designed to really specifically slow roll to a degree that's bad even by Nintendo's standard. I know they're "running out" of N64 games to a degree, but they're practically going to be supporting the rest of the year with the stuff announced way back in September of last year at this rate anyway so they still have a decent number of untapped games and they've only gotten ONE third party game for the whole N64 service so far too.
 
Yup it sucks, hopefully they’ll drop a pair of them soon or something. Least we’ll likely get a genesis drop tomorrow
 
0
I don’t know why it’s so hard to have some kind of schedule for these games. Do one a month for each platform or something. It’s weird that they’ve announced a bunch of games but we have no idea when they’re coming.
 
Star Fox 2
Sonic 2
Light Crusader
Phantasy Star 4
Earthbound
Mario Kart Super Circuit
Mario Party 1
Pokemon Puzzle League
Kirby Dream Land
Wario Ware Microgames
Metroid Fusion
Super Metroid
Magical Drop 2
 
0
I don’t know why it’s so hard to have some kind of schedule for these games. Do one a month for each platform or something. It’s weird that they’ve announced a bunch of games but we have no idea when they’re coming.
That's honestly all I want out of them is consistency. This dripfeed is aggravating enough as is but this guessing game of when it's releasing is asinine.

Consoles: NES, SNES, Gameboy (and Color, by extension), and N64, GBA and Genesis for Expansion Pack subs.

Six and a half consoles, to spread out weekly. Week 1, S/NES. Week 2, Genesis. Week 3, all Gameboys. Week 4, N64. A month has five weeks/isn't a full week? Take a week off, focus on tightening up the emulators and bug fixes, push it for the next major update for whatever console app needs it.

ShiaLeBoeufJustDoIt.mp4
 
I think a good bare minimum needs to be a GBA game AND a N64 game every month for now. We're paying $50 a year for the service, or $30 alone for the N64/Genesis/GBA line-up. AND NO NEW DLC has been added since last year even if the Mario Kart DLC is supposed to be a big draw for continued subscription. PS Plus gives out 3 games a month for a pretty comparable price, and those are MODERN new titles you can keep downloaded indefinitely on your console too. And actually decent online features and multiplayer in there too.

The fact we're going so long between releases period and that GBA is being positioned more as a replacement than an addition so far feels absolutely dreadful as someone paying for the service. N64 still feels very under-served by the service IMO.
 
I think a good bare minimum needs to be a GBA game AND a N64 game every month for now. We're paying $50 a year for the service, or $30 alone for the N64/Genesis/GBA line-up. AND NO NEW DLC has been added since last year even if the Mario Kart DLC is supposed to be a big draw for continued subscription. PS Plus gives out 3 games a month for a pretty comparable price, and those are MODERN new titles you can keep downloaded indefinitely on your console too. And actually decent online features and multiplayer in there too.

The fact we're going so long between releases period and that GBA is being positioned more as a replacement than an addition so far feels absolutely dreadful as someone paying for the service. N64 still feels very under-served by the service IMO.
N64 has the same problem they've had since 2006. Well, since the original release of the console really. There's barely any software to release to begin with, the VC managed to get around 20-25 titles both times, and they're going to hit the exact same wall shortly even with scraping the barrel for things like the Pokémon stadium games despite no Pokémon rbygsc support.
 
I have no idea what's going on with Mario Party 3 (possibly just caught in the crossfire), but I can't help but look at how close we're getting to Pokémon Stadium and think that that might have something to do with the silence on N64. Pokémon Home is still in a weird "early 2023" limbo, with only 6 weeks remaining before it's just as late as last time, still without any obvious reason why it's taking so long. It's possible that the scare over the SV save bug pushed out the timeline, but it could also be because of emulated Pokémon stuff, possibly even Nintendo changing their mind internally about Transfer Pak.
 
N64 has the same problem they've had since 2006. Well, since the original release of the console really. There's barely any software to release to begin with, the VC managed to get around 20-25 titles both times, and they're going to hit the exact same wall shortly even with scraping the barrel for things like the Pokémon stadium games despite no Pokémon rbygsc support.

There are still 9 games from the past two Virtual Consoles yet to hit the service:
  1. Super Smash Bros.
  2. Donkey Kong 64
  3. 1080 Snowboarding
  4. Excitebike 64
  5. Crus'n USA
  6. Bomberman 64
  7. Bomberman Hero
  8. Harvest Moon 64
  9. Ogre Battle 64
And then they currently have 3 more announced in Mario Party 3, Pokémon Stadium 1, and Pokémon Stadium 2. With both Excitebike and 1080 also announced. That's enough to fill a whole year of consistent NSO releases just based on what they've been able to get previously. And none of those are impossible to get titles if Nintendo is willing to invest in the service with third parties.

Not to mention all other services have never had Rare on board, so that basically doubles what could theoretically come to the service. Banjo Tooie, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct Gold, Diddy Kong Racing, and Blast Corps could basically fill out an entire half year too on their own.

And if Nintendo was just to use additional partners and pay up for games that those companies are never going to touch anyway like say Mega Man 64 or Castlevania 64, they could easily get another year on top of that.

There's so so so much more Nintendo could do that doesn't even get to "scraping bottom of the barrel". They still haven't gotten to a point of parity with their old services and this is an ongoing paid service most people are investing more in. AND THEY HAVE 5 MONTHS WORTH OF ANNOUNCED GAMES THEYRE JUST SITTING ON!
 
There are still 9 games from the past two Virtual Consoles yet to hit the service:
  1. Super Smash Bros.
  2. Donkey Kong 64
  3. 1080 Snowboarding
  4. Excitebike 64
  5. Crus'n USA
  6. Bomberman 64
  7. Bomberman Hero
  8. Harvest Moon 64
  9. Ogre Battle 64
And then they currently have 3 more announced in Mario Party 3, Pokémon Stadium 1, and Pokémon Stadium 2. With both Excitebike and 1080 also announced. That's enough to fill a whole year of consistent NSO releases just based on what they've been able to get previously. And none of those are impossible to get titles if Nintendo is willing to invest in the service with third parties.

Not to mention all other services have never had Rare on board, so that basically doubles what could theoretically come to the service. Banjo Tooie, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct Gold, Diddy Kong Racing, and Blast Corps could basically fill out an entire half year too on their own.

And if Nintendo was just to use additional partners and pay up for games that those companies are never going to touch anyway like say Mega Man 64 or Castlevania 64, they could easily get another year on top of that.

There's so so so much more Nintendo could do that doesn't even get to "scraping bottom of the barrel". They still haven't gotten to a point of parity with their old services and this is an ongoing paid service most people are investing more in. AND THEY HAVE 5 MONTHS WORTH OF ANNOUNCED GAMES THEYRE JUST SITTING ON!

Yeah, because they could just stop releasing VC games entirely when the amount that third parties wanted to release dried up

This is the shit reality of a subscription systems especially when the number of titles they can release have a hard limit. They're moving away from n64 to focus on the GBA which has a far larger and more celebrated library they can pick games from long term, and they're probably not going back, with what's left deliberately sparsely distributed.

As nice as it is to be optimistic, I think you're also vastly overestimating how 'on board' Microsoft is. I don't expect Rares back catalogue to fully come to the service at all Maybe Banjo tooie, but the rest are Microsoft owned IP and should be treated as such. Despite how MS might try and appear, the companies are competing and aren't friends.
 
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It's interesting that this discussion is happening at the end of the first month for a while when multiple systems have actually had updates (NES, SNES, GB, GBA all getting games this month). I did wonder if Mega Drive or N64 would get something, but perhaps that'll happen in the next couple of weeks. It's a valid question as to what exactly EP subscribers will get each month; but this month did include a Mario Kart wave as well as Metroid Fusion.

I assume one issue is we're looking at another 18 months to 2 years before Nintendo add further consoles to the service, and that Nintendo intend to keep the subscription rolling as a successor arrives in that period. That means whatever remaining N64 titles Nintendo have likely need to at least fill that period, and likely Nintendo want some titles in reserve so that they can still do additional drops at different points in time; a little like there still being NES/SNES titles to roll out despite those systems long since stopped getting regular updates and despite the fact they've been available for four and a half/three and a half years respectively. We also don't know if Nintendo did manage to secure further games from Rare and Microsoft, or how long licensing deals for things like Banjo and Goldeneye will last, or whether new licensing deals will come along to replace content that disappears (further Konami and Sega support would be very helpful for N64 and GBA respectively).

The numerically superior (versus N64) library of GBA is likely there to make sure that the EP can still get monthly titles for several years to come, because N64 was always going to be hamstrung by the caveat that 30ish titles were really all that was ever guaranteed; licensing deals might get around that, but I assume those deals will have an expiry date and may not all be renewed. The addition of GB/C is presumably to make sure that the base subscription now gets more regular content as Nintendo seek to expand the subscriber pool and to retain subscribers during a hardware transition.

I guess for me, the point is I never had high expectations for the service because the writing was on the wall when Nintendo stopped regular NES updates and swapped to irregular drops for NES and SNES. The rollout of content likely can't be neatly regulated because there are shifting variables - including whatever plans Nintendo drop and adapt for the subscription over time, and including what might be temporary licensing deals.

For me the cumulative offer is now just about worth £3 a month; across 2022 and into 2023 I've begun to use NSO more and more because the total library is finally becoming worthwhile (we're at 250 plus total; with the GB family and Mega Drive on board, it's going to go somewhere into the 350 range even without further systems). GBA especially has really improved the value of the EP from where I'm sitting; I think it's a better addition than N64 because the games have largely aged better, the visuals broadly scale up especially well for portable play on Switch, and we should be looking at a decent sized library of games (40 to 50 at least, I think).
 
Honestly, preach it @EricTheGamerman ! I get the frustration as one of the biggest N64 fanboys on this site. I get it that things can happen behind the scenes, but one game since November 2nd does blow. It hurts even more when Nintendo has five games on the road map. I can understand on the one hand if Nintendo doesn't want to burn out on the whole library within two years since it will probably be the app with the smallest lineup in the grand scheme of things, but there are plenty of reasonable games still left to dish out.

On the other hand, we did get two new systems in February so that was a nice shot in the arm.
 
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N64 has the same problem they've had since 2006. Well, since the original release of the console really. There's barely any software to release to begin with, the VC managed to get around 20-25 titles both times, and they're going to hit the exact same wall shortly even with scraping the barrel for things like the Pokémon stadium games despite no Pokémon rbygsc support.
FYI if they can get Konami and the other folks who already supported NSO on board that’s another 20 or so games that are a possibility(nearly 10 being Konami). But I think we’re also underestimating the QA required for these, N64 is tricky and perhaps they’re tired of the complaints and pushed things back to assure less issues
 
FYI if they can get Konami and the other folks who already supported NSO on board that’s another 20 or so games that are a possibility(nearly 10 being Konami). But I think we’re also underestimating the QA required for these, N64 is tricky and perhaps they’re tired of the complaints and pushed things back to assure less issues
Nintendo just needs to do with Konami what they did for Sega and cut them a fat royalty split. They're arguably the best 3rd party on every Nintendo platform content wise (NES, SNES, N64, GB/C, GBA) and they can even bring a new platform for the Expansion Pass (TG16/CD). Crazy value for one publisher, maybe even above Sega imo.
 
Nintendo just needs to do with Konami what they did for Sega and cut them a fat royalty split. They're arguably the best 3rd party on every Nintendo platform content wise (NES, SNES, N64, GB/C, GBA) and they can even bring a new platform for the Expansion Pass (TG16/CD). Crazy value for one publisher, maybe even above Sega imo.
The problem there is that, even though people think the Expansion Pack is very expensive, it really turns out to be like 4-ish USD a month. Now, if it’s royalty-based, a bunch of that already goes to Sega for Genesis, which is going to have way more nostalgia value for the worldwide audience than TG16/PC-E ever will, unfortunately. So they’d be carving out even more money for Konami, who would probably stand to make more money than Nintendo’d be willing to carve out for them by contracting M2 to whip up an emulator and selling the games themselves on the eShop.

To be fully honest, I would guess (because I have no way of knowing for sure) that Nintendo’s deal with Sega was a one-time, in-perpetuity cash deal for a number of games, with future options to increase the number of games licensed if they decide to give Sega more money. I don’t think it’s a royalty/sub-cost split, because again, $4/month/user is already paltry. If that’s the case, I can absolutely see them knocking on Konami’s door regarding licensing their games/consoles for NSO, but not until their currently available wells are dry. I agree they’re probably the best 3rd party on all available consoles and they’re clearly willing to play ball (see: Konami titles on Genesis NSO) plus the added benefit of PC-E (not going to be a big splash worldwide but Japan would like it) would be a visible value-add on that NSO+EP Splash Image they like to show. I just don’t think they’d make that deal now, because that’d be money spent on something they don’t need yet; they’ve got a number of first party N64 games left and GB/GBA are just getting started.
 
I didn't expect it'd take so long for Mario Party 3 to arrive! Superstars is a cold comfort considering my least fave MP3 board is the only one in it
 
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The problem there is that, even though people think the Expansion Pack is very expensive, it really turns out to be like 4-ish USD a month. Now, if it’s royalty-based, a bunch of that already goes to Sega for Genesis, which is going to have way more nostalgia value for the worldwide audience than TG16/PC-E ever will, unfortunately. So they’d be carving out even more money for Konami, who would probably stand to make more money than Nintendo’d be willing to carve out for them by contracting M2 to whip up an emulator and selling the games themselves on the eShop.

To be fully honest, I would guess (because I have no way of knowing for sure) that Nintendo’s deal with Sega was a one-time, in-perpetuity cash deal for a number of games, with future options to increase the number of games licensed if they decide to give Sega more money. I don’t think it’s a royalty/sub-cost split, because again, $4/month/user is already paltry. If that’s the case, I can absolutely see them knocking on Konami’s door regarding licensing their games/consoles for NSO, but not until their currently available wells are dry. I agree they’re probably the best 3rd party on all available consoles and they’re clearly willing to play ball (see: Konami titles on Genesis NSO) plus the added benefit of PC-E (not going to be a big splash worldwide but Japan would like it) would be a visible value-add on that NSO+EP Splash Image they like to show. I just don’t think they’d make that deal now, because that’d be money spent on something they don’t need yet; they’ve got a number of first party N64 games left and GB/GBA are just getting started.
Oh yeah, it probably wouldn't make sense now but maybe in another year or two? The big upside for Konami (over Sega) would be in content for Nintendo's own platforms, which if worked into the licensing structure could make up for PCE's lower global profile vs MD imo.

Konami's MSX catalog could be a nice door to open too actually. Same for Sega 8-bit (SG1k/SMS/GG) but those are probably down the line too if at all.
 
Oh yeah, it probably wouldn't make sense now but maybe in another year or two? The big upside for Konami (over Sega) would be in content for Nintendo's own platforms, which if worked into the licensing structure could make up for PCE's lower global profile vs MD imo.

Konami's MSX catalog could be a nice door to open too actually. Same for Sega 8-bit (SG1k/SMS/GG) but those are probably down the line too if at all.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty realistic in a year or two. I think the benefit would go both ways: it’s value added to the Expansion Pack for Nintendo, but would also be very good for Konami’s brand recognition and public image. Also they did all that work for the PC-Engine Mini which I don’t think was the barn-burner success they were maybe expecting, so it’d be nice to reuse a bunch of that work if possible.
 


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