While Nintendo has brought a lot of new ideas to the field, it is also a company that’s been infamously behind on a lot of modern trends that almost every company has already adopted. Typically, the company is criticized for the state of its online services. However, there is one online trend that Nintendo has started to adopt, subscription services. Subscription services aren’t exactly a new thing, but they’ve really popped up in a big way in the past few years within the realm of entertainment and unfortunately, it’s a trend that Nintendo has chosen to follow.

When it comes to subscription services, they present three main problems. One, there are too many now. Before, it was just Netflix, which was just fine even before it branched out into making or buying the rights to exclusive content. Now, however, there are multiple streaming services competing for your dollars. If you want anime that’s unavailable on one service, you’ll just have to pick up a Crunchyroll or Funimation account. If you want to watch Disney stuff that used to exist on Netflix, well, Disney did the mega corporation move of making its own service, so you’ll have to buy into that as well.

The second issue issue is ownership. Under a subscription model, you don’t own any media. Sure, having something like Xbox Game Pass seems glamorous, but what if you’re interested in a game that’s taken off of that service? What if you wanted to play something but the service just isn’t working? What if you didn’t want all the things you could access stuck under the whims of a service and just wanted to own things?

The third issue, of course, is whether or not a subscription is worth it. For an example, I’ll refer to something I’ve talked about before: the Shrieking Shack podcast. In talking about all news Harry Potter (for better or for worse), the hosts frequently bring up Wizarding World Gold, a subscription service for Harry Potter. One of the perks are special ebook versions of the Harry Potter books… which is completely useless because anyone legitimately interested in the service most likely own all the books already. Another perk is discounts for Harry Potter merchandise and priority access to theater tickets, which is something that only rich fans would really take advantage of, especially considering that Wizarding World Gold is a whopping $74.99 a year. For an average person, it’s just plain not worth it.

So, with all that out of the way, let’s talk about Nintendo. Nintendo’s first major subscription service is Nintendo Switch Online, following in the footsteps of Playstation Plus and Xbox Live. It is cheaper compared to those services, being a measly $20, but also, it’s still a hard sell. The quality of Nintendo’s online functionality hasn’t exactly changed with the introduction of the subscription service. People can do voice chat, but it can only be accessed in a nonsensical way; which is nuts, considering that people that play Fortnite on the Switch could just do so through the headphone jack, meaning that the Switch is easily capable of doing things the normal way.

Of course, those other online game services also offer free games to sweeten the deal, so Nintendo responded by… making a worse version of that. Instead of giving free games, Nintendo is giving free access to games; more specifically, a select few NES and SNES titles. This runs into the second problem that I brought up concerning ownership in that your access to these games is left to the whims of a service. This is particularly egregious considering that most of the games accessed through this service are things that you could already buy and own through the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console. Additionally, new games are added to the service at a slow pace, with only a handful being added a month, when Nintendo could easily do more.

Now, of course, if you don’t care for stuff like voice chat and are happy with the classic game offerings, you may be happy or at least not offended by the Nintendo Switch Online service, especially considering its price. Now, what if I told you that Nintendo is inexplicably adding subscription services onto its mobile games? These subscription services run into a unique, fourth problem in that they’re just another, predatory way of doing microtransactions.

Nintendo’s free-to-play mobile games already have in-app purchases, but the company’s steadily been introducing new subscriptions to “enhance” the player experience. First, let’s look at Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. There’s a basic subscription plan for $2.99 a month where you can get your favorite villager to do things for you when you’re away from the game. Personally, it’s a bit much for the price, but I can definitely see people being into the game liking it since it’s somewhat inexpensive. However, there are the more expensive plans, which will give you free fortune cookies (read: loot boxes) and extra storage, which really doesn’t seem worth it. Except of course to the most dedicated players, in which case, the game’s just taking advantage of fans.

The most recent example is the Feh Pass, a subscription service for Fire Emblem: Heroes that was introduced on the game’s third anniversary. People that subscribe to the Feh Pass gets a bunch of new perks, such as free heroes along with the ability to redo turns and do quick grinding. The latter are big quality of life changes that are pretty useful, except for the fact that it’s locked behind a $9.49 a month pass. That price is ridiculous. You’d need to have serious money to burn to buy into that, especially if you’re trapped in some other subscription service.

These subscription services are absurd and are just a different way of doing microtransactions. Of course, you know that people will buy into them. Like, Fire Emblem Heroes is a gacha game, so people are already willing to throw lots of money getting anime characters, so Nintendo definitely will get some people hooked on the Feh Pass. It’s all just kinda absurd, yet also funny considering that Nintendo told Cygames to not get greedy with Dragalia Lost, a gacha game that’s actually comparatively generous to Nintendo’s own in-house offerings.

Nintendo really needs to slow down with these subscription services. Their main online service can definitely stand to be better, but there’s no redemption for the mobile game subscriptions, because in the end, they’re still just over-glorified microtransactions, regardless of whether they’re actually worth it or not. Subscription models nowadays are already getting iffy, but Nintendo’s stuff just seems like the worst.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.