Earlier this month, Nintendo confirmed that the Switch's online service will not launch until 2018. Now, the company has revealed exactly why it chose to delay the service until next year.
In an interview at E3 2017, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime explained that "the reason we’ve delayed the full paid subscription, is we want to make sure that as we get all of our learnings, and we build all of the elements." The company wants to launch something that is "robust" for Nintendo Switch players and that when they consider the online's $20 price point, they will say that signing up is a "no-brainer."
Many players may be disappointed that they will not have access to the service – or its free games – this year. However, Fils-Aime insists that the delay is just "consistent with the overall Nintendo development philosophy." The company wants the service "to be great for the consumer. And not to be something that isn’t fully-featured and fully-capable."
The Nintendo executive also explains that this the same reason why The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was delayed. That game is one of the most best-reviewed video games of all time, so it stands to reason that Nintendo knows what it's doing.
During the interview, Fils-Aime also explains how Nintendo address fan feedback. Saying that it "certainly" looks at what the community is saying, the executive also suggests that if Nintendo only listened to fans, it would be "creating content against a handful of [intellectual property] with a handful of feature sets." Players tend to focus on "things that they’ve seen before," Fils-Aime explains.
Although Nintendo cannot address every fan complaint or criticism, hopefully it will continue to take on fan feedback as it prepares the Switch's online service for its eventual release. The company has already made vital changes to the proposed monthly free games, but there are other key issues that fans would like to see dealt with.
For example, fans are eager to know how many third-party games will support Switch online. Will multi-platform titles that offer online multiplayer on PC and consoles also offer that on the Nintendo Switch? Or will storage limitations prevent some of the biggest titles from utilizing the service? Fans will also want to know what Nintendo plans to do with first-party titles, in order to justify that subscription price, no matter how affordable it is.
Source: The Verge