Nintendo’s Online Service finally goes live this week, and for some players they’ll be able to use their My Nintendo Points to jump into the online action.
It’s no secret Nintendo’s Online Service is nearing launch. With the service set to go live tomorrow, many people are getting ready to pay a premium price to play Nintendo games online for the first time ever. For some players, however, there’s an option to exchange My Nintendo Points for the upcoming subscription without having to spend any extra cash.
News of the ability to exchange points for online play comes by way of NintendoLife. According to a Nintendo FAQ page, gold points can be used to purchase a membership to Nintendo Switch Online through the eShop. It should be noted that points can only be used when purchasing a membership for the first time, as the option to auto-renew a subscription is not available.
Players can earn points by making qualifying purchases on either Nintendo.com or the eShop for the Nintendo Switch. Products eligible for earning points are distinguished on their respective store pages, including full game downloads and DLC packs. The standard system for gold points sees a 5% return on eligible purchases, which means buying a $60 game equates to $3 worth of gold points. Therefore, if someone is looking to buy a one-year membership to Nintendo Online (which runs $19.99 USD) for example, they’ll have to spend roughly $400 on qualifying eShop or Nintendo.com purchases.
It’s been a long time coming for the Nintendo Online Service to finally get here, and seeing there’s an option for dedicated fans to save some cash in the meantime is nice to see. While being able to get the jump on the online service at no extra cost is benefiting, it doesn’t hurt to also mention there’s still a possibility of losing cloud save information if a person’s subscription happens to end at any point, which makes the inability to auto-renew with My Nintendo Points an unfortunate missing feature.
The Nintendo Online Service brings with it many new features to the Nintendo Switch that have been revealed following the console’s launch back in March 2017. Along with the ability to upload saved data to the cloud (though not all games will support the feature), online play will now be exclusive to paying subscribers, while the introduction of NES – Nintendo Switch Online brings with it the ability to stream classic NES games right to a user’s Nintendo Switch.
