The dream of free online services for consoles games has reached the end. The Nintendo Switch’s online service will launch in the second half of September. Below are the pricing plans.
The plans are considerably cheaper than the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Their yearly plans are $60 but they have more games with online features than Nintendo. Their online service will include online play for their titles, save cloud data backup, special deals, and their mobile app for in-game communications. They will also have some free online games. It will launch with 20 NES games with online play features which allow you to play with others.
As long as you have the paid service, you can play the games whenever. It is interesting to see Nintendo have a huge price difference. If Nintendo Switch Online does extremely well and more players move to Nintendo to play online, it may lead to PlayStation and Xbox to reduce their rates. I don’t play any of my Nintendo games online but it will be interesting to see how the market reacts.
Discord, the popular chat, video, and communications app, will begin offering video games with their Nitro services. Nitro is a subscription platform for $4.99/month that offers users more abilities for chat such as gif uploads and custom tags. The price will still be $4.99 per month or $49.99 a year but will soon involve video games! Discord Nitro will have its own library of games available to stream or purchase. The beta will launch to 50,000 Canadians soon but expects to go to more regions at a later date.
How do they compete?
This is direct competition against Steam and Twitch. Twitch is becoming a PC game streaming service and has monthly free games. Discord is trying to differentiate itself by connecting it with their chat platform and community. Discord has always been greatly enjoyed by users because easy to set up and its developers are gamers too. They interact with fans and have a better social media presence than Steam or Twitch. Games are catered to you based on your interest but Discord employees can leave small recommendations about the game.
Hope they didn’t steal this review
While they can’t compete with Steam’s library, Discord will have partnerships with THQ and Deep Silver. Having Nitro will also give you access to games without paying such as Saints Row: The Third, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, Super Meat Boy and Metro: Last Light Redux. You can buy games at their online stores.
They will start their own exclusives called “First on Discord.” They will be indie games that “pushes the boundary of creative game design and is important to innovation and the long-term health of the industry.” They will also have games from Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Overwatch) and Epic (Fortnite). The split between Discord and game is 30 – 70 which is similar to all platforms.
They won’t have every game out but if you’re looking to have a smaller library, perhaps this is an option for you! Steam is very cluttered in comparison but is widely used by all PC gamers. Whether Nitro can compete with them or Twitch will be interesting as game streaming becomes more popular.
Didn’t watch the direct at 7am like most people?! Don’t worry, I have it covered in this TL; DW for the Nintendo Direct. The game shown was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and it showcased many new characters and info about the game. The animation was stellar in the direct.
New Characters!
Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series joins the list of fighters. His moveset is reminiscent of his NES/SNES whips, items, and attacks.
Echo fighter for Simon: Richter. The voice, animation, and a few moves are different.
King K. Rool joins the fray from the Donkey Kong series. Another big fan request! This fatty comes with his classic rifle, huge stomach strike, and castle!
Alucard is an assist trophy.
The Castlevaniastage featuring the monsters, bosses, and Dracula is Dracula’s Castle. If you hit the candles, it will release items! No wall chickens yet but Dracula only appears at specific times…
Chrom from Fire Emblems Awakening and Dark Samus from Metroid Prime join as Echo Fighters!
You can have echo fighters on the fighter select option
New Stages:
New Donk City Hall from Mario Odyssey. Platforms are rising and falling as you move around the stage. The musicians and Daisy appear as well. The theme of Odyssey will also appear
Returning stages from Melee will include some rebalance changes.
N64 stages are meant to be classic and nostalgic for players
There are now 103 stages to choose from. Every stage has an Omega and Battlefield form.
Every stage now has 8-player mode!
You can turn stage hazards off
A new option called Stage Morph! You can have a stage change midmatch and alter the time when it occurs. Just select two stages before the fight.
Not just Final Destination
Music:
Stages now have tracks based on the franchise. You will be able to hear different tracks and can change the frequency of how often it plays!
900 tracks! It is separated by franchises. You can make a playlist
You can listen to it with the screen turned off. Not sure anybody will be casually carrying their Switch to listen to music.
Turn up the jam!
New Battle Options and Rules
You can finally start with stock instead of time.
Whatever option you left it at before is saved.
Stamina battle is now a standard option
Stages are selected before fighters. This gives you the option to choose your character based on the stage if you play competitively.
You can make the option to have the loser choose the stage.
Sudden Death will cause the screen to zoom in to add drama and shorten the KO borders!
Final Smash Meter rather than a Smash Ball. It will charge as you fight but it will be weaker than a Final Smash Ball version
Final Smashes can’t occur at the same time! So no Samus vs Dark Samus Final Smash beam clash
The options are meant for competitive play so it’ll be interesting to see how the Smash community changes with these new options!
Battle Modes
Squad Strike: 5v5 or 3v3
Start team fights online with players choosing multiple characters. You can do it solo or with multiple players
Tourney Mode: Start your own tournament and brackets! IT can go up to 32 players.
Smashdown: After each round, those fighters are unselectable and you’ll have to choose different characters. It continues until there are no more characters left
Training Mode Map: It will show you how the characters fight and how they will react based on hits
Classic: Fight through a set number of characters and stages similar to Melee’s adventure mode
Solve for X
Items:
Banana gun: Shoots one strong bullet before becoming a banana peel
Killing Edge: Sword which will glow to grow stronger
Bomber: Lift it up and it’ll explode and damage enemies around you
Death’s Scythe: It kills you…if you’re badly damaged
Staff: shoots a laser but it deals more damage the further the enemy is from you
The Gaming News Corner 