Switch Online + Expansion Pack feels like a real deal now

By Giovanni Colantonio February 10, 2022

Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack just got a huge power-up. During Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct, the company announced that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would receive new paid DLC in the form of 48 classic courses. The series of updates will keep the ever-popular racing game alive through 2023, ensuring it’ll stay dominant on Switch software sales charts.

The best news? It’ll be available free of charge to anyone who has an Expansion Pack subscription. No need to spend an additional $25.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass DLC – Nintendo Switch

That small announcement single-handedly rewrites the narrative for Nintendo’s controversial online service. While the company didn’t offer players a strong reason to sign up originally, the overall value is looking much better with the potential of more complimentary DLCs regularly coming to the service.

Extra, extra!

When Nintendo first announced its Expansion Pack service, it was met with immediate hostility. That was due to what may turn out to be a case of bad marketing. Nintendo’s initial pitch was that players could get access to Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games with their subscription. As an added bonus, they’d receive Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Happy Home Paradise DLC, but that was more of a perk than the focus.

For $50 a year, it seemed like a terrible value. The service would only launch with nine Nintendo 64 games. Players didn’t have hope that it would get a ton of updates every month considering the state of the NES and SNES service, and they were right to worry. Nintendo has only added one N64 game a month since the service launched. It didn’t help that the ports weren’t terribly elegant either, with a lack of button remapping options making games like Banjo-Kazooie difficult to play.

Nintendo games available on Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

At the end of the day, paying to play old games isn’t a strong deal. Savvy players know how to emulate classic games with relative ease. Unless Nintendo was offering the full N64 library, it was never going to win over skeptics in the Xbox Game Pass era.

With the Mario Kart DLC coming to the service, Expansion Pack is pulling a U-turn. It shifts the emphasis of the service to something that’s more valuable. Rather than gaining access to old games they’ve played to death, players are getting new content for modern Switch games. Want to try Mario Kart 8’s new-old tracks, but not sure if you want to spend the money? You won’t have to make that decision with an Expansion Pack subscription.

An old Mario course appears in Mario Kart 8. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s less the addition of Mario Kart DLC that’s exciting and more what it means for the service down the road. If Expansion Pack gives players access to every piece of new paid DLC in its first-party titles, the value of the service will quickly climb. Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Splatoon 3, and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes are all likely candidates for add-ons this year. Those, plus Mario Kart’s $25 track pass, could potentially cost players $100. An annual Expansion Pack membership is half the cost and comes with two libraries of retro games as an added bonus.

When I think about the potential here, I think back to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Fighter Passes. I bought both of them, costing me around $55, and barely played with my new characters. It was more a pricey curiosity purchase than anything. Frankly, that’s what most DLC is. I would have loved to have that included in my Nintendo Online subscription, alongside add-ons like Pokémon Sword and Shield’s Isle of Armor. A DLC subscription service is a perfect idea for someone who is casually interested in a lot of games, not heavily invested in a few.

DLC should have been the star of the service in the first place — they’re literally expansion packs, after all. Mario Kart 8’s track packs are a sign of life for gaming’s most ridiculed service, showing that Nintendo might have had a better long-term proposition all along. The question is just whether or not it can keep up that momentum … and with Nintendo Online, consistency is always dicey.

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Giovanni Colantonio

Section Editor, Gaming

Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…

Gaming

Nintendo Switch Online expands with Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Titles

nintendo switch online game boy advance gameboy games

During the February 2023 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced that it is adding Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Games to its Nintendo Switch Online service. Game Boy games will be available for basic subscribers, while the Game Boy Advance games are available for those who are subscribers of the premium Expansion Pack.

Nintendo Switch Online - Game Boy & Game Boy Advance Announcement - Nintendo Direct 2.8.23

Gaming

Goldeneye 007 comes to Game Pass and Nintendo Switch later this week

goldeneye 007 switch xbox release date january 27

Rare, Nintendo, and Xbox Game Studios confirmed that their remaster of classic Nintendo 64 FPS Goldeneye 007 will launch on January 27 across Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
GoldenEye 007 – Xbox Game Pass Date Reveal Trailer
For most, this long-awaited enhanced re-release will be locked behind a subscription service. On Nintendo Switch, the only way to play Goldeneye 007 is with a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass subscription, which grants players access to a variety of Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, NES, and SNES games alongside the DLC to some first-party Nintendo titles. That said, Microsoft has confirmed that the Nintendo Switch version of Goldeneye 007 will be the only one to feature online multiplayer, although it'll still be displayed in split-screen.
Meanwhile, the Xbox versions of Goldeneye 007 don't have online multiplayer but benefit from the addition of achievements and an upgraded 16:9 4K resolution. To play the game on Xbox, you'll need to either have an Xbox Game Pass subscription or own the gaming compilation Rare Replay that was released in 2015. Still, fans are probably happy that they'll just be able to experience this classic on a modern controller.
While it has aged quite a bit, Goldeneye 007 is a highly influential FPS game that also became an iconic Nintendo 64 release thanks to its fun multiplayer. Unfortunately, the license it's attached to likely prevented the game from getting a proper re-release until now. It was one of the best announcements in September's Nintendo Direct, and its launch will also technically mark the first Xbox first-party game released in 2022.
Goldeneye 007 releases for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on January 27.

Gaming

Nintendo’s mobile games are more influential than you might think

Alear and Marth open a door in Fire Emblem Engage.

Nintendo’s mobile games don’t get enough credit. While Nintendo had some undeniable hits like Pokémon Go and Fire Emblem Heroes, many consider the rest of its mobile efforts fairly underwhelming and even somewhat disappointing for a video game company of Nintendo’s stature. While nothing ever quite reached the high bar Pokémon Go set in 2016, Nintendo’s mobile games are a bit more influential than they get credit for.
Over the past few years, games like Pokémon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have built upon their mobile counterparts. Then, during the September 13 Nintendo Direct, Fire Emblem Engage’s announcement and main gimmick cemented that Nintendo isn’t just viewing mobile games as a mostly failed side experiment. While they might not be the most successful games out there, their DNA is creeping into the Nintendo Switch’s bestselling titles.
Mediocre mobile returns
Nintendo’s mobile gaming efforts kicked off in the mid-2010s. Niantic created the AR game Pokemon Go, which quickly became a smashing success in 2016. In the six years since, the game has generated around 678 million installs and $6 billion in player spending, according to data from Sensor Tower.
While working with Niantic proved fruitful for The Pokemon Company, Nintendo partnered with DeNA for most of its initial mobile games. Unfortunately, none of these quite reached the heights analysts and Nintendo expected. Super Mario Run was a smash hit at launch but failed to sustain much interest and consistent revenue, so it’s considered a disappointment by Nintendo.
Meanwhile, other games like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, Dr. Mario World, and Dragalia Lost launched, and while they’ve still made lots of money for Nintendo, most haven't matched the success of the most popular mobile titles. The biggest exception to this is Fire Emblem Heroes, a gacha game where players can summon classic Fire Emblem characters. It’s had over $1 billion in player spending alone as of June 2022 and is Nintendo’s “flagship title on the [mobile} platform,” according to Sensor Tower.
More recently, Nintendo tried to recapture the success of Pokemon Go with Niantic’s Pikmin Bloom, although that game has reportedly disappointed as well. Overall, it’s understandable why some people are surprised to see only a couple of surefire mobile hits from a company with the pedigree of Nintendo and consider it a side venture that never realized its full potential. If you look closely at the console games in these series that Nintendo put out since, though, it isn’t ignoring everything learned while making mobile games.
Mobile's monumental impact
Nintendo has the masterful ability to find the strongest elements of an idea, draw those out, and then expand upon them to create something uniquely memorable. We’ve seen it do this time and time again with subsequent entries of its flagship series, but it’s a mindset it has applied to its mobile games upon closer inspection.
As far back as 2018, Pokemon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee recognized the charm of not needing to battle a Pokemon to capture it, and incorporated that into a traditional RPG experience. More recently, items and mechanics like gardening and cooking from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp made their way into Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was able to revive its live service offerings by repurposing the best tracks and assets from Mario Kart Tour.
Fire Emblem Engage – Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch
The legacy of Nintendo’s mobile games could also be felt in the September 13 Nintendo Direct. The showcase’s first announcement was Fire Emblem Engage, which is turn-based strategy game where the main gimmick is being able to summon classic Fire Emblem characters with a ring. While it doesn’t look like Fire Emblem Engage goes full gacha, it’s clear that Nintendo recognized how people liked collecting and using classic Fire Emblem characters in a new adventure, so the developers drew and expanded upon that idea for Fire Emblem Engage.
Before the announcement of Pikmin 4, Shigeru Miyamoto also took a lot of time to highlight Pikmin Bloom. While we don’t know much about Pikmin 4’s gameplay, Nintendo could find some aspects of that game’s exploratory experience, weekly challenges, or something I’m not even thinking of to freshen up the next mainline game. The same could even happen with Super Mario Run the next time Nintendo decides to make a 2D Mario game.
While watching Fire Emblem Engage’s reveal during the latest Nintendo Direct, it became clear that Nintendo’s mobile games have quietly become influential forces in the company's console games. Nintendo has slowly plucked the best ideas out of them and brought them into Switch games without extra monetization. While the future is cloudy for Nintendo's seemingly stalled mobile push, I hope the company can still find a place for its games on mobile, using the platform as a space to experiment with its beloved series.