nintendo switch Nintendo Switch Online Service costs money

[JCBiggs]

5 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

You know companies are business that have a end goal of making money and to not give out free stuff.

Also it is a lot more then just a few racks.

so what?  even if they spent 20 million on the server, they still would of had 254 million profit.  

 

heaven forbid shareholders make 11 cents instead of 12. 

[The Benjamins]

1 minute ago, JCBiggs said:

so what?  even if they spent 20 million on the server, they still would of had 254 million profit.  

 

heaven forbid shareholders make 11 cents instead of 12. 

How does making less money make sense? that is like if you donate 10% of you salary for the next few years.

 

And as investors I would throw out a CEO if they keep effecting profits with out a valid reason why.

 

It is like people got conditioned to "free" services, then get mad when they want to charge or when they sell your data.

[JCBiggs]

Just now, The Benjamins said:

How does making less money make sense? that is like if you donate 10% of you salary for the next few years.

 

And as investors I would throw out a CEO if they keep effecting profits with out a valid reason why.

 

It is like people got conditioned to "free" services, then get mad when they want to charge or when they sell your data.

oh i dont know... maybe so the foster kid that has to share a PS4 and cant afford online play, or have  credit card to buy it with, would actually buy it knowing he can play online for free.

 

enable hosting on the consoles, share updates like windows 10 does, and your need for an expensive server drops  exponentially.  its not hard. 

[79wjd]

26 minutes ago, JCBiggs said:

oh i dont know... maybe so the foster kid that has to share a PS4 and cant afford online play, or have  credit card to buy it with, would actually buy it knowing he can play online for free.

 

enable hosting on the consoles, share updates like windows 10 does, and your need for an expensive server drops  exponentially.  its not hard. 

This might sound crazy, but that foster kids isn't entitled to shit. That might sound harsh, but that's reality, just like he isn't entitled to a free Ferrari just because he might want one.

 

If you can't afford something, then you can't have the something. It's neither the seller's fault nor the seller's problem that you can't afford something.

 

Also, if you can't afford the extra $20-$60/year to play online, then you should have more important priorities than buying a console/video games.

[Sniperfox47]

1 hour ago, JCBiggs said:

enable hosting on the consoles, share updates like windows 10 does, and your need for an expensive server drops  exponentially.  its not hard. 

You say that like it's simple, but it's really *really* not.

 

Games are tuned to leverage the console's relatively weak CPUs as fully as they can. This is one reason why a console game can drastically outperform a similar PC game on very similar hardware. Adding a bunch of extra CPU overhead for dedicated server processing on the console itself simply isn't feasible for a lot of different titles.

 

That's not to mention the fact that games sell on their CX and allowing custom games to be running on a given console that may not have sufficient upload speed or stability negatively impacts CX.

 

On the update front you're talking totally different beasts. Windows update can do what it does because they cache a ton of update data on your console to allow you to roll back updates. On consoles they can't really do that. If they started caching all of the patches your system downloads, taking up substantially more data on users consoles, there would be more than a mild uproar. That's not even considering the massive technical hurdles you'd have with regards to security, user perception of you using their internet to deliver updates to other users, or that there are often several different versions of a different delta update, dependent of what version of the game users are coming from.

 

You strike me as someone who's never actually dealt with any of this and has no idea what he's talking about.

 

This is not an easy problem. This is not a new problem. This is not a problem that lacks people working on it. This same issue of large scale content delivery is something that the larger Linux distros have been fighting with for years. This is something that the Android Marketplace had serious issues with before Google just YOLOed it and sunk an insane amount of money into scaling out GCP.

 

 

3 hours ago, Thaldor said:

On console side there is one pretty huge cap you forget. You need the developer console and that is not something you get for free.

 

Microsoft seems to be the only one that offers 2 free dev consoles for ID@Xbox developers, but if they haven't changed anything from the Xbox 360 that means you will be creating Microsoft exclusive games and you already need to have some portfolio (Xbox 360 dev kit for a startup without exclusivity would have been around 10-20k$ IIRC). If you are not ready to sell your soul to Microsoft, developer console is going to pay you around 500$ (normal Xbox) and then a dependable monthly fee (from hundreds of dollars to thousands).

 

PS4 dev kit has costed 2500$, but there's probably also negotiation extras for bigger developers and price varies greatly what publishing model you are taking (PS exclusive, timed exclusive or multi platform). [not confirmed anyway ranting] Looking at something like Death Stranding which originally was going to be a multi-platform game but turned out to be (at least for now) PS4 exclusive, I would say Sony also takes a note how anticipated your game is and that also might add some extra to the price of the dev kit.

 

Nintendo notes that developing on the Nintendo platforms is free. You just register and download Unity APIs and start developing, but that part is also free on PS4 and Xbox. Because you really cannot optimize the game for the hardware without the dev kit. Little looking and Switch dev kit pricing starts from 450$ (I believe here also is negotiation bonuses, you make a Nintedo exclusive and get the dev kit cheaper or even free, you make a multi-platform release and you pay more).

Quite many bigger developers get free dev kits quite easily, but smaller ones are in some trouble if they are not ready to sell their souls. Then there is the amount of support, the more you move towards the exclusivity the more support and help you get to optimize your game. And then there are the "additional fees" which include insurances (for PR disasders and legal problems, usually around 1-20k$), age ratings (PEGI and so on), good fist rule for indies is around 2k$/market area (US, EU, Asia, AUS+NZ, S.America so on) for localization and regional costs. But from these usually only the insurances are demanded by the platform (Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo) and some regional fees are demanded by the market place (for ID@Xbox US region is included into the participation, does not include the insurances).

 

In other hand Valve doesn't care. They don't ask insurances incase of your mistakes (copyright and others), you don't need dev kits, you can easily drop the regional fees out because age ratings and others are really enforced only on physical products (at least Microsoft wants these done even for digital only games just because reasons and even after all the costs, if you F'ed up and get inside of a copyright hell, you are on your own, that insurance and all are jsut to cover the Microsofts press release about not being any part of your company). SO, yeah that 30% is more than 15%, but there isn't any additional costs (except for Unity or Unreal with their 5-10% cut but that includes every platform and every company after enough profits).

You're kidding right? $4500 (the cost of a PS4 dev kit) is nothing. Literally nothing. Even for an indie developer.

 

You sell your game at $20 and even sell a measily 10,000 copies. That makes $200,000 gross, or $170,000 gross revenue after a 15% cut. $4500 of that is 2.25% of your revenue... 2.25% at a tiny 10,000 copies... The extra 15% that Steam takes is an additional $30,000 by comparison and that number goes up as you sell more copies.

 

If you are a serious indie studio making a game that actually takes into proper consideration your audience and builds a decent game you're selling a hell of a lot more than 10,000 copies. Especially on console.

 

I also just want to point out that Sony was, at least a couple years back, no longer selling Dev kits. They were renting them out on a 1-year basis free of charge to indie devs looking to develop for the platform and who had a game ready to bring to the platform. I'm not talking dedicated games on that platform, I'm talking devs for games like Stardew Valley, Fez, Ruiner, and the like which were PC titles being ported to the PS4.

 

The only people who the $4500 price tag is going to matter to in any way are small-time solo devs which are not the developers consoles are intended for, and asset flippers who don't belong on any store.

 

ESRB short-form certification which any game that's being uploaded to only a digital storefront is encouraged to use, is free. It's being depreciated in favor of IARC ratings which every storefront that requires ESRB ratings (except PSN) supports, and PSN plans to support #Soon™. IARC ratings are also free and are international.

 

P.S. Steam requires development hardware too btw... It's just that the nature of the platform makes the development hardware more open. You still require a PC capable of running the software and the platform (Windown/Mac/Linux) the software is going to run on 

[Tech Enthusiast]

3 hours ago, JCBiggs said:

oh i dont know... maybe so the foster kid that has to share a PS4 and cant afford online play, or have  credit card to buy it with, would actually buy it knowing he can play online for free.

 

enable hosting on the consoles, share updates like windows 10 does, and your need for an expensive server drops  exponentially.  its not hard. 

Because this imaginary kid that can buy a 300$ console and a 70$ game, can't afford 2 bucks for the server.

Gotcha.

[michaelocarroll007]

On 8/6/2018 at 3:37 PM, Dan Castellaneta said:

People always argue that Steam is free, but they tend to miss a big part of why it's free. Where Valve gets you is that they take a cut of every game sale, and if it's a Valve game they take 100% of that, basically, and use it towards their company. Steam's servers are maintained through Valve's cut of the purchase they get from every game sale.

Now, the difference between Steam and, say, Xbox Live, is that not everyone buys digital games on Xbox Live, while almost everyone buys digitally on Steam. They gotta charge otherwise they can't competently keep the servers running.

Uhhh PS and Microsoft get money from every copy sold in stores also ( Its less though they get the Retailer $ when sold online) 

 

On 8/6/2018 at 2:51 PM, Demonking said:

It's sad to see so many on here accepting this anti consumer bullshit, This is not ok steam, GOG, origin, and even the trash uplay offers free online.

Your trashing them for charging but honestly  back when Xbox was the only paid service its Online was vastly superior then the free consoles, Then PS4 came out and had paid online and now it has good online and nintendo has lagged behind sucking at online. if $20 a year gets decent online features then im okay with it. 

 

Steam  and other PC types of digtal games are set up differently, and steam only as of this month started offering chat partys something consoles have had for years and the others dont offer..... I agree PSN and XBL are over priced currently they do bring something to the table over the free alternatives over the years. 

 

[I-r0k]

Is it just me or did they say online content would be free? Or is my memory just that bad? 

[79wjd]

34 minutes ago, I-r0k said:

Is it just me or did they say online content would be free? Or is my memory just that bad? 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/13/14261018/nintendo-switch-paid-online-subscription-service-membership

 

Quote

but the company confirmed at its Switch launch event in Tokyo today that a premium online service would replace its previous model of letting players access multiplayer for free.

 

“Users will be able to try out Nintendo Switch online services for free during a trial period after launch,” Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said onstage. “Then it will become a paid service beginning in the fall of 2017. We will provide additional details on this paid service and its features on our home page at a later date.”

-- January 2017 (the switch launched in March)

[Trik'Stari]

Meanwhile:

 

It costs me nothing to play Battlefield 1 online on my PC every single night of the week, not that I do, I play maybe 3 nights a week, but I could if I wanted to. And the same is true for every single game I have on Steam as well.

 

On 8/6/2018 at 1:22 PM, adm0n said:

Every Console manufacturer charges money for their online experience. Servers cost money to maintain and they like to have an amount they can work with every month.

 

I think both microsoft and playstation offerings a 3 times as expensive.
Also it isn't payed yet, it was supposed to start last year, so one can hope ...

Why is it that Steam and Origin can afford this, but console manufacturers cannot?

 

The simple answer is that they totally can. However they don't want to, and don't have to because they've locked into their platform and have no issues with bilking you for something you already payed for, an internet connection.

 

 

One could argue that ISP's are entitled to a cut of that subscription, the same way they might argue they are entitled to a cut of your subscription to Netflix or any other streaming service.

 

 

"ooooh no, everything just got more expensive for no actual reason (because these companies are making insane profits or are losing money because they think having 70% of a games budget being marketing is actually necessary.)"

[Demonking]

23 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Learn what being anti consumer actually is. Charging for a service isn't anti consumer.

 

Stop being an entitled brat.

whatever corporate slave. buying a game and having half and in some cases all its content locked behind a pay wall is anti consumer, no matter how you try to damage control it. 

[Demonking]

23 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You posted a video debunking that CDNs cost an insane amount of money to operate?

 

You posted a video debunking that PC marketplaces and console marketplaces are totally different revenue models?

 

The only video you posted was a 25 minute long PCMR rant about how PCs offer a superior experience by being free (which they're not).

 

Valve supports their service through microtransactions (which costs users money) and by shortchanging developers. You can argue all you want that that's better or worse, but it is in no way "anticonsumer" to have a different revenue model.

 

GOG doesn't operate a CDN on anywhere near the same scale as Valve but they take the same cut of revenue from game sales. 30%. Notice how that's still double what consoles take?

 

Can't argue with corporate slaves. point is its free on GOG,steam Origin and uplay, Battle net and epic too.No justifying it.

[Gikero]

On 8/6/2018 at 1:36 PM, Bigbootyjudy said:

At least it doesn't cost $10 a month like psn. Geez it gets expensive, especially for a doofus like me who is too lazy to buy the annual subscription

At least you're aware that your laziness costs you more.

 

 

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Demonking said:

buying a game and having half and in some cases all its content locked behind a pay wall is anti consumer,

It would be if companies tried to hide it. They don't.

 

It's just a company asking proper compensation for a service they provide.

2 minutes ago, Demonking said:

point is its free on GOG,steam Origin and uplay, Battle net and epic too.No justifying it.

It's easy to justify, Sony and Microsoft offer superior online services AND host nearly all game servers for nearly all the games on their platforms.

 

Console manufacturers take a smaller cut from the devs, who must fork over for every single sale. Whereas the only people paying for premium services are the ones that want premium services.

 

And here's something no one brought up, ANY and ALL games that use servers exclusively ran by the developers do not require PS+ or XBL Gold. Just like PC, you don't have to pay extra for what few games do this.

 

 

And again, don't like it, don't buy it.

 

You have no entitlement to play video games. You have no entitlement to the game servers ran by anyone else. You should be grateful that developers offer free online on any platform, instead of being a whiny, entitled bitch.

[Demonking]

5 hours ago, michaelocarroll007 said:

Uhhh PS and Microsoft get money from every copy sold in stores also ( Its less though they get the Retailer $ when sold online) 

 

Your trashing them for charging but honestly  back when Xbox was the only paid service its Online was vastly superior then the free consoles, Then PS4 came out and had paid online and now it has good online and nintendo has lagged behind sucking at online. if $20 a year gets decent online features then im okay with it. 

 

Steam  and other PC types of digtal games are set up differently, and steam only as of this month started offering chat partys something consoles have had for years and the others dont offer..... I agree PSN and XBL are over priced currently they do bring something to the table over the free alternatives over the years. 

 

once again Steam is free and superior to all of them origin as well. " steam only as of this month started offering chat partys something consoles have had for years" That's is not true steam has had that years. 

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

You have no entitlement to play video games. You have no entitlement to the game servers ran by anyone else. You should be grateful that developers offer free online on any platform, instead of being a whiny, entitled bitch.

Sorry, but you can't play on-line with friends (not using matchmaking services) on PS or Xbox. This isn't a service that requires a server to host. There's very little reason to bar all on-line interaction. 

 

For example: Parties on Xbox. Not a Live user? No chatting with more than one person using Live (I think they even block direct voice chat now).

[79wjd]

13 minutes ago, Demonking said:

Can't argue with corporate slaves. point is its free on GOG,steam Origin and uplay, Battle net and epic too.No justifying it.

BattleNet.... as in Blizzard..... as in World of Warcraft...... as in the game that you have to pay $15/month to play?

[Demonking]

1 minute ago, 79wjd said:

BattleNet.... as in Blizzard..... as in World of Warcraft...... as in the game that you have to pay $15/month to play?

as in overwatch as in diablo 3 also destiny 2 all of which are free.funny how you left those games out.

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, Demonking said:

as in overwatch as in diablo 3 also destiny 2 all of which are free.funny how you left those games out.

Sony and Microsoft are evil for charging to use their online servers. BattleNet charges you to use their online servers and yet they're not evil for some reason. It's ironic, although I clearly shouldn't expect you to be able to understand that based on the position of the rest of your entitled arguments.

[Demonking]

Just now, 79wjd said:

Sony and Microsoft are evil for charging to use their online servers. BattleNet charges you to use their online servers and yet they're not evil for some reason. It's ironic, although I clearly wouldn't expect you to be able to understand that based on the position of the rest of your entitled arguments.

Sony,Microsoft and nintendo don't run the servers of the 3rd party games the 3rd party do. Those are activision,EA,ubisoft ect servers.

[Demonking]

16 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

It would be if companies tried to hide it. They don't.

 

It's just a company asking proper compensation for a service they provide.

It's easy to justify, Sony and Microsoft offer superior online services AND host nearly all game servers for nearly all the games on their platforms.

 

Console manufacturers take a smaller cut from the devs, who must fork over for every single sale. Whereas the only people paying for premium services are the ones that want premium services.

 

And here's something no one brought up, ANY and ALL games that use servers exclusively ran by the developers do not require PS+ or XBL Gold. Just like PC, you don't have to pay extra for what few games do this.

 

 

And again, don't like it, don't buy it.

 

You have no entitlement to play video games. You have no entitlement to the game servers ran by anyone else. You should be grateful that developers offer free online on any platform, instead of being a whiny, entitled bitch.

They don't provide those servers the 3rd parties do so i shouldn't have to pay them shit to play call of duty battlefield ect online. My $60 i paid for the game go to that online for said game so yeah i am entitle to it.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Sorry, but you can't play on-line with friends (not using matchmaking services) on PS or Xbox.

Actually, you can.

Happy Wars (Xbox Only)

Warthunder

World of Tanks

Hawken

Elder Scrolls online

Warframe

Smite

DC Universe

Blacklight Retribution

Loadout

15 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

This isn't a service that requires a server to host.

Actually, it does. Most games use Microsoft or Sony servers, for the very minimum, matchmaking. More often than not, game servers are Sony and Microsoft servers.

7 minutes ago, Demonking said:

Sony,Microsoft and nintendo don't run the servers of the 3rd party games the 3rd party do. Those are activision,EA,ubisoft ect servers.

Most games on PS4 and Xbox One/360 are using servers ran by Microsoft and Sony. Any that don't, are free to play online.

[adm0n]

6 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

Why is it that Steam and Origin can afford this, but console manufacturers cannot?

 

The simple answer is that they totally can. However they don't want to, and don't have to because they've locked into their platform and have no issues with bilking you for something you already payed for, an internet connection

If they are a traded company, of course they could, they could also cut the price of their next game in half ... But this would make them less money, they can put into game devs and selling consoles and and ...

You didn't bring up a new point there, it is the same thing we have bin talking about for 5 pages ._. It is a service, that requires the console manufactures to invest in something. Just because someone is giving that away for free, doesn't mean, that everyone should or could.

7 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

One could argue that ISP's are entitled to a cut of that subscription, the same way they might argue they are entitled to a cut of your subscription to Netflix or any other streaming service.

No, not at all. You are paying your ISP for the Hardware that goes out of your house and connects you to the internet. You are being charged by the console manufactures for the hardware, that lets you play with other people and the software too (matchmaking and so on). Also they really would like Netflix and Youtube to pay them extra ... But they can't do that if net neutrality isn't being abandoned.

 

7 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

"ooooh no, everything just got more expensive for no actual reason (because these companies are making insane profits or are losing money because they think having 70% of a games budget being marketing is actually necessary.)"

Well, I don't know as much about marketing, so I don't want to comment about that.
But in the last couple of years game development has become so much more expensive. It is very surprising that they haven't raised the amount of money they take per game. At the same time, it is a miracle that any game is made at all, if you read about the situations under which they are made. But this doesn't really have to do with anything ._.

[79wjd]

 

Quote

One could argue that ISP's are entitled to a cut of that subscription, the same way they might argue they are entitled to a cut of your subscription to Netflix or any other streaming service.

ISPs likely do get a cut, just not from you, but rather from peering agreements. The servers are hosted on some CDN, that CDN is going to be paying for peering (to plug their servers into the ISPs network at certain locations) either to the terminating network or to some backbone like Level 3.

[Kukielka]

Weren't there like 2 threads that were pretty much the same already?