The first choice is to Pay 25 dollars, and keep it indefinitely on your switch. And if you wish for online play, you just pay for it separately. I would think standard online should also still work here if you chose this path.
The second choice is to get an expanded switch online subscription. Along with the DLC, you'll also access Sega/N64 games as they become available - But you don't own the DLC, and must renew the subscription each year to access it.
The price for the expanded online part varies: It's 50 dollars for an individual subscription, and 80 dollars for a family plan. The family plan supports up to 8 switches, and could be manually rationed up between players to pay for it. Of course, setting something like that up might be a bit complicated.
I personally would rather just keep it simple just buy the DLC and keep indefinitely, and only pay for online when I really want it. But I'm quite curious about other people's opinions as well.
I'll be buying the DLC outright, with the Nintendo Online subscription separate. I'd much rather own the DLC than rent it, I'm not really interested in the Sega/N64 games, and the expanded subscription plan is a lot pricier than the normal one. If anybody's uncertain on the DLC, though, and if you do want to play the retro games, I think it's a fairly decent option—just not for me.
I don’t see myself taking advantage of the other features in the membership plan. And I would be saving more money with a one time purchase so I’m just going to directly pay for it.
I'm purchasing the DLC separately. I've already paid off a year of NSO just last month and to get the Expansion Pack version, it'd cost me 70$ CAD, and quite frankly I'm not super interested in N64 and Sega emulation, when I already own both consoles. Just hooking them up is a bit annoying.
I'll be purchasing the DLC on its own and keep buying the standard Nintendo Switch Online subscription separately. Not only do I want to own the DLC permanently, I've never liked how they've handled making older games available on the Switch by tying it to Nintendo Switch Online compared to the ability to purchase older games individually on the 3DS, Wii, and Wii U. Nintendo Switch Online itself is barely worth paying for considering they seemingly made no improvements compared to the free Internet connectivity we had on those other consoles.
I neither agree with nor support Nintendo's current practices and such behavior is pushing me away from being interested in continuing to purchase Nintendo consoles in the future. The only reason I'm putting up with things to the degree I am is because I own and enjoy Animal Crossing New Horizons and will get more enjoyment from the DLC and I use Online to play with friends and people on the forums here in Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and such. I own the console so I should get what I want out of it, right? But I'm feeling burned and don't have a good outlook for things moving forward.
I'm buying it standalone. I have never permanently kept up online subscriptions for video game consoles. Those costs can add up over time, so I only want to pay for it when I'm actively using it. Plus my husband, who has no interest in playing online (he just has me trade for things he wants using my account), doesn't have an online account but would want to use the DLC. That's not possible with the online subscription rental method.
I don't currently have an NSO subscription but I do plan to buy 1 year when this update comes out. But I will get the cheaper $20 per year tier, not the expanded tier. The expanded tier doesn't have enough value to make it worth paying an extra $30 per year.
It'd be much cheaper for me to just buy the dlc outright. I don't get enough use out of Nintendo Online to justify paying more for it, even with N64 games (just because I already own an N64 and the games I like, to be fair)
I'll be getting the standalone version of the DLC for a couple of reasons. One is to own it permanently, since HHP is definitely something that I'd like to make sure I have access to forever even if at some point I decide to drop a tier or drop NSO altogether. Two is that while I'd like to upgrade to the NSO + Expansion Pack tier in the future, I definitely don't want to upgrade to it right away, so I'd have to wait at least a few months before getting access to the DLC if I didn't buy the standalone version instead.
I'm considering getting the NSO+Expansion for a year, then seeing where to go from there. I share a subscription with my boyfriend and my family, so hopefully we'll get enough use out of it to make up for the extreme costs, but since Super Mario 64 got released both as part of Super Mario 3D Allstars and the expansion pack, I'm crossing my fingers the few games I care about will get physical releases, and I can switch back to the normal membership eventually.
Definitely buying the DLC on its own - I'm on a friend's (regular) family plan currently for online features and I don't see myself using the other features offered in the expanded version to get it on my own. If the DLC was permanently unlocked with a year's subscription of expanded NSO, I might try it, but I don't really like that you can only access it for as long as you keep paying the subscription, so I'd rather just actually own it.
It seems there is very little reason to buy the package. It is not much of a deal, and if you lose access to HHP after a year if you don’t continue the subscription, it really does not seem worth it unless you really think you will play more N64/Sega.
Outright and maintain my current NSO plan. I just feel it’s overall safer that way. Which actually brings a question, does the DLC require NSO subs to be able to play? I do have it separately I just suddenly wondered how about players who don’t have the online subs will they be able to play?
No, you'll still be able to play it but some features (I think mainly just being able to view and upload homes onto the in-game Happy Home Network app) will be unavailable.
No, you'll still be able to play it but some features (I think mainly just being able to view and upload homes onto the in-game Happy Home Network app) will be unavailable.
i plan to pay to own it permanently, i don’t like the idea of paying $50 dollars a year for the expansion pack. i prefer to make a one time payment and own it permanently anyway.
On Friday after the announcement I checked Reddit and various other places online. There's a LOT of people hating on the expanded subscription and very few saying they were getting it. The people who were paying for it were mostly wanting to play games like Starfox 64.
I personally think there isn't enough value in it right now. Maybe it'll feel better later, once there's more N64/Genesis games on the service and if they add other features. But right now I feel like Nintendo is trying to do this to creep up the price of NSO. I would not be surprised if eventually (like in a few years from now) the $20 tier is phased out and you are forced to pay for the $50/year tier. It would put them more in line with Sony and Microsoft's pricing.
