Ecco the Dolphin was always terrible.

"So then the other person got the ball And they
ran with it? How interesting. Please, do go on..."

-Me, sarcastically

Yeah, but does anyone actually want Ecco the Dolphin? The answer, of course, is no, but Nintendo sure thinks that it, and a couple dozen other thirty-year old games justify a thirty dollar price increase for their online service. Don't worry, I'll nerdsplain, but if you're not a retro game person then this will be incredibly uninteresting for you. Like, sports or stories about other people's kids and or pets are to me. Anyway, brace yourself, a grown up with a job and everything is about to offer unsolicited opinions about a video game thing. 

Where is that pill supposed to go,
and wait--is he even licensed? 

Nintendo Switch, like the other game consoles, has an online service. And like those services, Nintendo Switch Online let's you play games with friends, save progress in the cloud, and even includes access to some NES and Super NES games. Which is great, except after a few months or steadily releasing classics like Zelda and Mario, the flow became an irregular trickle of obscure and often mediocre titles that they should really see a doctor about. I mean, literally no one ever asked to revisit Bombuzal or Joe and Mac 2. And Claymates? I ask you...

The Republican Party immediately
claimed that the poll was rigged and
 have demanded a full investigation.

But it's twenty bucks, so fine, take it. Then someone at Nintendo decided to see where that line was. Like, when does a shameless nostalgia grab run into the harsh reality of overpriced. In a couple of weeks, players will be able to add Sega Genesis and N64 games to their Switch Online Service if they're willing to part with another thrifty dollars per year. Something a lot of fans are unwiling to do according to this poll in which 43% of respondents described the add on as "an absolute rip-off."

It'd go as high as twenty if they'd ditch
Ecco The Dolphin. Seriously, it's awful.

And yeah, I mean, given the track record Nintendo has for supporting a service at the outset and then forgetting about it for months only to add goddamn Brawl Brothers and not one, but three games about cavemen, that tracks. Sure, the initial roster of games is pretty great, like, I'd play Starfox 64 and Paper Mario again, and sure, the Genesis list includes some great games but it's just not worth a thirty dollar price bump. And surely they must have market research telling them this, right?

For twenty-five years non-pirated copies of 
Bloodlines were rare and exorbitant but now
Konami's giving it away like AOL discs in the 90's.

Speaking of research, the going theory on the internet now is that it's the licensing fees for the third party Genesis titles that's accounting for most of that thirty dollar increase. Which, if true, is a baffling move on the part of Nintendo since most of the Genesis games on offer have recently been re-released on Switch, some of them--specifically the Konami and Capcom ones, have been re-released more than once. So why they feel it sweetens the pot enough to get people to upgrade is an open question. We're suckers for nostalgia, but we're not dumb. Ok...not always, anyway.

Unless they don't care if people sign up right away. This is, after all, a business and maybe the smart thing to do is to set a price, see who pays it and then if players are slow to sign up, drop it or throw in Gameboy games or something until people come around. 

Or they could just slap Mother 3 up there and make all the money
in the world, but I don't want to tell them how to business...