February 28th 2020 archive

Please stop making us pay twice, consoles.

One of the things that I have really come to dislike about new-generation consoles is that now you have to pay on all three of them to be able to access online play. Before, the only one that you had to do this with was Microsoft, and it was a foregone conclusion that you would have to because it was this way from the start. After several years, Sony hopped on the bandwagon as well. But Nintendo held out for awhile, and I enjoyed being able to play online games for free on their consoles… at least until they finally hopped aboard the pay-to-play subscription model and went full steam ahead requiring that you purchase an online subscription to be able to access online play with the Nintendo Switch. And although their online subscription is much cheaper than Microsoft and Sony’s, the fact of the matter still stands that they eventually hopped aboard the bandwagon as well, and now all three of the new-gen consoles require that you pay for an online subscription to be able to access online play in addition to, well, paying for the Internet as well. So you’re essentially paying twice to be able to access online play to begin with, which I don’t like…

And I mean, this is why I am not a really big fan of MMOs that make you continually pay for a subscription.

When I game, I like to be able to do things at my leisure, and having the threat of a subscription to something that is going to expire at a certain time hanging over my lead looming actually kills my desire to want to play the game. It’s paradoxical. I’d rather pay for it once and get it out of the way if I can help it…