You could say the reception was tepid
When Nintendo announced that they were going to charge for the Switch Online “Expansion Pack” add-on I almost couldn’t believe it. I mean, it had to be a mistake? Adding value to Switch Online is something people have been asking for years. But then came the next stage of acceptance: okay maybe they’ll see the bad PR and reverse the decision to charge for it. Then came the next step: maybe they won’t charge very much, like $5 extra a year per sub? Nope. The expansion pack plan is $50 a year for an individual subscriber. Fans took to the Switch Online YouTube video to voice their dissent, and it’s only grown since then.
So a few weeks ago we pointed out how the Switch Online YouTube Expansion Pack trailer had reached 57,000 dislikes, and was rising by the day. Well, as VGC highlights, it’s actually over 100,000 dislikes, and grew to 120,000 at the time of publication. That means it actually surpassed the Metroid Prime Federation Force trailer, which had one of the worst receptions in recent years, and grew to 97,000 dislikes. It’s now the second-most disliked video next to the Switch Online YouTube trailer.
As more and more people actually try the service out (or see first-hand accounts online), the dislikes grew over time, and the launch actually made things worse. As it turns out, the Expansion Pack service actually has a host of problems.
It’s a sad state of affairs. I don’t expect Nintendo to directly respond to this, or actively make the service better under any sort of urgent timetable. We’ll get some drip-fed games as always, and that’ll be that. The real test will be if Nintendo eventually makes this “Expansion Pack” the standard subscription, and raises the prices all-around in the years to come.