Nintendo says Smash Bros. boosted Switch Online, wants to make it more appealing each year
This information comes from the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing…
You mentioned (in the presentation) that the Nintendo Switch Online subscriber base (excluding free trials) has exceeded 8 million accounts, which suggests the service has gotten off to a really good start. I assume the people who purchased Super Smash Bros. Ultimate subscribed to the service at once, but I am wondering how many signed up for 12-month memberships. Given the current content of the service and your pace of releasing a few major, first-party titles in a year, I imagine it might be hard to maintain a relationship with those members. The service is off to a great start, but what do you plan to offer to members going forward?
Furukawa: We do think Nintendo Switch Online has had a good start coming out of the holiday season, helped in large part by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
We are not disclosing details by each membership plan but among consumers who have purchased memberships, however, a growing percentage is now opting for shorter plans like the one-month membership. This is in contrast to the situation around the end of October of last year, when we reported that over half were opting for a 12-month family or individual membership.
It is critical that these members want to continue using the service for a long time rather than letting it expire, and for that we need to build relationships with consumers and enrich the content. With this in mind, we are currently planning ways to boost the appeal of the service on a yearly basis. We will announce more details as soon as we are ready.
As was mentioned in the presentation, Nintendo Switch Online is a way to leverage Nintendo Accounts to build long-term relationships with consumers. As such, it is very important to our future business and we are giving it our all.
Takahashi: The recent release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate built on the first surge in membership sparked by Splatoon 2 led to take the subscriber base to where it is today in terms of numbers. We are preparing various new offerings for consumers who subscribe to the service.
