Is Nintendo Switch Online worth it in 2026? Our verdict

Posted on May 15, 2026 by Ethan in Features, Switch, Switch 2

Today, we’re going over every single aspect of Nintendo Switch Online as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each one to answer the question of whether the service is worth it.

Believe it or not, Nintendo Switch Online is turning eight years old later this year. And needless to say, it didn’t go over all too well when it first launched all the way back in 2018. Up until then, online play in Nintendo games was free, and players weren’t too keen on turning that basic ability into a permanent subscription. Fast forward to now, though, and NSO offers all sorts of benefits beyond your typical online matches. So the question is, then: is Nintendo Switch Online worth it with a subscription in 2026?

Online play

This is of course the biggest draw to Nintendo Switch Online, and by now all major video game consoles do require that you pay a subscription in order to play online with friends. When Nintendo Switch Online was first revealed, though, there was this unspoken expectation that Nintendo’s online servers would run better or be upgraded after the subscription service went live.

This didn’t actually wind up happening, of course, and while all of Nintendo’s games do have fully functional online play, a few of them still have issues. The two that my mind goes to are Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 3 – Smash Ultimate has always suffered from poor netcode, and top players often note that its multiple frames of input lag make online Smash feel completely different than real-life tournaments. Splatoon 3 (and Splatoon 2 by extension) have always had matchmaking issues as well, though this is more a result of the matchmaking system rather than Nintendo’s servers being faulty or anything like that.

Retro games

As great as it is to play online with others, the inclusion of retro games as part of Nintendo Switch Online feels like the biggest reason to subscribe to the service. When it first launched, the only classic titles included with the service were NES games, which didn’t really excite anybody. Most of these titles were available for direct purchase on the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS eShops, which means super-dedicated fans could have already owned them three times over. So the thought of paying to access it on a fourth console wasn’t the most appealing, to say the least.

That being said, Nintendo has added tons of value to Switch Online over the years. Nowadays, you’ve got NES, SNES, Virtual Boy, SEGA Genesis, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and GameCube (some of these require an Expansion Pack tier membership). There are still a few notable exclusions at the time of writing – Super Mario RPG on SNES, Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong Racing, and Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo 64, and… many, many GameCube games, to name a few. Even so, you can easily spend hundreds of hours playing the games available here. You’ve got so many heavy hitters and timeless classics – Super Mario Bros. 3, Kirby’s Adventure, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, EarthBound, Kirby Super Star, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2, Luigi’s Mansion, Chibi-Robo, Zelda: The Wind Waker, and so many more. The Wind Waker alone is a 40-hour game if you go for 100 percent completion, and tons of other games on Nintendo Switch Online will take you just as long to complete. This is also the only official way to play these games other than owning their original releases, which can get very expensive.

The only real drawback to Nintendo Switch Online’s retro game selection is the drip-feeding. You only see a new game release once per month, generally, and very often you’ll get a NES drop with three random games and that’s all you’ll get for a few weeks. At the time of writing, the GameCube and Nintendo 64 selections are still rather lacking (especially the former), and it could be years before we see specific titles come to the service if they do at all. It does give you something to look forward to, though again, half the time, that month’s NSO drop will probably be something you aren’t interested in playing.

Nintendo Music

Speaking of drip-feeding, Nintendo Music is in the same boat as the Nintendo Switch Online retro game catalog. It’s a neat little service where you can listen to Nintendo music on your phone, but you typically only get one update per week. That does mean the catalog will only grow larger and larger over time, and it does give you a little something to look forward to every few days, but at the time of writing there are a few glaring omissions. For one, when you think of video game music you want to hear on Nintendo Music, you probably think of Mario Kart World and its excellent and expansive soundtrack. But it’s still not there, for some reason! Of course, that could change in the future.

Nintendo Music is a cool idea, but right now it’s much easier to simply look up the tracks you want to listen to on YouTube. There have also been some issues with crediting composers and writers. Nintendo Music alone definitely doesn’t make Switch Online worth it, but it’s a small bonus at the end of the day. You can see the full list of games that you can listen to here.

GameChat

This is probably the least-used Nintendo Switch Online bonus, but GameChat really isn’t all that bad. If you have no way to stream your gameplay to friends via Discord, this is a good alternative that doesn’t cost any extra if you’re already paying for Nintendo Online. Nintendo Switch 2’s microphone isn’t the best, but it works, and you can at the very least understand others despite the slight dip in voice quality. More importantly, though, you can share your screen with friends. The frame rate was recently improved via an update, and it’s honestly pretty solid considering it doesn’t require any external equipment to capture your gameplay.

Cloud Saves

Another aspect to consider as to whether Nintendo Switch Online is worth it are cloud saves. With the service, every time you update your save data, it’s uploaded to the cloud as a backup. So just in case something ever happens to your Nintendo Switch or Switch 2, you’ll be able to re-download your save data as if nothing ever happened. Cool, right? It would be if every game supported it!

The games that you really don’t want to lose your data on – specifically all the Pokemon titles as well as Animal Crossing: New Horizons – aren’t compatible with the feature. With Pokemon, this is presumably done so that you can’t clone your Pokemon or restore Pokemon you traded away. Which is understandable, but I feel like it is not at all worth losing the ability to back up your data. Pokemon Home exists for Pokemon backup purposes, but then you have to take your Pokemon out of their respective games and confine them to boxes stored in the cloud. Animal Crossing: New Horizons doesn’t support cloud backups in the traditional way. Backups of the island are kept, but you can only restore them by contacting Nintendo. It’s good that they’re kept safe, but it’s Animal Crossing – you should be able to load backups. This is probably done to preserve Animal Crossing’s “economy”, but it feels like Nintendo is taking that a bit too seriously.

On that note, why can’t Pokemon games offer the same kind of cloud backups where you have to contact Nintendo to restore them? If your Nintendo Switch explodes and you lose all your Pokemon game files, you aren’t very likely to replay them all and rebuild your collection – you’d probably be so disappointed that you’d stop playing those games entirely. It feels like there could be a much better solution here.

Free DLC

There are only three free DLCs associated with Nintendo Switch Online right now – those being for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Splatoon 2. All three of these are really good in their own rights, and each one normally costs around $25, so this is a good deal if you want to save some money. This bonus only applies to Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack, and if you cancel the subscription you do lose the DLC, but you can still buy it standalone afterwards if for some reason you’d rather do it that way.

Also, note that as part of the Expansion Pack tier, you’ll get access to the Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom Upgrade Packs for Nintendo Switch 2. These typically cost $9.99 each standalone.

Pricing

Right now the standard Nintendo Switch Online subscription is $20 per year, which isn’t too bad. Xbox’s own plan costs around $120 per year (Xbox Game Pass Essential at $9.99 per month) and PlayStation’s costs $80 per year (PlayStation Plus Essential).

Nintendo’s Switch Online Expansion Pack costs $50 a year, but the big difference there is that you’re allowed to set up family plans. Family plans can have up to eight users on the same plan, which means each person can chip in $10 for a full year of online (so a family plan for the Expansion Pack is $80). That’s an insane value in comparison, especially considering that people on your family plan can be friends and can all use the same plan on different consoles. The value only increases when you factor in the rest of the features included with Nintendo Switch Online.

So here’s the pricing:

$20 a year (individual / standard)
$50 a year (individual / Expansion Pack)
$35 a year (family / standard)
$80 a year (family / Expansion Pack)

To revisit the original question, is Nintendo Switch Online worth it? Overall, the service wasn’t the greatest value when it first released. But now, it’s full of helpful bonuses and Nintendo Switch Online can provide hours and hours of fun. To put it simply, everything combined makes it a great value in 2026 and we would personally recommend it.

What’s your favorite part of Nintendo Switch Online, and what do you wish were better or improved? Let us know in the comments!