10 Confessions Of A PS4 Owner After Buying A Nintendo Switch
9. Adding An Online Paywall Is A Big Deal
Although Sony's Playstation Plus subscription service isn't perfect (and recent outages and downtime have only reminded users that Sony's infrastructure is nowhere near as solid as Microsoft's), the perks and benefits are still pretty good. Of course, nobody likes to pay for the privilege of playing online, but a constant stream of (usually) good games, discounts and deals certainly makes the subscription seem worthwhile.
On the other hand, Nintendo have never attempted to combat either Sony or Microsoft on this front, keeping their multiplayer services free, but also providing a rather sub-par online infrastructure. They've unfortunately continued to disappoint with online features, with potentially good ideas like the virtual console failing to appear, and the very notion of voice communication being an obfuscating, app-requiring mess.
The latter is why the announcement of Nintendo gating multiplayer behind an online service later in 2018 has received such monumental backlash. Yes, we knew it was coming thanks to being mentioned at launch, but not only are they retroactively adding in a paywall after months of free play, but it comes without any benefits in exchange, completely taking away one major positive they had over the competition.