So a choice between adding 5 bucks to my food budget or maybe having the privilege of playing Splatoon 2 online after I had already spent the money to actually buy it.
Yeah I think I'm just going to save those 5 bucks and buy slightly better quality groceries, cheers.
You mean the privilege of using fancy private servers you don't own, supported by an expensive network backbone you couldn't afford, powered by a lot of electricity you'd rather save, and with a netcode developed by people paid in something better than ramen noodles and reduced beatings?
Console online services are not a gate placed to use your own internet or the software you bought, they're an entire additional infrastructure. Don't be surprised that if you aren't paying for it, it'll either be riddled with advertisements or just shit. Or both.
The reason Nintendo's netplay has been so on the down low compared to Sony and Microsoft is because they couldn't afford to support it, nor did they have any reason to.
Yes, because games cost 60 bucks just because that's what it costs to develop them and the Switch will also cost 300 bucks because that's exactly what it costs to make one, and the cost of the games on the eshop and virtual console will also be exactly the price that it costs to host and distribute those files.
Poor old Nintendo, the multi-billion dollar corporation, they just can't seem to catch a break from these ordinary people who try to scam them out of their hard-earned money by demanding basic shit like the ability to play their games as intended.
I will start giving them money to help them host their servers only when they stop marking up the prices for their games and consoles to make a profit. They want money to host and operate servers? Maybe have a well-stocked eShop with reasonable release schedules and mark up the games on there for a dollar or so more.
Unless they feel so insecure as to their own future as a storefront that they cannot even rely on a steady cashflow from it due to their godawful practices with the place.
I have no sympathy for Nintendo nor any other corporation pulling this. They're doing it for a single reason and that is quite simply, because they can. On PC developers can't do this shit. Which is why they don't. And oh boy do I see all those big PC multiplayer titles just dropping like flies every day, can't go a single day without a game with a large playerbase shutting down its servers because the publishers just can't afford the horrifying expense of running the servers.