Nintendo Needs To Stop Wedging Online Modes Into Its Games

thegamer.com:

I write a lot about Nintendo, Xbox, and Sony in this job, and I have always considered Nintendo to be a very separate thing. The Switch is out of step in terms of console life-cycles to the Xbox Series X and the PS5, and while Xbox and Sony buy up studios, trade blows with exclusives, and have the power to host the biggest cross-platform hits like Elden Ring, Nintendo is a cute little Mario machine that is used as a secondary console for all but the most casual players. The massive and consistent sales of the Switch highlight Nintendo's success in opting for a different approach to the console war, but there is a very Xbox/Sony trend that has been creeping up on us with Nintendo for a while, and I'm not sure it makes its games any better. I'm talking about online play.

I am a little biased in this regard. I don't play a lot of online games and single-player experiences remain my preference even as my peers sink hundreds of hours into Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, or Warzone. Even with FIFA, I mostly play standard online matches or Career Mode over the ever-popular Ultimate Team. I never require a multiplayer component to hook me in. But even leaving that aside, it feels like Nintendo is heading too far away from the casual player base that make up the bulk of its audience.

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There are some games where Nintendo's online component is fine. I mean, the connection is never brilliant, it always seems to have three steps too many, and adding friends is unnecessarily complicated at times, but other than that, it's fine. Smash, for example, is played entirely online by some people, but it has a meaty offline campaign that takes you through a whole array of challenges.