... Look. Within reason, I GET that this controller may not be useful anywhere else. And I get that this may be done as a means as to avoid people buying it in bulk and upselling them...

This is still anti-consumer

Essentially, you can't purchase these controllers unless you have a Nintendo account AND Nintendo Online. The trial period does not count either. 

Early justification of this leads to a slippery slope. So whilst I don't care at all about this particular controller, I am going to be vocal about this. 

These controllers are made for NES games on Switch, which are only available through the online service. Why would anyone who doesn't have a subscription be interested in this?

This is dumb, but I'm sure they'll patch it out. They will be great for wireless emulation, though.

Are they only being sold by Nintendo? It says you need to have a subscription just to even purchase them.

Honestly, who cares? Nintendo is the king of selling unnecessary peripherals. The only difference is this time they want to sell them only to people who need them.

Sorry kids, those are for Gold Members only!

Yeah, what Rol said. For some reason Nintendo products get scalped as fuck, so this is a(n interesting) way to fight scalpers. And I mean.... why would you even get them anyway

And I get that. Really, I do. The first thing that popped into my head. But I guess the issue I'm having with this more than anything is that scalping abuse like that fell onto Nintendo mismanaging stock more than anything. Also, it still feels as though this is meant to feel like a way to directly encourage getting the Online more than it is distributing the controllers (which again, I get, but still it makes me feel some type of way rn). I can't honestly justify this, and I justify amiibo regularly.

So based on the datamine with the SNES controller, I think it's safe to say SNES games will eventually become a part of the online service, most likely at a different tier. I wouldn't mind that though. The UI for selecting the games is kinda clean and seeing that with SNES, maybe even Gameboy games, N64, GBA, etc. would be amazing.

Unless maybe the icon is related to the NES dogbone controller...which is probably more likely now that I think about it.

Charging $60 for them is more anti-consumer than anything else.