Nintendo Switch Online announced

[Pyro as Bill]

RolStoppable said:

Pyro as Bill said:

Or instead of letting people buy SMB3 one last time before they own it for life, they could drop the virtual console altogether and bundle the back catalog (good and bad) behind a Nintendo Netflix subscription. Why limit the classics to Switch when every smart device and rival console can run NES/SNES games? (the emulation peasants are doing it already anyway) 

Software sells hardware, so having Nintendo's back catalogue exclusively on a Nintendo console serves as further incentive to buy a Switch and future Nintendo hardware.

Joycons still count as hardware though, good luck playing NES games on a touchscreen. Nobody should be playing NES games with anything other than a NES controller or a mini joycon sized NES controller at least, bundle a years sub with controllers. Software sells software, they can give and take away games as they please, no harm in the occasional 'brand awareness month'. Nintendo could still tailor the service to benefit their own consoles the most. It allows them to make their games available on every device without the platform holder taking a cut and there's no reason why it has to stay as classics. Would Sony/MS/Apple/Google even want it on their devices if they don't get a %?

Regardless of whether it's available on other devices, a subscription service is the only way to guarantee the revenue needed to support future consoles, TVs, new gimmicks, online servers.