A very mysterious announcement was made by Nintendo, which announced a playtest for a new Nintendo Switch Online feature. However, those who want to participate will need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription enabled with the Expansion Pack. The details about the playtest are relatively vague, and the kind of feature they could possibly be adding to Nintendo Switch Online has not been mentioned. Just yesterday, they announced the new hardware that they were releasing, but it wasn’t the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement that people were hoping for. Instead, in a fever dream turn of events, Nintendo announced their new alarm clock, named Alarmo. This alarm clock costs $99.99, and those who own it must have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to be able to purchase it in the first place. Whether the feature that they are reportedly playtesting has anything to do with the clock remains to be seen.
As stated above, to be able to take part in the test, you need to have the Expansion Pack addon for your Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and you also need to be 18 years old to be able to sign up. Of course, there is no guarantee you’ll be picked, and those who aren’t in Japan will be picked on a “first come, first serve” basis, as stated on the website. Only those in Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, or Spain are able to sign up for the playtest. Because Nintendo has said explicitly that those who sign up need to have access to the Expansion Pack add-on, it’s a pretty safe assumption that it has something to do with that. Either that, or they’re looking to make another system similar to the Expansion Pack service, where they can charge extra to those who want to be able to have a nostalgic experience in their gaming sessions.
Of course, there is a lot that could be speculated on, and it would be great to see games from a console like the GameCube to make it onto the Nintendo Switch. Fans have only been asking for a remaster of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for just over a decade now, so why not give the fans what they want?
Those who want to try their hand at being accepted into the playtest can put in an application from 10 AM ET / 7 AM PT / 3 PM BST / 4 PM CEST to find out what it’s all about.
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