5 Perks You Didn’t Realize Come With Nintendo Switch Online

Nintendo Switch Online is one of the best-value online subscription services available for consoles today. Although the Nintendo followed the same path as Microsoft and Sony and charges users to unlock multiplayer and other console features, the company also chose to offer more affordable plans. So, for anyone who uses all of the service’s features, it delivers strong value for its price.

For example, Nintendo Switch Online starts with plans at $19.99 per year, which is less than what you would pay for many PlayStation Plus tiers or Xbox Game Pass. But Nintendo also offers a family plan that lets users split the cost with up to eight people, which can bring the yearly cost of NSO down to less than $10 per person on the best plan possible. If you already subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online, the service also includes several perks that you may not even know exist. For example, you can play tons of classic games or even use a streaming app without paying extra fees for it. Here are the advantages that make the service even better.

Although this Nintendo Switch Online plan has “family” in its name, Nintendo does not limit it only to consoles in the user’s own household. In fact, you can gather up to eight different people to subscribe to the service together. The version with the Expansion Pack, which offers some bigger upgrades, currently costs $79.99, which comes to around $9.99 per person.

The base version costs less than half that price, since each user would pay $4.37 to get Nintendo’s online services on their console. Not every member needs to connect on the same Switch to receive the benefits, either — each account linked to the group receives them individually. With that in mind, you can subscribe to the service with anyone in the country and not worry about possible sharing blocks, as happens with some streaming services.

You can also lend digital games to your friends who live nearby. Thanks to the Virtual Game Cards, you can transfer this media from one console to another for a two-week period. The only problem is that both consoles need to connect locally for this to work, and the accounts need to be on the same NSO family plan.

If you’re having a hard time trying to find your favorite Nintendo tunes on Spotify or Apple Music, Nintendo Music offers an alternative. It comes as a perk with the Online subscription, and it works as a dedicated streaming app for Nintendo’s game soundtracks that lets you listen to music from several of the company’s first-party games. However, even though Nintendo Music offers a wide variety of songs, not every soundtrack and game is on the service right now. So, while you can find your favorite tracks from many games in “The Legend of Zelda” or “Mario” series, songs from lesser-known games, such as “Xenoblade Chronicles” or third-party titles, haven’t made their debut yet.

The good news is that Nintendo Music still receives support from the company, even though the streaming service was released in 2024. On average, the company adds new soundtracks to the service once a month. So, if your favorite game or OST is not on Nintendo Music yet, it will probably arrive at some point for you to enjoy this perk properly.

If you also subscribe to the Expansion Pack, check out downloadable DLCs from the service before buying any of them. Certain content for “Splatoon 2,” “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” and “Animal Crossing” is available for this NSO tier. Those DLCs are sold individually for roughly $20 to $30, and with this subscription, you can get everything without paying a fee.

The DLC you’ll find in “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” is “Happy Home Paradise,” where you get a new island to create vacation homes for NPCs. With “Booster Course Pass” in “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” you can play alongside new characters and 48 more tracks. And in “Splatoon 2” you now have a single-player campaign with its own storyline and another playable character for subscribers.

Now, with one Nintendo Switch 2, you can enjoy improved versions of “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and “Tears of the Kingdom” for better performance. You can enjoy Link with 4K and 60fps adventures under the Expansion Pack and get the most out of the Switch 2’s exclusive hardware upgrades without having to pay anything — but the base game is required.

One perk for anybody on a Nintendo Switch with a North American or European account is Game Trials, allowing select games to unlock in full for a limited time. These titles are not demos but complete game versions that you can test while the event stays active. So, depending on how fast you play them, it’s possible to finish during this trial period or at least figure out what some of the gameplay is before you buy anything.

The Game Trials perk is not always available on your Switch because there’s often a gap between every new game. In 2026, for example, users already received “Madden NFL 26” in January, “Stardew Valley” in February, and “MLB The Show 26” in April. There can be a lot of variation around such selected games throughout the year, so pay attention to the announcements to see when a new one will be available. Given that Nintendo does not provide many refund options for users, you can use the trials before paying for something that you might not like.

Many classic games are available through the Nintendo Switch Online subscription at no additional cost, which is great for moments when you want to play something different. At the moment you can play many titles released for NES, SNES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo 64. Not all games are available, but there are still plenty of interesting options.

Exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2, you can find many GameCube titles (three games acted as day-one launch titles with the console) through the online subscription. For both Switch models, there is also the Virtual Boy, but to access those games, you’ll need an external gadget to emulate the 3D console that Nintendo launched in the 1990s. Finally, some exclusive Nintendo Switch Online games are fun to play when you want to pass some time. “Tetris 99” and “F-Zero 99” (both free) turn two classic franchises into online multiplayer experiences, adapting the formula of both games into something fun and chaotic.