Well, it finally happened: the first game to be delisted from Nintendo Switch Online will disappear on 27th March. For years, the numbers have only gone up, and the total NSO game-count sits at an impressive 182 at the time of writing - with 109 more if you subscribe at the Expansion Pack tier.
NSO was a slow starter, but the value has grown enormously with its vintage game catalogue since October 2019. The threat of games being removed always lingered — and that's the reason we've called for the return of the Virtual Console in the past — but as streaming services of all sorts routinely pull content for a variety of reasons, Nintendo's lack of absentees was notable. Until now.
Again, this was inevitable. While Switch's success and the continuation of that lineage with Switch 2 means there should be some continuity for the next hardware generation at least, there will come a point when all those old contracts will need looking at once more. Human Entertainment's Super Soccer might not be the biggest game on the service — it's unlikely that many people signed up to NSO to play that game specifically — but that's beside the point. Losing access to any game that was previously available is incredibly disappointing.
It also makes you wonder how long the heavy hitters will stay online. How much time does GoldenEye have left? How long will the excellent Mega Drive / Genesis catalogue stay up? Are first-party-developed games the only ones truly safe from being culled?
