Nintendo’s Nintendo Switch Online service follows a similar tiered pricing model. Nintendo debuted the subscription in September 2018 with a handful of NES games, and nearly a year later, Nintendo added SNES games – all for the comparatively low price of $3.99 each month, $7.99 for three months, or $19.99 for a year. However, if you want to play Nintendo’s library of N64 or Sega Genesis games on your Switch, you’ll need to pay $49.99 for a complete year of the Expansion Pack, which is more than double the cost of a basic individual annual subscription.
On the other hand, Microsoft’s Game Pass library takes a different approach. With Xbox Game Pass, you may access the same Microsoft titles on your Xbox regardless of whether you subscribe to the $9.99 monthly Game Pass or the $14.99 monthly Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Microsoft has also invested heavily in backward compatibility, which means that many previous Xbox games can still be accessed and played on the Xbox Series X / S without requiring a subscription.
