It's a series of warp pipes

This week the gaming community welcomes Nintendo into the world of about ten years ago as they finally launch Nintendo Switch Online.
As its name implies, this will be the paid subscription service required to play online games like "Splatoon 2," "ARMS," and "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe."
Now, you might be thinking, "Wait a second. Those games are already out and I can play them online for free!" And you would be right, until now.
To be fair to Nintendo, they've been upfront that free online play would be a limited time situation since the Switch launched a year and a half ago. For whatever reason the online service wasn't ready to go when the Switch released and they couldn't very well just not put out online games until then. Still, that's probably going to be of little consolation to the gamer, or parent of a gamer, that doesn't keep up with the day-to-day gaming news when they try to hop into a Splatoon match only to get blocked by a paywall.
On the upside, Nintendo isn't asking for an arm and a leg for online access. At $20 a year, the subscription service isn't exactly breaking the bank. And there are other features to sweeten the deal as well.
Specifically, the online service will grant subscribers access to a curated library of classic NES games. That in itself may not be a huge draw, particularly for younger gamers that don't have nostalgia for the 8-bit era, but Nintendo has gone above and beyond in this case by modifying these games for online co-op. In a time where getting two people in the same room is a nigh impossible task, this may be the best way to enjoy a two-player game of "Super Mario Bros. 3."
Of course, online co-op often necessitates online voice chat and this is where Nintendo has, hilariously, failed to deliver.
Oh sure Nintendo Switch Online will, at long last, allow you to communicate with your teammates or foes when you're playing your multiplayer game of preference. It just won't do it natively on the Switch. While for the last decade voice chat has been a standard feature on the Xbox and PlayStation, talking to other players on the Switch will instead require the use of Nintendo's online app.
That's right. Nintendo, genius innovators of the gaming industry, has developed a way for gamers to talk to each other by using their smartphones. What will they think of next?
Speaking of their competitors, how does Nintendo Switch Online compare to the offerings from Sony and Microsoft? Well, at $60 a year, PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold are three times the price that Nintendo is asking, but these services  do get you more bang for your buck.
The most noticeable difference is that, in contrast to Nintendo's selection of decades old NES games, Microsoft and Sony give their subscribers a more contemporary game twice a month. These games are available for as long as you are a subscriber so you will accumulate more games the longer you are with the service.
These aren't bargain bin games that they couldn't pay people to play either. Though they may be a couple years old, high profile titles like "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" and "Dead by Daylight" have been given out to subscribers. If you're in no hurry to play the latest titles, it's entirely possible to build a substantial gaming library out of just the complimentary games.
Outside of that, the smaller quality of life features are a bit higher quality on the other two systems.
Microsoft offers cloud based game save back-ups at no charge and Sony will keep your saves backed up for up to six months if your subscription lapses. Nintendo, on the other hand, will delete your back-ups immediately once you lose subscriber status.
It's a trivial discrepancy that probably won't make a difference to the vast majority of customers, but it still shows Nintendo's stubbornness in refusing to match the industry standard. Nintendo has been a decade behind the curve when it comes to online offerings since the turn of the century. Even today while both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 allow players to broadcast their game to Twitch.tv with the press of a button, the best the Switch can do is upload a 30-second clip to Twitter.
Maybe Nintendo Switch Online will begin to close that gap, but it's unlikely.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and hopes that a co-op game of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game" is in his future.