Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions are now available to pre-order

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After a lot of talk and a few delays, Nintendo Switch Online is set to launch this September. The paid service for the Switch is going to be required to play multiplayer games online, but it will also serve up at least a few extras for subscribers. Subscriptions have gone up for pre-order, so you can take care of your first year right now if you feel so inclined.

As spotted by Wario64 on Twitter, Amazon is now carrying year-long and three month subscriptions for Nintendo Switch Online. While there isn't much point to pre-ordering a code card in advance, it does ensure that you'll have access to the service on the day it launches. A one-year subscription to Switch Online costs $19.99, while a three month subscription will set you back $7.99.

Nintendo will also offer one month subscriptions at $3.99 each, but strangely, Amazon isn't offering code cards for those. There will also be family plans available, which is likely the way to go for households that have more than one Switch. With a family plan, you'll get a 12 month subscription for up to eight different users for $35, which is quite a discount over the usual cost of a year.

What's interesting about this Amazon listing is that Nintendo still hasn't announced when, exactly, Switch Online will launch. We know the service is arriving sometime in September, but that's as specific as Nintendo has been. Unfortunately, we can't use Amazon's listing to find out, as the release date it shows is merely a placeholder.

In addition to granting access to online play, Switch Online will also let Switch owners play a collection of online-enabled NES games and backup their Switch saves to the cloud. We'll have more information about Switch Online when it's available, so stay tuned for that.

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