Nintendo Switch Online Can Be Purchased With Gold Points

Nintendo will allow Switch users to pay for its subscription offering Switch Online with ‘Gold Points’, which can be earned on select purchases for the Switch. The number of Gold Points you get depends on whether you bought a game or downloadable content (DLC) digitally or a game card at retail. For the former, you earn 5 percent worth of what you paid while just 1 percent of the value for the latter.

A FAQ section for Nintendo Switch Online states that “Gold Points can be used when purchasing a membership in the Nintendo eShop” though “they cannot be used for auto-renewal." Gold Points could earlier be used on newer purchases and they now cover the new Switch subscription service as well, which launches Tuesday worldwide. But since you can’t do auto-renewal with Gold Points, you should have an international credit card linked to your account if you don’t want your membership to lapse.

Each Gold Point is worth 1 cent (USD) on the Nintendo eShop. That means if you have 100 Gold Points in your Nintendo account, that equals to $1 (about Rs. 72). In the US, Switch Online membership cost $4 (about Rs. 290) per month, $8 (about Rs. 580) for three months, and $20 (about Rs. 1,450) for a year. You can also opt for the family membership at $35 (about Rs. 2,530) for a year, which allows up to 8 Nintendo accounts to be linked together.

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