Nintendo is all about some free trials – it’s got one running right now for Mario Strikers: Battle League – but those trials typically come with strings attached to them. Sometimes those strings involve people having to have an active Nintendo Switch Online membership in order to test out a game, and if the trial is for Nintendo Switch Online itself, Nintendo typically restricts those to new users which means that if you’ve ever had a subscription before, you’re ineligible. That’s changed this time around, however, with Nintendo offering everybody a seven-day trial of Nintendo Switch Online regardless of this is your first, second, or 100th time subscribing to the service.
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The offer was announced through Nintendo’s socials with the atypical lack of restrictions highlighted several times within the company’s posts. The only catch with this offer is that “the free trial is available once per Nintendo Account,” Nintendo said, so you can’t subscribe, cancel, and repeat the process indefinitely to keep your subscription running until this trial period is no longer active. You’ll also want to make sure you turn off your auto-renewal if you don’t plan on keeping you membership or else you run the risk of paying for it when you didn’t intend to.
As Nintendo pointed out in its announcement post, you’ve got a couple of enticing options to try out once you redeem your free trial if this is the first time you’ve subscribed or if you’ve let your subscription lapse in the past. Nintendo Switch Sports came out not terribly long ago and proved to be pretty enjoyable. The aforementioned demo for Strikers called Mario Strikers: Battle League: First Kick is only limited to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, but once you activate your free trial, you’ll qualify for that, too.
In addition to its library of paid games, Nintendo also includes some older, free games in the Nintendo Switch Online catalog as a subscription perk. Those games come from the NES and the Super NES as well as other third-party offers, and while there are Nintendo 64 games available with certain online subscriptions, too, don’t expect to be playing those through this free trial. Nintendo specified in its announcement that the “free trial cannot be redeemed for a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership” nor can it be used to extend any existing membership by seven more days.
Nintendo didn’t specify how long this deal would last, so make sure you take advantage of it while you can before it goes away.
