Nintendo Switch Online and PS+ get consumer-friendly changes following UK investigation

Earlier this year, Microsoft made some consumer-friendly changes to the way it handles subscriptions on Xbox, following an investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Now a few months later, Nintendo and Sony have adopted similar policies for Nintendo Switch Online and PlayStation Plus. 

The CMA has been investigating Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo over their subscription practices, raising “concerns” around “automatic subscription renewal, ease of disabling automatic renewals and whether customers may be unwittingly paying for old subscriptions that they were no longer using”. Microsoft was the first to address this, introducing new transparency measures for auto-renewing subscriptions and offering refunds if a subscription auto-renews by mistake.

Now, Sony and Nintendo are also making policy changes for PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Switch Online. On Sony's end, it will now be contacting customers if they haven't used their subscription in a period of time. If those customers continue to not use their subscription, it will be paused, and payments will not be taken until the customer is active with the service once again.

Nintendo is changing its sign-up process for new users, removing automatic renewal as the default option for Switch Online subscriptions. New sign-ups will have to toggle automatic renewal manually if they plan to keep using the service.

With these policy changes, the CMA has now concluded its investigations into the online video gaming sector. That's not to say new issues won't pop up in the future, but for now, it seems the CMA is happy with the way Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are operating their gaming platforms and services.

KitGuru Says: It’s very easy to forget about a recurring subscription and end up paying for unused time. Hopefully auto-cancellations and refunds will start to be more common both in gaming and for other entertainment subscriptions. 

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