A new statement about the Nintendo Switch's online service has been issued by the company. They have stated the service will go live in the second half of September.

You will need a subscription to the service if you want to play titles like Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online. There seems to be an exception though for free-to-play titles such as Fortnite, Paladins and Pokémon Quest, which can be played without the subscription. However this is not confirmed yet.

Additionally the service will provide cloud saves for your games, although a disclaimer has popped up mentioning that it is not compatible with all software.

A collection of 20 NES games will also be available for you to play, with added online functionality. More titles will be added regularly.

More details and pricing can be found on Nintendo's official webpage. What exact date the service launches is still unclear.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="nl"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NintendoSwitchOnline?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NintendoSwitchOnline< paid membership service will launch in the second half of September, providing access to online play, Save Data Cloud backup in compatible games, and a growing library of NES titles with added online play.<a href="https://t.co/gWcYYbGIzZ">https://t.co/gWcYYbGIzZ<<

&mdash; Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) <a href="https://twitter.com/NintendoUK/status/1027826905830096896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">10 augustus 2018<</blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>