Skip to main content

Twitch Prime members can snag a free year of Nintendo Switch Online

While freebies through Amazon Prime’s Twitch Prime gaming service typically only include PC games, Nintendo Switch owners now have the chance to snag a pretty sweet perk. Twitch Prime members can get a year of Nintendo Switch Online for free.

The process for redeeming the full year is a little strange. First, you have to claim a three-month subscription here. Once you have the three-month code, you have to wait 60 days to redeem the final nine months to round it out to the full year. The three free months are up for grabs until September 24, and the remaining nine months need to be redeemed by January 22.

Related Videos

It’s likely set up this way because you can get a free 30-day trial of Twitch Prime before paying for the subscription. Essentially, if you don’t currently have Twitch Prime, you can enroll in the trial, get three free months of Nintendo Switch Online, and then cancel your Twitch Prime membership before you are billed. To get the entire year’s subscription of Nintendo Switch Online, you have to be a paying Twitch Prime member, due to the time gap between receiving the first three-month code and the remaining nine months.

If you’re unfamiliar with Twitch Prime, it comes free with an Amazon Prime subscription. So if you enjoy the luxury of free two-day shipping, you have Twitch Prime, too.

Nintendo Switch Online costs $20 per year. So if you don’t plan on using the benefits of Amazon Prime throughout the year, it’s obviously not worth going past the free trial period. Amazon Prime subscriptions regularly cost $119 per year, but students only pay half that ($59).

If you are already an Amazon Prime member, this offer is gravy. Even if you currently have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, the three months will stack onto your current subscription, as will the nine months after the 60 days.

Nintendo Switch Online grants access to a variety of exclusive features. To play online multiplayer in games like Splatoon 2 or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, you need the subscription. Nintendo Switch Online subscribers also gain access to a sizable library of NES classics. Nintendo adds two NES games to the program each month. Perhaps the main reason to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription right now, however, is Tetris 99. Exclusive for subscribers, Tetris 99 is a chaotically wonderful spin on the classic puzzle game that pits you against 98 other users in a battle royale contest.

Editors' Recommendations

The best Final Fantasy games, ranked from best to worst
Final Fantasy X

While the role-playing game (RPG) has become a catch-all genre, now encompassing an almost silly range of games that don't share much in common, there was one video game franchise in the 1980s that was the quintessential RPG. Yes, we're talking about Final Fantasy from Square Enix.

The fantasy Japanese RPGs debuted on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987, but they became cultural touchstones in the '90s as Super Nintendo games. From there, the series made an incredibly successful jump to 3D on the PlayStation 1 before the mainline series started to take more risks, including the elimination of turn-based battles and massively multiplayer online game (MMO) entries, and the latest game, Final Fantasy XVI, becoming a full-on character-action game.

Read more
The best upcoming Xbox Series X games: 2023 and beyond
A spacecraft in Starfield.

The Xbox Series X and Series S have now been out for over two years, bringing better resolution, higher frame rates, and ray tracing to gamers around the world. The upcoming Xbox Series X games on this list promise to continue to show off all those bells and whistles in fun, new experiences.

If you're eager to find out what Microsoft has in store for the years ahead, we've rounded up every game confirmed so far, including new offerings, franchise installments, and ports of existing titles. We're looking beyond the first-party projects here to encompass all the great games coming to this powerful piece of gaming hardware.
2023

Read more
Everything we know about Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake Looking Grizzly In Alan Wake 2.

The original Alan Wake is a game that went through quite a troubled development before it was finally released. After many iterations and changes in scope and direction, the final product was initially a cult hit, but didn't hit the mass market it needed -- at least not initially. After two DLC episodes, a sequel was in the works to build upon the first game and revive some of the elements that had to be cut from the first in order for it to ship, but this was ultimately not meant to be. The sequel was canceled and a smaller downloadable game, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, was released instead.

Since then, we hadn't heard from our intrepid writer until he showed up in a very unlikely place. Featured in the AWE expansion for a completely different game, Control, Alan was back in the picture. With a remaster of the initial game catching everyone up on his first appearance, now was the perfect time to announce that the long-awaited sequel was back in development. We haven't found all the manuscript pages yet, but here is everything we know about Alan Wake 2.

Read more