Nintendo made a surprising announcement at today’s Nintendo Direct livestream: by the end of April, players will be share their digital games.
Now, obviously, there are some pretty big caveats. The biggest is that you can’t lend your digital games to anyone – only people within your Family Group will be eligible, or other consoles that you own.
Launching sometime by the end of April, the system works by granting you a Virtual Game Card for each game you buy digitally. By visiting another screen you can choose whether that virtual card is “loaded” or “ejected”. Ejected virtual cards can then be used on a secondary Switch or Switch 2 that you own. Nintendo notes that a “local” connection is required for the first time, which presumably using the Switch’s inbuilt mini-WIFI that tends to be forgotten about.
This feature seems a tad confusing. Perhaps it’s because my Nintendo knowledge is somewhat lacking, but I can already easily share all my digital games across my two Switch consoles if I want. A quick glance at the Youtube comments suggests I’m not the only one struggling to figure the system out.
Things get more interesting, though, because you’ll also be able to lend your games to people within your Nintendo Account Family Group. Again, the virtual game card must be “ejected” and the Family Group member must be connected locally again, at which point you can lend the game to them for a period of up to 14 days. After 14 days, the game will automatically be returned to its owner.
It isn’t very clear if you also need a proper Internet connection to verify everything.
Under the previous system, you could allow family members to play your games by logging in with your account on their machine, which could be problematic, especially for parents who wanted to let their kids player their games.
Nintendo does also say you can opt-out of this new system if you wish.
It’s currently unclear if this system will include 3rd party releases, or if it only applies to first-party Nintendo titles.
Honestly, I feel like I need a dedicated Nintendo fan out there to help explain how this is actually different from the current system. From my mostly outsider perspective, this system just seems needlessly complex, much like most things Nintendo do with their software. Has it perhaps been introduced to clamp down on some game sharing loopholes?
The real upgrade is in sharing games with family members since it no longer means having to let them sign in with your main account.