Topic: Any news on family sharing?

Me and my wife both game. I am thinking about getting us Switches for Christmas but we would want to ad hoc play a whole lot of the games...I just can't bring myself to pay $120 for us to play together. We already play PS4 games together all the time because of the family sharing ability.

Is there any news on family sharing coming to the Switch? I mean they are going to start charging for online play now I hope they throw something back to users or I just can't bring myself to buy the thing.

Any news would be helpful. Thanks

Probably not because of the fact that Switch can be portable as oppose to say an Xbox One or PS4. I mean you can play some games like Arms or Mario Kart 8 with two or more people while its docked on the big screen on one Switch with split screen but if you go portable you would need a copy for each Switch.

The Switch also has this rare thing called local multiplayer and comes with two controllers that you can use for a lot of games locally.

I mean sure, ad-hoc would be nice and some games do support that via multiple systems, or you can do it the old fashioned way, both grab a joy-con, away you go.

@Tasuki They have it on the PS Vita as well

@YummyHappyPills I get that idea and am all for it, but a lot of games won't have local co-op but will have online co-op. One of the reasons this has come up in the past. Beyond that....are you really ok with the idea in general? Feels like Nintendo is behind the times on this to me.

I am not sure what you mean by this. You want the ability to buy a game once and play it on different systems at the same time? I don't see a snowball chance in heck of that happening. I don't think it is unfair of Nintendo to charge per account either. Companies like Netflix lose a lot of money by letting people use their services on several devices at the same time in different locations.

@Heavyarms55 Yes, just like they have on the PS4 and the Xbox one. The idea has been tried and tested on many consoles. It is silly to make a family that has already invested in multiple switch's buy the game multiple times so they can play together.

Fyi I would be fine with multiplayer only family sharing. ie you need an account that is linked with someone that is online and playing with you with a license of the game to play it, but the other way has worked fine so why is it ridiculous to think Nintendo should follow Sony and Microsofts path?

@jtwrenn Microsoft and Sony lose a lot of sales by people abusing that kind of system. I don't see why Nintendo should be expected to copy their competitors. On the same machine, anyone can play any game downloaded to that system. If Nintendo does what you describe then they will lose a lot of money because people will start treating their Nintendo account like a Netflix password and giving it to everyone.

I would love to see Nintendo offer this feature too. With a family of gamers (my wife and two kids) it would be nice to have some ways to save money and play together. HeavyArms55 is an accountant for Nintendo so he must watch their bottom line.

@Heavyarms55 I disagree. I think they lose a lot of system sales and a lot of people who have large families to competitors because they don't have this system. The idea that not matching the offerings of their competitors is a good thing doesn't make much sense. How would not having a feature for a system get them more sales? You are assuming everyone will buy multiple switches and multiple games happily and not get pissed and just buy their kids two ps4s instead.

Oh and one last thing. I care far less about Nintendo's bottom line than I do about having a good gaming experience. The idea of using a Switch on the go to play a split screen game is pretty bad for me. I can barely see and it hurts my neck with how much leaning over you do. Allowing ad-hoc multiplayer without having to buy a second game sounds like a much much better idea to me.

That reminds me of a feature from the 3ds that the switch is missing, download play. It would be really nice to be able to play games like mario kart through local wireless multiplayer with just one game card. I really hope this is a feature they add in at some point, as I think it is a great way to sort of "demo" games to people who dont have them yet. It was such a cool new feature when they started doing it on the gba and ds too, its really a shame switch didnt get it.

From an old interview, Kimishima said he expected the Switch to be a more personal device, in line with the 3DS than a traditional home console like the Wii U. I assume they expect people to buy one and share the docks in the house instead of having only one, so for now I think you are out of luck.

Looking at Switch's sales, your point is quite moot.

Oh and one last thing. I care far less about Nintendo's bottom line than I do about having a good gaming experience. The idea of using a Switch on the go to play a split screen game is pretty bad for me. I can barely see and it hurts my neck with how much leaning over you do. Allowing ad-hoc multiplayer without having to buy a second game sounds like a much much better idea to me.

I can imagine that they may allow multiple systems play on one copy for a multiplayer game. They did with some Game Boy Advance games. The question is whether the Switch would be able to handle it.