Topic: Buying from different regions

So when I bought my Switch, I bought The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with it in a cartridge. I'm thinking of buying other games but this time on the eShop however the game I want (The Escapists 2) is cheaper by £5 in the US than the UK (my region). If I was to change my region on my Switch to US and buy the game, then change back to UK will, I still be able to play The Escapists 2 and The Legend of Zelda or will the game be region locked? Thanks!

You should be fine.

You don't change the region of the console itself. You will need to set up NNIDs (profiles) each with their own specific region.

For example, I have my account (Australian), plus what I call my dummy account (which is also used by guests for the purposes of save data) which is linked to a Japanese NNID that I had made in order to download Japanese demos from the eShop. I am yet to buy any games from the Japanese eShop though. Regardless of the NNID setting of your profiles, any software that you load on Switch will default to the settings of the console itself.

@Karumu It's not so easy to buy games from the US Eshop. It won't accept credit cards outside the US. The best way around it is to buy Ecash codes from Amazon US and top up account that way. This needs a work around to for it to work. As mentioned above you need to open a separate account with new email and link it to your Switch.

This is exactly the case. You need to make a separate Nintendo account for each region you want to purchase from. You will also need to have either an international credit card, or need to get eshop cards from the target region. Or use the method @OorWullie suggested.

Also you don't seem to be able to use the same e-mail for Nintendo accounts in different regions. So if you don't have a second e-mail address, you will need to make one.

Sorry, my last point was phrased badly.

Any game will boot up to the default LANGUAGE of your console, regardless of the region settings of the profile that you choose to load the game with. So, if you have a Japanese profile but your console is set to English, any games played with that Japanese profile will still be in English (unless the game allows for custom language settings).

There is frequently a serious price gap between US and EU prices. So setting up different accounts and providing them with funds might be a little bit of a hassle in the first place, but it's well worth it !

Here's more info on where to get "foreign eshop money" : https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/nintendo-switch/buying_on_...

Does anyone know if Smash Ultimate will be the same version in every eShop? I ask since there are a couple of games that involve different online matchmaking based on which region you bought the game, such as Splatoon 2.

Since NoE has the audacity to ask 70 euro (80 USD) for this game in the eShop, I would like to purchase it in the US eShop (60 USD ~ 52 euro).

@Karumu What @Silly_G is accurate. But it should be noted that regional eshops do not change language. Japan's eshop will be Japanese no matter what language you set your Switch to. Also occasionally certain regions have different versions of the games, edited for content that might be problematic in that region or only support the language of that region. For example if you bought Splatoon 2 or Disgaea 1 from Japan, they'd not come with English support. But it is a game by game basis. BotW, Mario Odessy and most major releases support several languages by default.

@Megal0maniac : The Australian (which is mostly identical to Europe) and Japanese eShops show the same set of languages, being Japanese, English, European languages etc.

I'm guessing that there will be only one version worldwide, so it shouldn't matter what region you buy it from.

@Silly_G yea, that's what I'm guessing, though no one is sure. As long as there are no differences in the Directs et cetera, I guess the chance of Splatoon 2-like scenario's are very slim. Especially the huge price difference makes it so I don't trust the 'region free' thing completely yet, especially when it comes to online.

I have a UK and US account. I just go to PCGameSupply and get my eshop cards from there. my US account is far more active than my UK.

eShop is now in Argentina, which doesn't have eShop cards readily available online, so the only way to do that would be through bank card - Would this method work with say a middleman card such as a Curve card and new Argy account?

@Megal0maniac : The only thing I would be concerned about is whether multiplayer servers may be restricted by region. That aside, I'd guess that importing or buying from other eShops would be a safe option.

@Silly_G that's my whole point and concern from the start, the online part I've been buying from all over the world since Switch launch and was lucky my Splatoon 2 purchase was still from within PAL territory (South-Africa). With Smash it could turn the other way, since US has its most attractive deal. Very small chance though, I guess.

@Megal0maniac : I have noticed that cartridges have region codes on them, so if there are any restrictions, it may be based on that. The regions being JPN, USA, EUR, and AUS. I have no idea whether Asian releases have their own codes or not, or whether there are any other region codes out there for that matter.

Launch-period first-party Switch games had the AUS coding on them in Australia (third party games have always been European), however, Pokkén Tournament was, I believe, the last of its kind, and we have been getting EUR coded cartridges for all subsequent releases, probably due to the high volume of cartridges that need to be produced (and resources being too limited to produce Australia-specific cartridges). I would guess that all subsequent prints will be European ones. Either way, our releases (in the vast majority of cases) correspond to that of Europe.