Topic: Using games on 2 switches

I'm considering buying 2 new Switch consoles.
I'm not clear how the games work with regard to attachment to the hardware.

If I buy 2 games, can I play them on both of my Switch consoles?

If you mean multiplayer between systems, then yes, you will need two consoles and two copies of the game. It all depends on the game of course. Games like Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will support local wireless multiplayer in this way, but others may be restricted to local multiplayer only.

I was thinking that there would be a restriction that a game could only be played on one Switch console at a time.

On the basis that a single game can be played only on one Switch at a time, can a game be played on both of the Switch consoles?

What I want is what Apple call "Family sharing" ... except one player at a time.

Digital or Physical? I know physical works. Digital I believe you have to deactivate your NNID on one and logon to another. There's a menu option for it.

No. Games are console locked. If you remove your NNID from one Switch, you can activate it on another and redownload your games, but there is no "family sharing" option. Some DS and 3DS games had a "Download Play" multiplayer feature that allows other players to share a single copy of the game, usually for the purposes of local multiplayer, but I suspect that this feature will be absent from the Switch due to the considerably larger size of games on the system.

Physical games are not console locked. The game has no idea who's Switch it is running on and game saves are stored on the Switch itself.

Digital games are locked to the profile that bought the game. As stated before, if Nintendo puts out a "family sharing" feature, then you will be able to possibly share digital games among the family, or at least 1 other Switch console. But I doubt that will happen.

Repeating and adding to what a few others have said:

Physical games: Play it under whatever profiles or hardware you want to.
Digital games: Locked to the profile you bought it under AND locked to whichever SINGLE console that account has set as "Primary". You can't download a digital game to your other Switch unless you "deactivate" the first one. only one Switch console can be the account "primary" (and thus able to play the downloaded games.)

If you want to play on two systems, go for physical right now.

Save data: Right now save data is stored on the hardware, not the cartridge, and can NOT be copied to another machine. Your save data on console #1 will always and only ever be on console #1, you can't get it to console #2 via any method. Physical and digital are the same in this regard.

Unknown: Koizumi mentioned in an interview that they're "looking into" ways to let you download digital games on multiple systems but "haven't found a good way to do that yet." I.E. I'd expect that "primary console" policy for digital download games to change at some point, and that change will likely be tied to the annual online subscription for your account.

Unknown (Save games): Nintendo hinted several times at "cloud save" type features (going back to Iwata himself), and in a recent interview, Reggie was asked directly and responded "Wouldn't that be great?" While it's a non-answer, there's a decent guess that the annual online subscription going live in Fall will, like for Playstation Network and XBox Live, include Cloud Save features where you WILL be able to synchronize your save games between multiple Switches. That's not a guarantee but seems likely.

@NEStalgia Great info - thanks for posting!

Yup it works. I bought only one physical retail copy of Bomberman R and Skylanders Imaginators and both me and my son are using (sharing) it on our own console.

Since the Switch cartridges are clearly read-only and as such game saves being stored locally on the console, it's easy to share physical Switch games between consoles.
Basically like how it is on other consoles that use optical disks ( WiiU, Playstation, XBox, etc).

Though, you can do it with physical 3DS games as well, just that saves are actually stored on the cartridge. So is a bit more cumbersome.

Jeronan - Can you clarify: You bought one physical game. You have two consoles - you are able to use the game on both consoles at the same time? You are able to play against each other?

@BRob Please don't revive threads that are older than six months.

And no, you cannot use a single game card on two systems at the same time.