Topic: Help with playing games with my son. Switch + switch lite

Hey Nintendo Community,

I was unable to find an answer searching around, as I believe my situation may be unique and could use some insight into what exactly is happening in Nintendo's user system on the backend.

I have had my original switch for a while, and have had my Nintendo account linked to my user. My son made a profile on my switch, and when Mario Maker 2 came out, he wanted to be able to play levels online using his own profile. I wasn't sure if it would work, but I decided to make him a Nintendo account, and link it to mine as a guardian. After I did that, I realized that he still could not play because my account and user was the only one that could use the Nintendo Online subscription. That was annoying given that we are using the same system and only one user could go online, but it was fine. He just used my account when he played.

Fast forward to a month ago, we got my son a Switch Lite. He wanted to be able to download games, so I did what I thought was a smart thing because you need to link a Nintendo account to go into the eShop - I linked his user profile to the child Nintendo account we had made before. This changed his user name and icon completely for some reason, but it maintained all his original switch light save data, so it did not really matter. He was able to download games.

A couple days ago, we decided he was old enough to play Fornite. I downloaded the game, figured out all the weird account stuff related to it, and it worked. I wasn't sure if online would work, but apparently it does even though when I go to the eShop on his switch lite, it says he does not have a Nintendo online subscription or a free trial. Again, this is weird, but not an huge issue.

Now comes to my problem. He wants to play Fornite with me. It's a free game, so I figured it would be easy for me to download it on my switch and have us play together. But when I went to the eShop page for Fortnite on my switch, I found that it said "Purchased" and wouldn't let me download it. I went to check if I had downloaded it before and needed to redownload it, but nope. Its not there. I can't download the game, and I believe it has something to do with my switch and my son's switch lite being linked. Thinking that, I tried to see if I could unlink the switches, but nope. I can't too that because it says the age on his account is too young.

This seems to be a ridiculous result, because it means that we can never play the same game together. I haven't tried physical + download or two physicals.

I don't know what to do. I want to play games with my kid but there seems to be no solution. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

@dclibbon I'm fairly sure there is no physical version of Fortnite. If you see a Fortnite case sold at the store, there is only a download code inside. (A few games are like this. It's labeled on the case. Also, yeah, it's disappointing.)

(edit: deleted part of my post since HobbitGamer below is probably right 😉)

**side note, I think Switch Fornite does not support split screen multiplayer on a single console. Other consoles can do it, just not the Switch version. You may already know this, though.

Fortnite does not require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.

I have encountered this problem before. There is a "Redownload" option in the eShop which should allow you to download past purchases. For the purposes of your account, Fortnite is considered to be "purchased", even though it's free software.