Topic: Virtual game card problem

I have a Switch 2. A friend brought over her Switch 1. We went into system settings and added her as a user on my Switch 2. We both went into the virtual card screen and successfully linked our systems. She loaned me a game.... I was able to 'load' it onto my S2 and it downloaded perfectly fine and I also saw a message saying 'DLC downloaded'.

Every time I try to launch it though, it pops up a message directing us to get the software from the eShop. When that eShop screen pops up, we tried logging in with her account and mine.... makes no difference, it just keeps asking us to buy it.

I was asking for help on Discord and was told that the DLC was a separate virtual card. We checked and double checked but we don't see a separate virtual card for the game's DLC. When she went into her list of virtual cards, we only saw the base game. Tried clicking on 'can't find your software' to see if there was anything hidden and didn't see the DLC.... still just the base game.

I don't have a MicroSD Express card, but after the game was loaded, I still had around 50GB of free space so I don't think it's a free space issue. Even tried restarting the Switch 2 a couple of times and it still wasn't working.

What are we doing wrong?

@gene0915 I'll make a guess, but I don't know if it's your actual issue.

It sounds like, perhaps, your friend's account only owns the dlc, and not the game. You can't play dlc if you don't own the game digitally or have a physical copy of the game inserted.

There's a common scenario people post about, where there's a switch used by a household/family, and the kid thinks their switch user profile/account owns the game, but the game was actually purchased/owned by their parent's account. (It's not always a kid, forgive my generalizing. Sometimes it's just a family member that didn't understand how game ownership works on the switch console. You don't discover how it actually works until you move your account to another console.)

When you buy a game on a console, every switch user on the console can play that game, but they don't own it. Only one switch user/account owns the game. Is it possible your friend was playing a game owned by a different account, or needs the physical game?

Regarding free storage space: The switch can need around 1.5x the game file size to perform the install process. If the game file is 40gb, and you only have 50gb of free space, this won't be enough to install the game.

@WoomyNNYes I think you hit the nail on the head. I was talking to her a few minutes ago and dummy us didn't realize she had a physical copy of the game in her Switch the entire time and when we were doing the virtual sharing, I guess she was just sharing the DLC with me then and that's why it kept wanting us to buy the digital version of the base game from the eShop.

I never even thought to ask her if she had a physical cartridge installed because we both usually buy all our games digitally and hardly ever buy physical so I just assumed it was the digital version she was sharing.

When she was sharing it, if it had something in the title like.... 'Sonic Racing -DLC-', that would have tipped us off but it just said, 'Sonic Racing'.

Ok, I guess the mystery is solved.

Thank you!

@gene0915 Ahh, it was a physical game. You're welcome!