Topic: If I lose a physical game for the Nintendo Switch, can I buy the digital copy for free?

I recently just lost 2 physical games for the Nintendo Switch and I cannot find them. Here's my question: Can I buy the digital copy for free, after I already bought the physical copy with money?

@JellySlap No, if you lose a physical game, you'll have to buy it again.

If you replace it, it doesn't matter if you buy digital or physical since game save data is stored separately on Switch internal memory. On the plus side, if you replace the game, you'll be able to resume your game progress where you left off.

@JellySlap Go to the eshop. Search for the physical game you have lost. It will let you download it for free if you have purchased it from the eshop

Welcome to nintendoLife

No, same way you can't do that on other consoles.... How would they do that option? It'd be far too open to abuse

Short answer NO. You rebuy them unless they are Digital Games then you redownload them but Physical you rebuy the game.

To join in on this here, can I get two of the same game as long as they're physical and digital respectively?

Of course you can, @Fizza .... By buying both! I'm sure there's theoretical ways, @Rambler but the other 2 consoles don't have it, either, so it'd presumably be more complicated than it might seem

Yeah, it'd get complicated if the person lost the game & then someone else was trying to register it, too, @Rambler .... How would the owner prove they lost it, not sold it on or whatever?
It'd remove the advantages physical games have with sharing, too! What happens if someone manages to register your game to their account before you knew it was missing?
Shops would have to check trade-ins before buying them.....

Yeah, overall, I don't think it'd be worth it, @Rambler .... Guess that's why it's not been done yet, by either other console
Hopefully, OP learns to be more careful with physical games.....

I had an idea for physical carts where, you could transfer the game from the cart onto your system, essentially turning it into a digital version, but the cart registers as "Transferred" if you pop it in. Then, you could transfer the game back to the cart as well, and the game cart would function as normal, but the digital license would be revoked during the transfer.

The only downside is, selling physically could lead to scams if the game is transferred. A simply check by inserting the cartridge first would be an easy fix for trade ins, but online sales... that would be a problem. And I don't know the answer.

Perhaps seller ratings would take care of the issue, the same as if someone sold a non-functional cart. The good sellers rise to the top with high feedback ratings, and the scammers get complaints and banned from eBay. Idk. Just an idea to explore...

@JaxonH I was thinking if Nintendo could look at your home screen and check if you had the game, then offer the refund / replace for 5$ (if you have the digital copy), and ask for a 20$ refund for the physical copy.

@JellySlap then everyone would buy physical games and sell them while downloading the digital version for free.

Yes, all cartridges carry unique identifiers and there would be no technical barriers to registering them to an account on first use, so you could then re-download the game if you ever lost the physical media.

The catch would be that you'd have to revoke the registration prior to another user playing the game from the same cartridge. That would essentially kill the used games market as there'd be no way for purchasers to check that sellers had actually done this prior to getting their hands on it.

Microsoft were planning to do something similar to this prior to the launch of the Xbox One. It went down like a lead balloon, there was a swift u-turn, and nobody's dared to go there since.

This is the exact reason all of my 270+ Nintendo Switch games are digital

No, even if If the cartridge is broken or corrupted, you have to buy another digital copy of game, so I highly recommend to buy a physical copy of games, so you don’t have to worry about rebuy it.

If the selling point for digital is so you don't have to worry about losing your physical games, then it's for muppets lol.

This conversation is why I almost entirely buy digital; I have had a lot of physical games lost and broken in the past.

That and the fact that I am too lazy to get off the couch when I want to swap between playing several games.

Also, the sales are often a bit (or sometimes massively) better.

I suppose space is a 4th reason — I switched to digital books because I had no more room for more shelves. Switch cartridges are tiny so it is less of an issue at home but when I travel with my Switch I like that I can easily take my entire library since it is mostly digital.

So I guess I have several reasons, but losing the majority of my older games to e.g. water damage, theft and loss while moving was the original reason I started switching to digital games. I guess it would be neat if you could redownload a physical game you lost, but if you could do that, why even bother having the cartridge to begin with.

Same. I have 100s of games as well and it would be so sad to lose them all if they were only physical. Although to be fair, the majority of my Switch games are cheap eshop games which don't even have a way to buy them physically.

I feel like most muppets would have difficulty even inserting a Switch cartridge.

Probably not. You’ll have to called Nintendo about this.

Alot fail to mention that your sd storage at this point in time is limited to 1tb and 2tb isn't coming out anytime soon. Digital takes up space on the sd storage so least not minimize this elephant in the room. We can debate Digital vs. Physical all day and have no resolution. There's plenty of reason to get Digital and plenty of reason to get Physical and they are not mutual exclusive to one or another. Listing the listing is not worth the effort because is someone wants Digital they that's there choice but they have to consider the storage medium capacity long term and swapping sd carts is the same as Physical carts that in itself becomes a mute point then. Physical is you can re-sale or give away if you done with the game or don't want it anymore as oppose to Digital it's tied to the account that purchased the game. This is a long deep rabbit hole that has no ends and debate all day long and go no where fast.

I mean... 1TB cards started getting affordable so let's just assume 1TB and say that it fits 40 huge games or 200+ average games. Unless you're playing more than 40 games at once, there is no need to ever swap SD cards so there is no elephant; you just occasionally archive one game and download another which can happen in the background; this gives you effectively unlimited space without needing more SD cards.The point of this thread is that if you lose a physical game you lose it but if you lose a digital game you can always redownload it. As you said there are other pros and cons of each, but the redownloadability is a clear pro.