Nintendo Switch Now Supports Digital Game Sharing, But There's A Catch

I have all Digital... good stuff. Nobody predicted nor even heard them requesting this. It is a great feature!!

Does this feature need online subs?

I don't get it. Lol. From the title I thought I could share my digital games with a friend and vice versa.

Huh?

Too bad I don't have any friends.

This sounds like the ps4

Honestly, that’s a genius feature!

Nice! Another awesome feature. Just started me up some Legend of Zedlurs!

@Francema could you let me play those games?

@invictus4000 you can, you make your friends console your primary and vice versa so you can share those purchases

So...I suppose this system could be circumvented by not connecting the primary console to the internet if you don't want to interrupt the other console's game. Hmm....

Interesting but how will cloud saves work with this? I would think I could pickup where I last saved on the other console but they aren't spelling that out so maybe there is a big lag that makes that delayed. I wonder what happens if primary console is offline playing and save file is updated by secondary, when both saves are sent to cloud does it choose one and erase the other? I can see this causing issues even if just the case where own two Switches that sometimes aren't online. If the save files are completely different between the two that be odd and defeat purpose of having account on secondary.

Well Nintendo is getting there, it's just not there yet.

@MAntonioLimon yep... Basically Nintendo "discovered" that water wets.

I’ll be damned... why would they not give the positive to promote the service... I just went to à absolute no to a big maybe if I can share game with friends and at the same time split online cost on a family plan...

Edit : The more I read about it, the less it seems like sharing but more like letting me play my game on another switch... the other accounts on the non-primary switch can’t access the games... so I go to a friend, I can play my games with my account on his switch, but he can’t play my game on his switch.... since the switch if portable I might as well just bring my switch.

@TuxDC Well, I don't know all the answers to your questions, but I do know that your data is backed up to the cloud pretty quickly after running a couple of quick tests. You can also download your save data to another console. Not sure how automatic the process is, but you can force the download by going to the Save Data Cloud Backup settings on the Options screen for each respective game.

Nice, I was wondering if this would be the case.

So does that mean a primary user can play catride base games while secondary user plays digital?

@Yoshi Ok cool. The ability to play off cloud saves and manually force it, will solve the account owner playing on two different Switches. I am curious how they handle conflicts but maybe it makes the user pick one file but both save files are there.

@Randomlight the easiest way to explain it is for what its meant for

If you have kids for example you let the kids play on your accounts primary console they can play your games on their users

Than you sign into the other Switch and play your games using your own user account

If I start up my digital game on another Switch, does it share save data? My kids have their own Switch. If I log onto their system, can they play my games without it screwing up the save data on my system?

@bonham2 Save data is backed up and downloaded automatically.

However, you can set this on a per user - per software setting.

So yeah, it works exactly the same as PS4 now.

@invictus4000 From what I have heard you can play the same digital content across two Switches at the same time. Switch 1 has to be your primary and another account plays the game, Switch 2 you have to play the game on your account when connected to the Internet.

Welcome to the 21st century Nintendo

Could be sounds of upgraded switch ? Why i can use second switch with same account ? 🤔

"not exactly what you might expect when you hear the words "game sharing""

Which is probably why "game sharing" shouldn't' have been used in the title of the article.

Not sure what the current term is for this, what I've done on my two PS3 for the past 10 years, but I'll throw "game mobility" out there, as you can move your game to your different Switches if need be.

I Googled "Game mobility" and nothing came up so I'm sticking with that.

I mean, it makes sense. You still only bought one copy of the game. I imagine this is the reasoning.

Well that's a nice bonus. Something new worth subscribing for that's not new games or access to services that already existed!

@bonham2 You have to set the Kids console as your Primary Console, then they can play all of your games on their own profiles.

When you play on your own Switch, only you will be able to access your games on your Switch.

Just remember to password lock your account on their Switch so they cant buy anything.

That's a great feature. Bravo Nintendo.

An improvement, for sure.

This is a valuable to everyone, not just online subscribers.

@Fronic Not at the same time though. As soon as one of the Switches starts the game it will be paused on the other.

So if I'm not mistaken, this works exactly the same as PS4 and maybe Xbox?

@Francema If only they worked on features that ‘were’ requested... this feature is ‘ok’... but there are many other features that would be far more appropriate.... allow me to backup saves to a USB or otherwise BEFORE my switch was stolen would have been nice... for example. Nintendo’s mindset is so incredibly flawed in so many areas it blows my mind sometimes.. The rest of their product gets praise (for good reason) but they always ALWAYS do things that are just rediculous to just about anyone who plays a game..

It’s so obvious that a few changes here and there to their ideas and marketing could make them great... but they seem to miss the ball so many times and it’s almost always over the smallest little things that didn’t need to be the way they are.

Well, this is a step in the right direction.

@mac6375 It sounds similar to the way the PS4's DRM scheme works, except I believe Sony allows you to change which console is designated as your "primary" PS4 whenever you like. The confusing aspect is that you only should log in on the "secondary" system and never (or only rarely) on the "primary" system - otherwise it will shut down the game on the other system.

@rjejr It is/was better on the PS3, where any registered console (originally 5, now 3) could play any game regardless of whether you were logged in. I believe iOS allows you to play any game on up to 5 registered devices, online or offline, and you can also change them at will.

Cool.

Nice, and more or less piracy proof. This allows sharing of digital games with a friend. Only one console can access these games, per account at once.

So you could play a physical game, and share your digital library with a friend.

Hell yeah i just gave my account to a friend and now he has all my digital games! only downside is that if i play a game online and he's playing his game Will "Block" off but thats easy to bypass ir prevent

But Nintendo !
It would be perfect if we didn't have to use the same user on the non-primary console ! Really too bad !

i don't think i use the share features because whenever guest comes over we usually play on the same system

This sounds just like Ps4 where it's designed more that you can play your games on another system rather than share them with others.

Well done Nintendo.
You have made account based gaming work on your console.

Now let's see if you can figure out doing this between systems.
So if you the Wii U digital version of BotW, you can play it on the Switch without having to buy the game again and it DLCs.

This sounds like Spotify. I share an acct with somebody and I can play whatever I want digitally. But as soon as he starts playing a song on his device, my app pauses. Same principle.

Why would anybody have two Switches in different locations?

Unless you put your account in a friend's Switch in order for them to use it when you can't.

What is also great, is that now you can download all your games and saves to a new Switch, and make it the primary one, if your current Switch brakes or get stolen.

At least once a year you can do it yourself.
Before you had to call Nintendo to change your primary console, if your didn't have access to your old one anymore.

So what's the catch.

If anything my friends would benefit from my library while I’ll have zilch from them.

@XerBlade Not quite. On PS4 two of you can play the same game at the same time.

@Moroboshi876 Families with multiple Switches, or when you get yourself a sweet new Limited edition Switch.

For instance. You could get the Pokémon Let's Go Eevee bundle, and buy the Pikachu game physical. Then you can easily use 2 Switches to trade and battle with yourself (to get a full PokéDex)

I HATE THIS! It means when I get my switch my sister can no longer play my games (like minecraft) without Internet... If they want households to have more than one switch this needs improvements.
edit: Also to use these games on a non primary switch you have to load up the game with the user who purchased the game. WHICH IS STUPID.

@Liam_Doolan has anybody at NintendoLife tried the good ol' bait and Switch? Primary console playing in flight mode, non-primary online.

I do this on Steam all the time and it works wonders. Friend is playing one of my singleplayer games? I just go offline and boot it up. Steam can't bloody tell we're both playing at the same time.

@VexingInsanity So you could pay once for the game and then use it on multiple systems? You don't see the potential piracy problem here?????
Also Nintendo lives on the sales of games. They are not giving them away for free.

@sanderev I know but can they not make it so she doesnt have to use my account and that you don't have to be connected to the Internet? This suddenly brings a whole host of issues to owning two switches and Idk if I want one now.
Maybe like a secondary account system?

@VexingInsanity Yes there is a simple solution to that. Then she also needs to purchase the game. That's the whole point. Your account owns the game, so it's bound to you as a person. You can have only one primary system on one account, and that's the system that can play the games with other users (on the same system) and offline.

Otherwise you could give your Nintendo account to like 100 people and they all would be able to freely play your games offline. And that is piracy.

@VexingInsanity The problem lies with your point of view, your entry point: "Owning two switch consoles". You don't own two Switch consoles. You own one, and your sister owns one. You each own a Nintendo Account. Any title downloaded on your Nintendo Account is yours, and any title downloaded on her Nintendo Account is hers. You can borrow hers and she can borrow yours while connected to the internet.

Pretty simple, really. Anything else would be stealing / piracy / Nintendo giving their games away totally free lol.

@sanderev @Blizzia Fair enough. But the issues with that are. Minecraft is a game both me and my sister play and if we had a physical we could play it one at a time anywhere without internet. But we bought it before the physical. I suppose there's no way to check if you are playing it while offline. I need only physical games where possible from now >_<

@VexingInsanity Yeah it's a shame but oh well. I do wonder though, if one Switch can use flight mode and play the game while the non-primary Switch plays it online? I mean that has worked on any other platform I've ever done this (admittedly shady) move on.

Because if it can be detected in flight mode, the Switch isn't using flight mode correctly, and that means it should be banned from... flights.

The only problem I see is that you need to play the games using the account that purchases them, which would probably mess up cloud saves if you plan to use this as a way to share digital games with a friend or relative.

I mean, I'm all in for sharing with my brother. But I sure as hell don't want him near my save files.

@ValhallaOutcast this sounds brilliant. I have two daughters and this would be ideal as in the future we could all have out own switch but only need one digital copy of a game and as long as we are playing different games at the same time we can all play at same time using one account.

At least I think this is what it means??

So let me get this straight. Me and my brother could go say 60/40 on a game (60% for the primary account since he'll be the owner of the game). I give him my login details for my account, so that when I'm done with playing the game for the day, night or once completed, he can access it and play using my account on his switch? As for save data, as long as there's more than on save file, we could just use separate files?

I have something my friends call the ‘Magic Xbox’.

I bought a 2nd hand console that has been wiped but the serial number is still registered to another user and they have yet to deactivate it. All his/her games and subscriptions carry over to my console! This means free Live, Game Pass and free games occasionally download onto my console. I rang Microsoft and they said it was all above board.

In the last year I’ve had AC Origins, No Man’s Sky, Hitman, Shenmue Collection and a plethora of other games just appear from nowhere.

As for the game suspending on a secondary console, how will it know to suspend if it's playing the game with no wifi connection?

What I read is: you still have to purchase a game twice AND pay extra to enjoy multiplayer when no local play is supported. Otherwise you "just" have to still buy it twice. This makes it a hard pass...

Buying a game, on cartridge or digitally, that supports local multiplay, could easily be made available for two players to not have to share a screen, without demanding double dipping. This will make many games simply disappear from my radar instead of granting them a single purchase for local wireless co-op.

@Scottwood101 The primary system apparently doesn't need to be connected, so as long as you're both playing single player, and the primary is in airplane mode, I guess that could work... No?

I was so hoping to play wireless local multiplayer with a single purchase, but that won't be possible probably. Which makes this "service" rather... uninteresting.

I hope Nintendo takes the next step and enable family sharing of eShop purchases.

@sanderev But why would, for example, a parent use their profile on a child's Switch, even if there are households with two Switches (which Nintendo doesn't count on, thus supporting Nintendo 3DS still in 2018-2019, as they explained)? If you're at home you don't need to play on different Switches.

Pity, I hoped it would be the same as on Playstation, where you simply download your games on up to a certain number of consoles, and all users associated with that console can then play the games...would have saved a lot of money since there are three Switch-owning people in my family, and we all play very similar games (especially indies). Still, well done Nintendo for (somewhat) catching up on this feature!

Cool, I mean, it's completely unexpected and a much needed feature. On the flipside, Sony and Microsoft have been doing this forever and if I understood this article correctly, with less restrictions.

But yeah, I don't want to complain, all my games except Zelda are digital (as on all my other consoles for the exact reason of game-sharing, well that and convenience), so that is neat.

@chriscare are you sure? I thought that only the account holder could access the game? Hope I'm wrong!

@VexingInsanity Well, before the update she wouldn't be able to play your games at all.

Wait wait wait wait... People are actually expecting to be able to play one single copy on multiple copies? Do people even realise that one could buy just one copy and give them to all the other people. Of course only one can play at a time because you only bought one game what do you expect?
Sometimes i just don't understand the entitlement of some people.

This is a good feature. I'll need to check out the family sharing mechanism too - does that allow for simultaneous play?

Awesome! This is always good news! A friend of mine has it on PS4 and it´s pretty good.
Well played, Nintendo. Better late than never.

@BensonUii I see, but I don't think many families have more than one Switch. And if I'm wrong, Nintendo is too, because they said they would support 3DS for now because they considered it a system more affordable and likely to have more units in one home, unlike the Switch.

Why is this unexpected to people? How else would Nintendo's Online service work?

@BensonUii Yes, I don't say it's not useful. I just say it's not the most useful feature on Earth. And I insist: tell your friend you will not be playing for some days and they can access to your games temporarily.

@BensonUii Well, I would only let someone I really can trust do it. But anyway it's not a feature I will be using.

So, My main account bloated with game could be used on my son' switch to play another game within my profile on his switch, while myself enjoying some yoku island goodness ?

@BensonUii You'd have to setup an account purely for buying games intended for sharing. So buy the game with account B, then download the game on 2nd Switch with Account B, but play the games on Switch 1 with Account A. Then your save files are separate from the account you're sharing.

this reminds me of the share library on steam, interesting.

I wouldn't trust anyone enough, but good for families and perhaps trying out games that friends have bought (if you trust them enough).

Also, if you can change the primary console without deactivating once per year, then that could be really useful for mechanical failure/loss/theft when you fire up a replacement. Do you still need to contact Nintendo in that case?

This great and I'll probably use it a lot, but I really want full family sharing that doesn't cut of the first consoles game. The family alone would buy two more switches, think about how many more they could sell if they advertised as per person device.

Also does anyone no if you can access your saves from a physical game on another switch?

@Slitth You mean you bought Wii U software, and you're upset that's the only place you can use it? If you wanted it on the Switch, that's where you should have gotten it. Nintendo would never go through the trouble. Would it be nice? I mean, sure, absolutely. But it's not like they owe you or anyone anything.

I mean, if we're being honest, they did do the work, and they released it as a commercial product. You're free to upgrade for $60 for the base software, and an additional $20 for the extra content.

I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but we've all been expected to buy the original Super Mario Bros.... I dunno, 14 times now? Whatever.

@BensonUii Your right, that kinda stinks, cause Nintendo is sitting on a gold mine of sales

And I know stored on the cart, but I was wondering if Nintendo now gave you the option to use your cloud saves on other consoles, which I'm guessing they have

Guess its a good way to take your digital games to a friend’s to try out.

The internet connection requirement for the secondary console is kinda understandable; Nintendo aren’t just gonna allow you to hand out free copies. Although Sony did allow a limited amount across multiple consoles; think it was 4? Made sense for when cross play was a thing.

@RunGMhx It works like XBL worked back in the day (dunno how that changed since then, since I haven't used my 360 since 2011 or so):

The "Primary Switch" (where you created your account) can play everything offline, if you want to play your games at a friend's place, the profile that bought the game has to be online at all times (or the game will pause).

In theory, it is possible to share games that way, but is certainly against Nintendo's TOS and is only meant to enable gamers to play Download games with friends, e.g. when you played Splatoon on your brother's console, want to show it your friend, but your brother needs it on a Mario Kart tournament.

@invictus4000 you can lol just you guys cant play the same game at the same time

@Bensei thanks for the details.

Does this mean if you are part of a family membership you are able to play digital copies of games that other people buy on a different switch console?

If I am following it correctly, it's sort of how Xbox 360 used to work. In that a game was tied to the console and the user. So if the user was not signed in the console would let others play it, while the user signed into a different console could use the game as long as they were signed in. If you signed out of the second console to play on the original, then the game became inaccessible to anyone on the second console.

@Lthoise @invictus4000 It is more complicated than that. If you want your friend to be able to play your game they'd have to use your account on their console. If they do this they will need to be online the entire time they play (sounds like there is some fault tolerance for this), if your primary console fires up the game while online your friends game will pause. Also, you'll want to be careful about the cloud back up, you probably don't want your console downloading your friend's save, so turn the auto back up off.

A lot of hoops to jump through just to share games.

@hanp01 No that is not what this means. This change is only loosely related to the Online service launching.

It basically means you can download and play games you purchased on your account while on a different console. But only while connected tot he Internet and only using your account.

this is a game changer. what a lovely suprise

So like Steam? Not really a catch if you consider the standard. Very cool concept that it pauses, unlike with Steam you just get booted.

@MasterJay The best I can say right now is it looks like you can access saves for physical games on multiple consoles using the cloud back up. I got as far as backing up some saves from physical games and downloading one of those saves to another console. I didn't actually launch the game to make sure it works

@Raiutora not quite. Steam lets you play the games using any steam account you've enable family sharing for on that computer. With the Switch solution only the account that owns the game can play it on the non-primary Switch. For some games with multiple save slots this may not be a big deal but for others it is almost useless for game sharing.

I personally think this is a useless feature. I'm happy for all the people out there who for some reason unknown to me, will start a game on one Switch and mid-game open the same game on a different Switch to play the same game????

Maybe I'm missing how the application will work or benefit anyone. I thought this was going to be sharing a digital game purchased on the Family Plan or something. Now that I would understand!

This is pretty much how Steam works. I share all my games with my kids' accounts, but if I start any game in my Steam library while they're playing, they'll be kicked off in 5-minutes. This seems perfectly reasonable to me since publishers want to avoid a situation where someone buys a game and then shares it with all of his friends without restriction.

Of course the workaround for Steam is to simply start Steam in offline mode, or pull the ethernet cable if you want to be doubly sure. I wonder if you can do something similar with the Switch by turning on airplane mode?

@Mountain_Man you can! I'm playing offline on my switch as my friend plays my digital games online, no problem

@chriscare You are wrong, I tried this last night. I could not play my games on my kids' console unless I used my account.

From the article above:
"While using a non-primary console, downloadable content can only be started by the user that purchased the content.
When using downloadable software on a non-primary console, your game will pause if your Nintendo Account is used to access downloadable software on any other Nintendo Switch console."

I can't think of a single way this is better than the steam family sharing and at least one in which it is worse

@chriscare Ok, I guess I see what you are saying now, but it's been possible to do that since day 1 with the Switch. You can also get pretty much the same effect on Steam by using the same Steam account on multiple windows profiles.

@chriscare You could have one profile on each console. Link your account to console A download games. De-link it from console A. Link it to console B and download games. To Switch back and forth you have to de-link and link each time. Which is the same thing you have to do now with the primary console thing.

I did this a couple times before last night it worked fine. But it's a bit of a hassle. I've talked to other people who used that to share games in a house with a bunch of Switches. They had profiles designated to a group of games and just linked and delinked between Switches depending on the games they wanted to play.

@blecch I don't have iOS but I do play stuff on my Android phone and tablet and I've never thought of it as lending, borrowing, sharing, trying oyt, giving awsy, or anything like that. It's just me play my games on my devices. I'm not a huge fan of "game mobility" in part b/c mobility brings to mind mobile but it's closer to my idea of 1 person 1 game, sharing is more than 1 account.

@Fabicom I don't even see it as lending since it seems like it has to be played under the same account. I've never gone from playing a game on my phone to my tablet and felt like I was "lending" myself the game.

Not saying you're wrong, but I've spent too much time going to the library where the library lends me their books. If we could let a friends account borrow a game for a trial then I'd see it as lending. But that could just be me.

@chriscare So this is how I think you think it will work. Use the account that owns Splatoon on a secondary Switch. Use an account that does not own Splatoon on the primary Switch.

I'm pretty sure that won't work. Once you fire up Splatoon on the primary Switch it will pause on the secondary Switch. Did you try it?

What you can certainly do that you could do before is borrow a friends Switch, download your game on it and play on your friends switch without the bother of delinking your Switch. You and your friend could even play a 2 player game you on on your friend's Switch. If you have cloud save you could even play a game your friend owns on their Switch upload the save data to the cloud and later buy the game on your account and pick up where you left off. So there are good things happening just not as good as it seemed at first.

@eternalcube You would call Nintendo and ask nicely.

@chriscare I guess I'll have to try it. For Splatoon you'd still need to change your primary console otherwise you'll both start over at rank 1 since it doesn't support cloud saves.

@TheDanslator nor me... Will you be my friend? Lol

You know what? Let’s just be happy that this is an added bonus we didn’t know was coming. I can’t wait to give this a try.

@eternalcube I did it once for my 3ds, I did have to know some key information, but yeah, you could probably do that to someone you know well.

It's the Nintendo way.

so is it possible for me to share digital games with my friends? most of my digitals are offline play

For context, if I wanted to use this as a means of sharing my (digital) purchases with a friend, how would that work? Would they need to make a new account separate from their own, and log in with my user information after deregistering my account? I understand some of it, just not the initial steps I could take to start this.

Also, slight bummer that I can't share physical games, but with the way this system works, it makes sense.

@Andrew5678 You definitely can share physical games. I own mostly physical and we share them between out two Switches all the time.

Sharing digital is more tricky. With the new update you have a couple options.

1.You could sign in as a guest ( aka secondary Switch) on your friends Switch. This is the simplest way to share. He'll have to play on your account. Which means you may want to turn off cloud back up ( if you have the online service) so you don't overwrite your progress with his. Also, he will have to be online while playing and his game will pause if he gets knocked off line or you play the game from your account on your primary Switch.

2. You could make his the primary Switch for your account. This would allow him to play the game using his profile and while offline. this requires changing settings on both Switches and leave your Switch with all of the limitations of option 1 for all of the digital games owned by that account.

Strangely, it seems ( see my back and forth with chriscare above) you can both play the same game at the same time , if you use your account on a secondary Switch and he uses his account on your primary Switch.

Hope this helps.

@VexingInsanity Before 6.0, your sister wouldn't have been able to play your digital games AT ALL. This is a decent step.

@nonprophetmusic
I did not consider your comment rude.

I am just tired of consoles making games that cost more and are limited to a narrow platform when compared to PC games.

And it make the console market harder to compete in.
Because when you have now backwards compatibility of any kind, you lose some of you selling point.

The reason I get the Wii U was because I saw it as an upgrade of my old Wii,
When I look at the Switch, I see a new console I have to build a game library for. I might as well by a PlayStation or a Xbox.
Or just use the money to buy PC games.

Now I can understand that backwards compatibility does not have to be a free service.
It could cost my 1 euro per game and I would not have a problem with it.
Or it could be part of the paid online service.
But to have to buy the game and it DLC for full price. Not a chance.
That a deterrent in my book. And one of the reasons I do not buy a Switch.
The biggest reason is that I would rather use the money that a Switch cost to buy PC games

@NintyNate

Nah, I'm good.

@TheDanslator

@I understand entirely, but when it comes to PC games, those games in most cases are programmed to work within the windows os, and are dependent on really similar framework and architecture. That’s why PC games usually continue to work as the software and hardware evolves.

This is a different circumstance, really. I will own up to purchasing the game twice, but only the DLC once on the Switch. You’re really missing out on that game if you only played it on the Wii U. I wanted to disregard that talk when I heard it, but, dang. This game shouldn’t have been on the Wii U. There were many things about it’s performance on the platform that nearly blew my mind, ‘cause it felt so... bad. I’m maybe just so used to Nintendo games being quality AF, and having such a polish and shine. That didn’t stop me from putting in over 150 hours on that release alone, but... I dunno. If you have an opportunity, just shell something out for it, used, even, at some point. Nintendo will definitely release the title for something like $20 at some point. Ala, “Nintendo Selects,” or some such, since those are based on sales. Even if it’s six years down the road, you won’t regret it. If you do, find me, and punch me. I welcome it.

Same as PS4 and Xbox then

@Yoshi well you'd just have a different user on the first console playing the game so it would never interrupt you. This is just so that you aren't logged in on 2 consoles at the same time. It also means you should only need to buy one digital copy of a game for multiplayer between 2 Switch's

Oh, this is neat! I had no idea that this was a thing, thanks for reporting on this Nintendo Life. Now my fiance can play my games without grabbing my Switch!

This is one issue I can tick off.

Just on-system chat, message, friend system now.

I'm on the fence about this, is it digital sharing for ALL digital Switch games or just certain ones? I mean, the anchoring was one thing that was always holding me back from doing more digital's, but for me it's still not enough, physicals are just better (for me), I notice most digi-philes' argument against physical is clutter and space, but I keep them in a few mini-altoids containers, each holds 8, it's a crap argument

pretty standard feature you would expect. I do this on steam when I get a new computer(or have to do a hard drive wipe).

I'm all physical on switch for games that I can get physical, so that doesn't matter to me. However if I lose my switch console, I only lose the one game in the slot so I don't need to worry about their silly "only some games have cloud save" BS.

@sanderev sorry it has been while but yes you can play the same game on two switches

@Mynameishello Hmm? Sounds like you have your knickers in a bunch over something so tiny as my comment, you silly billy! I'll clarify for you.

I guess I didn't really think about it in terms of save data exactly. I was more thinking in terms of losing your entire library vs. losing just a single game cart. I guess I got mixed up in my phrasing talking about save data vs. games you own. I realize that probably you would just have a record of digital games you own and just redownload them to a new system. I don't know if that was possible before the paid online update however since it never came up. My real reason for liking physical is just knowing that no matter what I own the game and I don't have to rely on Nintendo always having an online server to redownload it from or if something wonky happens and they remove it from being redownloaded. These things happen from time to time. So sorry if I was confusing you on that front anyhow.

In terms of my comment about only some games having cloud save....is that NOT true? I thought the whole uproar(imo rightly so) is that some games(even big titles) won't support cloud saves. I'm also confused there about you being upset at me apparently being a fanboy. I thought fanboys made excuses for bad ideas. I think it is a shortcoming indeed, and make no excuse for this blank spot. However, again, if it isn't true and ALL games will support cloud save please edify me. I'm a bit jumbled up too. I won't attribute bad faith or motives despite your abrasive attitude towards me, but let us clarify this situation amicably.

@hirokun It is true some pretty big games don't support cloud saves. Most specifically Splatoon and Minecraft. For Splatoon the explanation is that someone could cheat. Especially at high level ranks one loss can make a big difference so a user could overwrite their local save file with the cloud version after a loss.

This really just shows some shortsightedness in the development of the game.As far as Minecraft, I assume it is not supported because of the potential size of a save file, 100's of large worlds can get huge.

Digital games have always been available for redownload on Switch. It is true that some day the servers won't be available. But this will affect a lot of physical games as well, considering about half either require additional downloads to play, require a day one patch to be of reasonable quality or are primarily online games anyway.

@dane62 thanks for the clarification. Yeah Splatoon sounds pretty dumb, I don't play it though. So they do everything client side it sounds like, so no wonder that game has rampant unabated hacking. I didn't know anyone even cared about minecraft anymore to be honest, but it does go to say that the storage issue there is a bother. The other big one is the upcoming pokemon games.

The physical games I buy are really only the ones that have the whole game on cart unlike ones such as wolfenstein 2, I just won't buy those games. In terms of online games I don't play those either I guess, and even if I did aren't they mostly F2P? I'm thinking Paladins, Fortnight and Warframe with Splatoon being the only outlier, and again, its such a hot mess in its own right I wouldn't want to buy it.

The one thing Im getting with this is that while the games can be shared across 2 Switches, those 2 cannot play the same game together.

So me and my wife wouldn't be able to play Splatoon 2 together or Mario Kart, because as soon as I start playing it's going to pause the game on my wifes Switch.

So, by the sounds of it, I can play Zelda on mine while my wife plays Splatoon or Mario Kart on her (All games are part of my account.)

Am I right?

This is completely useless. We have 3 Switches in the house. The option for me to play my games on my son's Switch is DOA! The service I want is the ability to play online together with my kids without being made (fleeced) to purchase the same bloody game 3 times. . . Even Sony lets us do that with the 2 PS4s we have!!

@fluggy : +1. They are really stupid!! I would buy at least two more switches if they let share a game completely between family members.

I want to play games console vs console with my kids. Will never buy multiple copies of each game. Thats ridiculous!!!

People with multiple kids would definelly be purchasing multiple consoles if they change policy.

Wish there was a channel to provide feedback to Nintendo...

Soooo, I know no one has commented on this post in awhile, but as a father of 2 kids, each of whom owns a Switch, I can definitively say that this feature is so bad it's worse that having no sharing at all. We'd been all-physical until the voucher program, which is actually a pretty good deal if you're not considering selling the games in the future.

So, I bought two sets of two vouchers (worked out to $90/pair with discounted eShop cards from Costco) and got Splatoon 2 for both systems (both kids need copies of the game for local multiplayer) and Mario Party for one and Mario Maker 2 for the other, then installed Mario Party on the second kids's Switch.

Then I realized the real problem. If anyone is playing ANY digital title on Switch A, then NO digital titles owned by Switch A can be played on Switch B.

I now realize that the Nintendo website does actually describe this correctly, but all of its artwork indicate that if Switch A is playing one game (MK8), then Switch B can't play the same game, but even after a few rereads it was unclear to me that ANY digital titles owned by A can't be played on B.

This is objectively nuts. Imagine trying to explain to your kid that he can't play Mario Party because his brother is playing Splatoon.

That did not go well.

I get that Nintendo has the right to earn a buck, and they are trying to prevent bad actors from sharing games willy nilly, but within a FAMILY — and Nintendo has codified a family unit in the Nintendo architecture — there should be the ability to share games completely and without restriction, online and offline. If they want to enforce that the same digital title can't be used at the same time on both systems, I don't love that, but I can live with it.

But as of right now, my $180 lesson learned is not to purchase any Switch title digitally that can be bought physically. To Nintendo's credit, they did offer to refund me the vouchers, but since they were bought with eShop credit, I wouldn't be able to use them for anything beyond other digital switch titles, so I'm living with the status quo and satisfying myself by ranting here.