PSA: Redownloading Switch eShop Games Has Now Changed With Latest Update

Oh, that is nice. Much easier than going into the show eShop.

I like this change. One thing that I feel they could do though, is allow us to download games that are on physical carts, getting them as (temporary) virtual game cards that way. They could do this in a way that the cart itself simply can't boot up the game anymore until either an X amount of time has passed, or until the "key" is returned into the cartridge. THAT'S how game key cards should function.

This would also be a good way to lend out your physical games over the internet.

Virtual game cards are mostly nice, but I knew a technique that would let me play my digital Mario Bros Wonder on 2 consoles at once for multiplayer with just 1 game, but this new update gets rid of it

I like this. Nothing more to say 😀.

@PikminMarioKirby What was it?

@Fizza Yes, archived games still appear on the Virtual Game Cards screen and can be redownloaded from there. If they were archived before this update, they’re still archived.

This is a really hefty update, which one would expect from the number.

They showed that this could be used to play Pokemon Scarlet at home, and on another console.. unlike the cloud saving.. Is that a thing now?

I thought the teal-coloured icon means „This VGC is virtually put into this console“.

@drypaphmrbro Let's say there's Account 1 and Account 2, and Switch A and Switch B. If Account 1 is on both Switch A & B, and if Switch A is Account 1's primary console, then you could play the game on Switch B with Account 1, then play it also on Account 2 on Switch A.

I think it's also worth noting that you can redownload games in the virtual game cards settings even without borrowing the virtual game cards, after which you can still borrow them in the way people have been up to now after flipping on the online license toggle in the user settings. I'm not actually sure why they even added that toggle, unless having it on somehow interferes with the virtual game cards.

@Max_the_German Think it means both?

Edit: When I lend a game to my son's system, the cartridge icon goes clear and his icon is placed in the bottom right corner to indicate he has the VGC. His system then downloads the game and his icon turns green, i.e., the VGC was automatically "inserted." When he sends or I take the game back, the game art stays on his home page, but not his VGC page, and the icon goes clear on his system's home page.

Not sure if it works the same way between two systems logged onto the same account, though.

Yeah I looked around for a bit and my suspicion of Famicom Disk System rewriting was right, and pushing digiital redownloadable menu to further menus to prep us for Switch 2 with these rewritable cards 14 day use with account conditionsand such, however servers will go and so on.

Also can I say it took them this virtual card menu to offer hidden items when PS4/ Steam had this for years. For demo's and things yet people probably use it for fan service or other games. Sigh Nintendo. Your late.

Unlike PS4 you can't put them in a folder and be fine hiding them. Because all consoles have a recentlplayed view cough I hate this.

I use the Switch groups more than I did on Xbox One and Wii U/3DS/PS4 folders have that limitation of 1 title goes there while the groups you can put 100s of folders/groups as what to name them and bundle games there I did for age ratings, yeats of release, touch support, gyro support, digital, physical, which are on my 4 SD cards and many more.

But it took them this long for hidden feature hmm.....

What about physical but visible on the system hidden huh.... any visible violent or fan service games in recently or library. Doesn't effect me (violent ones sure but fan service no) but would region's with physical copies of fan service, I only get them digitally here. Thanks EB Games sigh.

Also why virtual cards menu. If betas/demos like Sony probably intended it for, they probably won't fit this menu use case as you can't put them in cards so they will be restricted as unusable/will they appear in the virtual card menu at all?

So that's pointless and I doubt Nintendo made it for violent/fan service game use for users to prevent visibility of them on their systems from family or other users protection and whichever accounts/user on their Switches.

I just don't see it being for fan service or violent game hiding in mind yet you could do that of course.

You can hide games for many no need to see purposes practically to sort them as cannot remove (the stores don't remove things.

But I did see in a Switch news an article I bookmarked be removed and a didn't usually not seen pages, so that's something). Or fan service/violence as well.

Yeah the new color (red may or may not be as better worse to redead through discount days text) as orange.

Orange looked better I think.

The new icon colours are OK.

The filters are fair for the virtual card menu.

But yeah not that into this.

Finally! It was so annoying having to download stuff through the eShop. Probably didn't help how you couldn't sort the list in any other way than the default or how slow the eShop was.

I like this, much more convenient than logging into eShop each time

Carlito: "Now that's cool."

My monkey brain is adverse to change as I've been working through my backlog in a very particular way... However, I admit this is a really solid change.

And how do you distinguish between inserted Virtual Game Cards and ejected ones? A card could be inserted (=tied to the current console) but not downloaded. It could as well be downloaded but ejected ATM.

What if I have a game with DLC both physically and digitally? Particular example, Sonic Origins Plus.

I got the digital version first and then the physical one. I obviously want to re-download the DLC only (wthout the digital game) from here on now if I ever archive the game.
To do that before the update, you had to go to the respective DLC pages and click on "Re-download", which may actually have been an issue for "unavailable" DLC such as the goods in Digital Deluxe Editions or newsletter subscription codes, as the latter don't even show up when you search for DLC on the eShop, not even as "unavailable".
I really don't know if that one was an issue because I never archived anything with that kind of DLC, like Sonic Frontiers (SOAP shoes) or Sonic Superstars (Modern Amy).

If you re-downloaded from the "Re-download" section of the user on the eShop or from the HOME Menu, it would re-download everything.

Now with the Virtual Game Cards update, can I still re-download only the DLC or will it force the whole game on me as well?
Unfortunately I don't have time to try it myself right now (getting ready for work), maybe later I'll do it if my inquiry has gone unanswered.

EDIT:
I don't know if it was a thing before, but with the Virtual Game Cards manager on PCs and Smartphones, you can redownload games on your different Switches from those devices.

EDIT 2:
Ok, so I tried it with Sonic Origins Plus. I "ejected" the VGC and then (down)loaded it again from the VGC Menu without inserting the physical card, and to no one's surprise it forced the whole thing (game + DLC) on me. Then I archived it again and inserted the physical cart, it gave me a prompt to download the necessary data.
So I'm gonna assume, as long as you don't load the VGC and instead use the physical cartridge, it will only download the previously acquires DLC and updates, without the game. So no changes from how it used to re-download data from the HOME Menu when you inserted a physical card of an archived game.

Unfortunately, I don't have more games in both formats to further experiment except for Puyo Puyo Tetris S, and that one doesn't have DLC.

@IronMan30 too bad it's not a stability update. My switch isn't stable enough yet.

The main thing that needs to be improved is Nintendo’s servers.

They are so slow to download it’s painful. My ps5, phone or whatever are all infinitely faster on the same connection.

Come on Nintendo time to upgrade those windows 95 bad boys!

@HammerGalladeBro I had Tetris 99 digital originally and physical when possible so that seems good for science purposes.... And it does NOT show on the digital download list. Other physical games that have just DLC only are sideways and upright if it's "Software and downloadable content". The latter example I'm looking at I had to buy the digital deluxe on top because it wasn't with the cart and had no other means of getting it.

@RobbWes that's the worst part about this update. No added stability!

@PikminMarioKirby You mean you took advantage of a flaw of the old system, and now Nintendo has fixed the exploit.
If you buy one license of the game, you have one license of the game and not two.

Wait, so I can now redownload without opening eShop ?

I don't trust it

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I refuse to remove games like the ARMS - Global Testpunch because... I don't even know. But I feel like if I remove them then I'll never get them back.

Will this new setup remove those from my list if I archive the game?

Maybe it's a good thing (for me)?

@datamonkey I don’t think it’s Nintendo servers, the Switch just has terrible internet connection even while wired, hopefully it got massively improved with the Switch 2.

@montrayjak Why would you hesitate to delete a software that can never be played again?

And no, it’s not getting removed, it’s forever tied to your account, any software you delete it you can redownload it from this page or the eShop.

@sanderev I think if it was a flaw they would've fixed it about 7-8 years ago, this is just them taking away a feature.

I'm saying this as someone who actually is happy with the virtual game cards, as it's mostly positive. Just sad that it removes a cool little gimmick since Nintendo has been so greedy with their games since they forgot the DS and 3DS download play feature. Now with GameShare, I'll have hope to be able to do that again!

@IOI Yup, I really have no idea. I'm a data hoarder. I've still got texts in my phone from 20 years ago.

Thanks for the clarification tho! Maybe I'll finally free up some valuable SD card space.

@IOI ah yes good point which I hadn’t considered! It could be the S1 had a poor WiFi chip.

Hopefully S2’s is better!

@PikminMarioKirby Sure they removed it quite late. But it always was an unforseen side effect of the primary / secondary system. Some games (Pokémon games) also checked if you were playing the same license on 2 devices. Giving an error if you tried to use multiplayer this way.

To me it is the most fair solution. A physical game can be played in one system at the same time, a virtual game card now basically works the same way.

I wonder if they will allow us in the future to add multiple digital licenses of a game onto one account. So basically you have 2 copies of the game that you can use as virtual cartridges. (you ofcourse would be required to buy a second copy of the game for this to work)

@datamonkey The Switch 2 has a Wifi 6 chip. It should be (a lot) faster. And I hope the ethernet port in the dock actually uses USB-3 or USB-4 making that faster as well.

@PikminMarioKirby Eh. I used to play Splatoon 3 with my brother with one buy, but SMBW feels kinda like cheating Nintendo out of a game, since you could just split screen multiplayer to play together. Also, now you can have 2 switches play different things from the same Nintendo account without internet, something me and my brother will surely use a lot.

@sanderev Isn’t that just buying a digital game with a physical cart on the side?

This is my favorite update feature. I have over 700 digital items, and the eShoo page was just a nightmare interface to scroll and dowbload items individually.

The Virtual Game Card screen is adorable with the carts, highly sortable, and very responsive. Having multi-select for downloads is the cherry on top of the sundae..

Well played, Nintendo.

"...redownloading titles directly from the eShop is now no longer possible. Heading into the relevant section via the eShop account information page now merely directs you to the Virtual Game Card app via the Home Menu."

redownloading was the easiest thing in the world... you just scrolled to the bottom of the games list and clicked the giant button, right?

i guess ill try the update for myself when im home from work 👍

edit - SO close. looks more functional, but the main thing id want (batch install/uninstall) is still missing. or am I the one missing something? 🤔

@Yosher Let's start a petition. Do you think Nintendo would listen?

I'm glad not everything Nintendo is doing is an own goal. This is actually quite convenient.

@Hawkes142 Hahaha. Of course they won't. They'll only listen if they smell money. Even if every single Switch owner will sign the petition.

Couldn't you always re-download games by opening the game from the normal games list? I don't remember having to go to the eshop for anything.

My biggest issue with this update is that it now makes playing online with a family member using one purchased copy of the game impossible. The way to do this before the update was a pain, but was official enough to be on the Nintendo website and involved changing the settings for which console was primary/secondary for your account. My spouse and I have played Monster Hunter, Mario Kart, etc together this way for years. This is no longer allowed.

The only way to play online with family now is to purchase two separate copies of the game, which we simply cannot afford. I believe the Switch 2's "game share" feature may address this for eligible games, but there's no word yet on how many games will enable this feature, and you cannot launch it from a Switch 1 (though you can "game share" from a Switch 2 to a Switch 1).

Tl;dr: I think the ability to "loan" digitally purchased games the same way you can with physical cartridges has potential. I just don't like the fact that - for the time being - I can no longer play multiplayer online with my spouse unless we purchase a second copy of the games in question. That really sucks.

@sanderev good to hear thanks for letting me know! The slow download speeds on S1 actually put me off a few purchases in the past.

I doubt i will be using this on switch 1, I have 3 VGCs, two of which are DLC. But it might get a lotta love on 2 because of game-key cards.

Only took them 8 years to implement this sorely missing functionality!

Sigh. I remember when I had stuff. And things. I once played so much sploon2 on jc grip I was dumping alcohol into the sticks and swapping them from one into the other trying to get things to quit drifting the reticle . Oh well those were the days. Now just hoodrat kids that pretend to be broke have switch consoles and cry about PS4 makes them bad at FN and Wocket Weeg hells bells

This latest update is very much welcomed. Love I can select up to 30 games at a time.

Welp, roughly a day into the new update, I've already found a Nintendo-breaking loophole.

Of the games I've purchased off the eshop, there was one I successfully got refunded. And it's sitting there waiting to be redownloaded. Clearly, these companies all suck at DRM.
Gonna call them when I get up. No way it's anything other than an oversight. After all, Super Mario 35 ain't on the list, but I have it downloaded.

Yes, I like this. It's a very satisfying, physical card-esque approach to virtual games and makes me feel like I actually "own" these games rather than them being lesser as a form of digital download

One concern. After the update, all of my games suddenly became unplayable until I “load on this system” the virtual game cards one by one. However, when I first tried to load the virtual game card, it asked me to bring “another” switch console within close proximity in order to link the systems. This was not an issue for me since I physically own the other console. However, it makes me wonder if I sold my other console, would I not be able to download my virtual game cards since I could not bring another console within close proximity in order to link them? Is there another method to download your games if you prematurely sold your prior console? Why do I need to link an old system in the first place if I purchased most of my games on the new console to begin with?

This is a improvement for several reasons, but there are one major drawback.

You can't start installed games from the game card menu.
I guess this is only for game sharing.
Still should have had the option to start installed games.

At least this makes it much easier to see what's installed and what isn't.

Not sure how I feel about this. There are some games that I'd bought digital that much, much (sometimes years) later, I ended up buying physical. But now that I have more space I'd kind of rather re-install the digital (no, I would not get rid of my physical copy). It doesn't seem like I can do that now.

This isn't far better; it's another mess for us to deal with in the wake of the Switch 2 coming in.

I just decided I wanted to play Skyrim (hmm, wonder what got me in an Elder Scrolls mood 😅)

It showed as teal in my virtual card list, and any options were minimal. Load onto another console/share, things like that. Only problem was I haven't had it downloaded in a little under a year (Skyrim is annual, I'm convinced), and definitely hadn't reinstalled it since this update. No button to play, it wasn't loading a "You need X memory to install" download window, nothing. I finally figured out I needed to...digitally eject it... then reinsert it. THEN it prompted the "make room" download window, for anyone else running into this problem. Took me awhile to figure out how tf to play 80% of my library 🤦🏻‍♂️