Will Nintendo's Virtual Card System Work With Every Switch Game? Probably. But Maybe Not?
Nintendo gives me weird answer to a simple question. An investigation ensues.
On yesterday’s post about Nintendo’s new “virtual card” system, which allows Switch owners to "share” games with another Switch they own or with someone in their family, Crossplay reader daire asked a seemingly simple question:
“Has there been any indication from Nintendo that all games are eligible to be treated as Virtual Cards or only titles that the publishers opt-in?”
Huh. They must have, surely? Nintendo’s website about virtual cards has one caveat:
“Please note that some games, such as games available only as part of a Nintendo Switch Online membership, cannot be lent out.”
That makes sense.
This got me curious, so I went back to Nintendo’s presentation. And in the video, you only see games developed and published by Nintendo. There’s not a single game made by anyone but Nintendo, but you do see 1 2 Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Club House Games, Nintendo Switch Sports, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Pikmin 4, Super Mario Maker 2, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Of course, it makes sense for a Nintendo presentation about a new Nintendo feature to include and feature Nintendo games. But it’s always worth checking the fine print, or asking the company for clarification. I asked Nintendo for that clarification today, and was given a statement that could honestly be interpreted in a few different ways.
“Virtual game card provides a new and easy way to play digital games across multiple Nintendo Switch systems, and the ability to loan them to Nintendo Account family group members,” said a Nintendo spokesperson.
I asked a pretty direct question—but was given an indirect answer.
A few options are on the table:
I’m reading too much into this and it’s just a strange statement, which is par for the course with Nintendo, and we’ll simply learn more details closer to launch.
As theorized by my colleague Stephen Totilo at Game File, perhaps Nintendo announced virtual cards but has not yet informed third-parties about the feature, which means you can’t confirm something that will simply be confirmed later.
There will be exceptions to sharing and Nintendo can’t/won’t talk about it yet.
Directly sharing a game is different than account sharing. It would not come as a complete shock if some companies decided to block virtual card sharing, but it would be surprising, because the whole point of the feature is to streamline the kinds of digital sharing that is already happening on the Switch between friends and family.
We’ll see. Nintendo has promised the feature is coming in late April. I’ll keep asking.
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Also:
I wanted to share a few responses to yesterday’s news from Crossplay readers:
“As the person in the house with the account on multiple switches, this solves the problem of trying to get on wifi while traveling. On the other hand, bummed that it means we'll need multiple copies of games we're playing at the same time now.” — Jessica
“As a person who doesn't own any physical cards for games this is enshitification of the system. I primarily purchase these games online so I can either a) play and install the games on both switch devices at the same time or b) play co-op without having to purchase two copies of the game. Now that is out the window? To be fair I haven't turned on my non-primary Switch in like 12 months.” — Brandon
“For a second there, I thought it'd fix the use case in our house where both kids want to play a game together with their own profiles, but it seems it locks to one copy playing at once, rather than the surprisingly forgiving primary/non-primary where it lets the owner play on non-primary at the same time as the non-owner/kid on the primary switch. On the one hand it makes a lot more sense than the current system (which honestly took me hours to figure out because it's not intuitive), but it just doesn't solve anything in our house besides being more restrictive” — Jeff
I'm sure if a game is shareable this way will be up to the developer. I know with the Steam Family sharing, there are I think 6 games my wife and I have on our own accounts that can't be shared. I'm at work right now and can't check but Hazelight Studios' games are some of them.
Also, the statement “Please note that some games, such as games available only as part of a Nintendo Switch Online membership, cannot be lent out.” is actually a weird one, cause in theory, you can only share with those on your family plan, so you'd never need to share them.