Nintendo Announces Virtual Game Cards for Digital Games on Switch

Nintendo has officially unveiled Virtual Game Cards today: a new, easier way to share digital games between two Switch consoles. With this new feature, Nintendo aims to make games purchased digitally “as flexible and convenient” as physical game cards.

Virtual Game Cards were announced today in a Nintendo Direct. In the future, all games purchased on the Nintendo Switch digitally will be loaded onto the system as a Virtual Game Card. These cards can be “loaded” and “ejected” onto a second Nintendo Switch system (under the same account) using an internet connection. The two Switches only need to be linked locally once, and an internet connection is only needed during the load and eject phases. The new feature will also support Virtual Game Card swaps between a Nintendo Switch and a Nintendo Switch 2.

The new Virtual Game Cards also provide enhanced features to family group managers. Virtual Game Cards can be lent out to a Nintendo account’s family group members, but only for up to two weeks, after which they will return to the original account’s Switch. The Nintendo account can only share one game at a time with one specific family group member, and the Switches also need to be locally linked once before swapping.

This new feature will be added via a system update in late April. For parents with multi-Switch households, this is welcome news, as they no longer have to manage multiple libraries and purchase games across multiple Switches. All they have to manage is their own library, and they can lend their Virtual Game Cards to members of their family group.

Will you be lending out Virtual Game Cards to Nintendo Switch users when this feature launches in late April? Let us know down below, and join more discussions in the official Insider Gaming forums.

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