During today’s Nintendo Direct, the last one before the big Switch 2 Direct next month, the company shared a big change it’s making to digital games next month. While it will allow you to share digital titles with friends and family members, this is still Nintendo we are talking about, so the whole system is a bit weird and complicated.
“What if digital games could be as flexible and convenient as game cards?” That’s the question that Nintendo apparently asked itself when coming up with Virtual Game Cards.
Starting in late April, all digital games you own or buy will become Virtual Game Cards. These will be stored in a new menu screen on your Switch or Switch 2. Nintendo says any registered user on the console can play that digital game.
The real news is that these VGCs can be “digitally ejected” and “digitally loaded” into another Switch console and freely played on that second device. The original Switch user that bought the game can’t play that VGC anymore as it’s been “ejected” from the console.
The company promises that you are free to load and trade digital games using VGCs freely between two specific, paired systems. Think an upstairs Switch and downstairs Switch 2. You will need to locally connect the two consoles the first time you do some digital swapping, but after that it should be easy and hassle free.
You can also share Virtual Game Cards with members of your Nintendo Account Family Group. However, this is a bit more limited. It must be done over a local wireless connection, and you can only lend one game at a time to each member. And after two weeks, they lose access to the Virtual Game Card and it returns back to original owner. Better hope it’s not a long game!
Nintendo claims this new system will make digital games even easier to use. And this new system will also work with the Nintendo Switch 2, as confirmed by the company during the Direct. But it does seem like a very Nintendo solution to a problem Xbox and others solved already. Still, I’m happy to see Nintendo doing something to make it easier to play owned digital games on multiple devices as we get closer to the launch of Switch 2.
Update: 3/27/2025, 2:55 p.m. ET: Nintendo representatives told Crossplay that this new Virtual Game Card system will optional and that Switch owners can continue to use the current gaming sharing features involving primary consoles if they so desire.
Here’s the statement via Crossplay:
We think many people will enjoy the benefits of virtual game card, but it is an optional feature, and the original method can be used instead.
So if you don’t want to swap digital game carts you can just ignore this new system, something that parents currently using the Switch’s primary console sharing system might be happy to hear.
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