If you were holding on to any Nintendo game vouchers, waiting to use them on Switch 2, don’t bother. The company recently confirmed the special coupons will only work for current Switch games. Who knows what the future will bring, but for now it looks like one of the best deals in gaming won’t be making the jump to Switch 2.
“Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers cannot be redeemed for games exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2 system,” the Zelda maker confirmed in an update to its support page this week. So Mario Kart 9, a new 3D Mario, or whatever else the company is planning to release on the new hardware in 2025 won’t be available for purchase with any existing vouchers you might have.
These specialty coupons effectively let users pay $100 to redeem two digital games worth $60 each. So if you’re buying two Nintendo games a year at launch it’s a pretty great deal, especially since new Nintendo Switch games rarely go on sale until years later. And while you would think Switch game vouchers only work on certain, less popular games, that’s not the case. Everything from Mario & Luigi: Brothership to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (normally $70) qualifies.
So it’s a bummer to see the program won’t continue onto Switch 2 uninterrupted. Of course, not allowing them to be used with games exclusive to the new console could mean a couple things. That, in conjunction with getting rid of gold discount points, could simply mean a bigger revamp of the eShop is coming and the new storefront will be getting its own version of these existing programs. Or it could signal that Switch 2 games will be priced higher, and a new voucher program rolled out for it would be more expensive—say $110 per pair instead of $100.
The worst-case scenario is that Nintendo simply wants to soak super fans who will be buying the Switch 2 on day one for everything they’re worth. After all, if you put down anywhere from $400 to $500 on a new console, you will probably buy whatever is new and shiny for it, regardless of the deals involved. Hopefully Switch 2 ends up getting its own version of vouchers—it was one of the cooler things Nintendo did this console generation.
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