Rejoice, physical game collectors! We now have one less thing to laud over our virtual-collector counterparts, as Nintendo has announced its plans to introduce a system that allows virtual games to be shared between Switches.
I can already hear you. “What? Is that possible? How can that be?” It’s true. It really is! In an unprecedented, unconventional, and frankly unexpected announcement during yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced that every virtual game file will now be accompanied by a license of sorts that they’ve dubbed a “Virtual Game Card.” Virtual Game Cards are exactly what they sound like — an entirely-digital game format that allows your Switch to recognize you as owning, or borrowing, any given game that has been downloaded digitally, and allowing you to play it.
This works on two fronts; the first way this works is between a total of exactly two consoles that you, yourself, may own. In this scenario, one Virtual Game Card can be passed back and forth between these two Switch consoles at will, meaning as long as one Switch doesn’t have it “in,” the other can, and thus can play.
If you own more than one Switch console for any number of reasons, this is an outstanding feature. For games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons (which is tied to one island per console) or… basically any entry in the Pokémon series (trading between virtually-owned games just became possible??), this is a massive game changer because it completely shifts the ways in which we’re able to engage with our virtual libraries. It’s also big for families — especially ones with small children who might not have their own Nintendo account yet — because it no longer means choosing between consoles in order to play your games.
And of course, that’s not all! While it seems that permanent sharing of virtual games can only take place between a maximum of two Switch consoles (and, presumably, two consoles that share a Nintendo account), it seems Nintendo has not forgotten about the age old tradition of lending games to the people in your life. Using the Virtual Game Card, players and Switch users will, as it seems, be able to lend out their digital games for a total of 14 days at a time, to anyone within their Family Group.
This feels massive. This is, in the most literal sense, a modernization of an experience so many of us have shared as kids, especially in the earlier days of gaming. And while it’s still possible to swap and share physical Switch cartridges, there are a lot of families and players in the modern day who do not use physical copies of games at all. Why should they be barred from this rite of passage? With Virtual Game Cards, an entire Family Group of up to eight players on eight different Switch consoles with eight different Nintendo accounts can freely share and swap games as they see fit. And while the lending period is 14 days, there’s no mention at all regarding any restrictions about… just continuing to lend out the same game to the same player or Family Group member after those 14 days are up. As it stands right now, it seems you can continually lend out that game for as long as you see fit or as long as necessary for the borrowing player to beat it, without the fear that you’ll never get it back. Which, admittedly, is the one thing this system has over the physical game card system.
No matter what, you will get your game back.
Admittedly, when I first saw this announcement, I couldn’t believe my eyes. More than the Switch or the Switch 2, more than the games that were announced today or the Nintendo Today! app, this is the announcement that truly reminded me what Nintendo is all about. Unexpected, unprecedented innovation at its core — not necessarily from a technical aspect, or a graphical fidelity standpoint, but innovation that asks one simple question: how do we continue to bring the joy of games to our players?
It’s the kind of innovation that has always kept Nintendo in a league of its own, one step ahead of its competitors even when it might be “behind” in other ways. And while I’m not a subscriber to the idea of Console Wars in the year 2025, I do think it’s telling that over anything else, Nintendo continues to try and do things that nobody else has brought to life yet.
While I truly am a physical game supremacist at heart, all of my closest friends and family members tend to disagree. And since it’s my NSO Family Plan that they’re all on, I’m glad that I can at least enable this private Blockbuster that they’re all inevitably already building.
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Written by George Comatas
As a wannabe social media personality and professional in the world of sarcasm, George does his best to always adapt to the changing world around him. He considers himself a maverick: a true-to-heart gamer with the mind of a pop star. Whether this makes him revolutionary or a setback, he's yet to find out. But one thing’s for sure; he's one-of-a-kind.
