Switch Question for the group... my son has a switch and recently bought another one. Will I...

[Justin Reed]

Question for the group... my son has a switch and recently bought another one. Will I be able to purchase digital games on one unit, but be able to play them on both consoles(possibly at the same time)? I just want to make sure I don't have purchase the digital games twice to be able to play them on two different consoles. Thank you.

 

[Andrea Manchulenko]

No

 

[Andrea Manchulenko]

If you have 2 consoles and want to play the same digital game, then you got to buy them separately

 

[Kyle Avery]

You should be able to but why did you buy another switch unless no one wants to share the first one.

 

[Keith Cross]

You can but only if the console that isn't being used is temporary disabled as the home console

 

[Paul Johnson]

unfortunately, no game sharing on switch, you'll need to buy 2 copies of any game you want to play together.

 

[Jordan Vgcollector]

Nope, can't do any of that good stuff at all, must buy everything twice.

 

[Steven Mabee]

That's just another plus for physical copies (when available of course)

 

[Andrea Manchulenko]

If the game is digital, then you canNOT share the game on another console!

 

[Gary Lee Bitters Jr.]

Sorry no

 

[Trina Alexandra Swami]

You can't get the same game if say you both have the same account linked together.

 

[Becky Lattof]

My advice is to buy digital for when you have a game you play so much it's a drag to remove the card to put in another game. Otherwise, physical is wise because not only can you share with other systems by handing them the cartridge (their save data stays on their Switch), you also can sell the cartridge if you ever decide you don't like it enough to keep it anymore. Digital takes up less physical space obviously, but you can't sell digital. They're tied to the system.

 

[Chris Tompkins]

Nintendo needs to bring back download play like on the ds but i fear they are too profit driven now

 

[Anthony Haftner]

I don't know if this is doable. But as long as you have the same or similar Nintendo ID on each console you should be able to re download digital copies. However! The save data is only stored on one console

 

[Dustin Hudson]

As per me posing this same question to Nintendo support recently on the phone, "unlike the 3DS, software purchases can be downloaded to multiple devices, but can only be played on one at any given time, so you can't play head-to/head on multiple devices from the same purchase / account."

 

[Lawrence Lopez]

No, but you can purchase the same game on each unit. That is purchasing the same game twice for a different account/system. Unfortunately, there is no way around that. For physical copies, you'd buy one but only one person can play at a time if you only have one copy.

 

[Justin Reed]

Thank you for all the info everyone!

 

[Nate Lawrence]

To be clear:
When a game is purchased digitally on a Nintendo account, it belongs to that Nintendo account.

If you purchased a game on one system and want to play the game on a second system, you must:
1) deactivate the Nintendo account on the first system
2) sign into the second system.

If you then want to play the game on the first system again, simply:
1) deactivate the Nintendo account on the second system
2) sign into the account on the first (or any other) system

Saved games for any game only exist on the physical console they were created on. There is no way to transfer save files, currently.

 

[Richard Walling]

No game sharing allowed unlike xbox.