Nintendo Switch Virtual Game Cards Will Let You Share Digital Games

Nintendo announced a new feature coming to both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 called Virtual Game Cards that will let users to treat their digital games more like physical ones, including lending them out family members.

Announced via the most recent Nintendo Direct, buying digital games on Switch consoles will in the future (and on Switch 2) be treated as Virtual Game Cards that can be digitally loaded, ejected, and shared to other Switch consoles. Those who own multiple Nintendo Switch devices will be able to move Virtual Game Cards between systems, as if they were ejecting a cartridge in physically inserting it into another device.

Accounts in the same Nintendo Family group can lend copies of purchased games to other members of the same group, although only one game at a time can be lent out to a particular person. Lent games are shared for two weeks after which they will return to the original owner.

Virtual Game Cards will come to Nintendo Switch via a system update in late April, according to Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi during the Nintendo Direct presentation, and will presumably be included as a Switch 2 feature when the console launches sometime later this year.