Nintendo unleashed a substantial new firmware update today for the Nintendo Switch and it has brought with it new features and changes. One of the changes is that players can not play the same video game online on two Nintendo Switch consoles at the same time. It should be noted that Game Sharing still works as long as you have the online checks on. The changes just mean that you can’t play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online via Game Share at the same time as your partner.
Nintendo now blocks playing the same game on two Switch consoles online simultaneously
“This feature was possible before today’s system update”
Are you sure about this?
Yeah, I’m 99% sure you couldn’t do this.
You absolutely could. I bought games digitally on my primary Switch with the sole purpose of also downloading it to my secondary, having my kid log in on their account on the primary, and playing with them from my secondary on my own account. We did it with Animal Crossing, Splatoon 2, Splatoon 3, Mario Kart 8, Kirby’s Dream Buffet, and others. It saved us a lot of money. Now we won’t be able to play online together until I buy more copies of the games.
Same here. Our issue was with Disney Dreamlight Valley. My wife and I could both play on separate consoles at the same time before.
Thanks, I’ve removed that sentence. I’ve never tried it before and thought it might be possible.
So you’re just here making random claims without even checking if they’re accurate? Sounds eerily familiar.
This is why several perceptive people has been calling out Sickr as subtly “Anti-Nintendo” in the past.
Lol
Actually SwitchGuy, this is a real thing. I was playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons two weeks ago and I tried to bring Bells and items over from my main digital copy on my OLED (my main Nintendo Switch.) over to my secondary Nintendo Switch and ACNH game but I wasn’t able to no matter how ways and tries I do it. And no one, and I mean NO ONE in the Animal Crossing servers I’m in over on Discord could help me and neither could the phone call I made to Nintendo themselves could not help me at all either. And the weird thing about this whole ordeal was that I was able to fly over to my other island locally and bring stuff over to that island from my main island and Nintendo Switch. So basically, from my understanding, the “Online” feature that is provided on the Switch is unusable, pointless and is no longer an existing feature even though it’s STILL technically there.🤷🏼♀️😭💔🤨🤔🤦🏼♀️🙄😒😑
Yes. Me and my brother played a platoon together for years together and only I bought it
Yes, it was! My siblings and I play fornite together, different switches and different accounts. But now it wont let us play at the same time, despite the game being FREE online game!
The new update sucks!
Stop lying.
https://youtu.be/N9yEOTfWKss?si=8_FbHNLMpbRXUlAU it’s still possible.
I am. I used to play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe digital version on 2 Switch consoles (my account would be on both) and my wife’s account too, online, at the same time.
Umm, I think you need to look closer, cause the only way both my Little one and myself could Both play Mario Kart 8 was one person had to be offline. Once the offline console was connected to internet, one of them got booted.
Say you bought the game on your account you had to put your profile on your kids Switch and make it the primary console so they could play on their account while you play on your account on your Switch. I used to do this with my ex playing Resident Evil 5, Splatoon, Dying Light, etc. So it was possible just like on PlayStation and Xbox. Nintendo is just getting more greedy and more anti consumer.
You could previously play 2 at once by having primary console offline and secondary online (using same account). Now it must be “unloaded” from one and loaded to another like a real cart. Upside is that you can digitally share with another LOCAL family members account
Nintendo went downhill after making us pay to play online in the first place, when it used to be free on nintendo3ds. After the 3ds they stopped caring about us. Nintendo switch was the biggest mistake of Nintendo history. I used to be a fan had the 64 and everything. Now im just disappointed.
I’m guessing you’ve never played the Wii U.
Actually SwitchGuy, this is a real thing. I was playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons two weeks ago and I tried to bring Bells and items over from my main digital copy on my OLED (my main Nintendo Switch.) over to my secondary Nintendo Switch and ACNH game but I wasn’t able to no matter how ways and tries I do it. And no one, and I mean NO ONE in the Animal Crossing servers I’m in over on Discord could help me and neither could the phone call I made to Nintendo themselves could not help me at all either. And the weird thing about this whole ordeal was that I was able to fly over to my other island locally and bring stuff over to that island from my main island and Nintendo Switch. So basically, from my understanding, the “Online” feature that is provided on the Switch is unusable, pointless and is no longer an existing feature even though it’s STILL technically there.🤷🏼♀️😭💔🤨🤔🤦🏼♀️🙄😒😑
Having done this multiple times, it’s broken now. So i setup my primary console on my kid’s switch. Then i bought a digital game (ex. Pokemon violet). My kid could pokemon violet online with me on her console where my primary account was while i played pokemon violet online my second console online. So the change stopped that now. While sad, i’m also aware maybe that setup was never intended that both could play online on 2 different switches with only 1 buying the digital game.
The set up was completely legit. Nintendo even had an FAQ page telling you how to do it. It’s since vanished.
The update doesn’t remove the option of primary/secondary switches, it simply turns it Off by default. You can still re-enable the option by going to System Settings -> User Settings -> Online License Settings -> Use Online License and turning it On. After that you’ll be able to do it again.
Looks like I won’t be supporting nintendo anymore.
For the confusion:
I know this to be 100% true:
You can choose to disregard what I say but what I’m saying is 115% correct
If you downloaded Mario kart as user appleJuice7 then any switch logged in as appleJuice7 could download Mario kart
Only the switch that was appleJuice7’s primary could launch the game without ANY checks. And any other user on that primary switch could launch it. So your brother, mapleSyrup5, could play your purchased game via his user account IF HE LAUNCHED IT ON appleJuice7’s primary switch.
Any other switch that was logged into appleJuice7 (and was thus a secondary console) could only launch the game via appleJuice7 user profile. So mapleSyrup5 could no launch it. Any other user on that console was blocked. The launching of Mario kart ON THAT SECONDARY SWITCH (NOT PRIMARY!) needed a online check to verify that no other SECONDARY SWITCH was playing any other game from appleJuice7’s library. If another person was playing via appleJuice7’s library on another secondary switch then they would be logged off as a consequence of you trying to boot a game on a secondary Nintendo switch console from appleJuice7 library
Even if the other person was paying Mario Odyssey and you were trying to launch splatoon to Mario, Odyssey person would be logged off his session
The primary console will never be kicked out or logged out! The primary console always has had no restriction.
Now if the primary console was completely offline and you tried to take one secondary switch logged into appleJuice7 and another secondary switch logged into appleJuice7 you would thus not be able to play Mario Kart online against each other as one booting the copy on Mario Kart 8 would immediately throw out the other secondary switch from their Play session
However, if the primary switch launched Mario Kart and you tried to launch Mario Kart via appleJuice7’s user account on a secondary console then you were totally able to play with the same copy of Mario Kart 8 against each other.
My brother and I did this for years on every single game that we played online. Since the secondary console is only able to launch games from the user who purchased the game my brother would be logged in to my account as the primary console so that he would be able to launch the game from his user profile. I would then log into my own account as a secondary console. I was always only able to launch my purchase games via my user account (meaning if my girlfriend wanted to create her own user on my switch she wouldn’t have been able to launch my games) and always had to do it all night check before booting my game.
This made sense for me. My brother as mobile data is very reliable in the United States but very reliable in Germany and I live in Texas and he lives in Germany. So it was very nice that he did not need a online check to launch the games and although it was annoying that I had to connect my switch to my phone every time, I wanted to play something for about 10 seconds to do that online check.
My brother would play my games with his user profile as my user account was logged into his switch and his switch was set as the primary console.
Just a flat lie…
People really are out to create controversy out of nothing.
The new virtual card feature only gives benefits.
People are desperate for negativity.
Stick to whining about the price guys.
This recent update has made me seriously consider selling our consoles. The main reason we own four Nintendo Switch systems is so my wife and I can share our games with our children and all play together. However, with the new policy, we’re now required to use two separate licenses for the same game—one for my account and one for my wife’s—and still need to purchase two additional copies for the rest of the family to play.
When we first purchased our Switch consoles in 2019, Nintendo provided clear guidance on how to share digital purchases using primary and secondary console setups, which allowed for family-friendly game sharing. That no longer seems to be the case.
This shift feels like a move away from the family-first approach Nintendo was once known for. As a long-time customer who has purchased every Nintendo console since the N64, it’s disappointing to say that our family may not support the next generation of Nintendo systems.
Your don’t get it! Sorry you are n00b!
Its no lie, me and my brother can no longer play games at the same time if we game share but what we could before.
I bet you’re saying that cause you’re a single person with no kids who like to play together. If you had kids you would quickly realize that now you have to buy two of every game where you can play online together
Hi, please can someone tell me how to download a second copy of Fortnite to our second Switch? Until now, my 2 children have been able to play at the same time using the copy which was downloaded using my husbands Nintendo account (which has 2 linked child accounts). Is it possible for the same Nintendo account to ‘own’ two copies of the same game? Or do we need a second Nintendo account?
Pretty sure all you need to do is go to the account in question, access the eshop from a specific profile and have it download it from the eshop. If you need another account for that then you might have to make them for each person that wants a separate game. Because the idea is each account has a digital license for the game individually when they each have their own account. But profiles all on one switch makes it so one account can have multiple family members taking turns on it in comparison.
From my experience when ever I played a game and my kid would try to play the same game the system would check if someone was already play and deny access. I even made my kid’s console my primary so we could both access all my games but I’m pretty sure we were never allowed to play Minecraft at the same time until I recently bought the triple pack on PC.
As usual Nintendo’s exercising their right to do business. How else is this poor downtrodden multinational corporation to ensure they sell more copies of their $120 games? Won’t somebody please think of the shareholders?! /s
For anyone still thinking this isn’t real, Gamechamp3000 has a video on the subject where she explains that not only was it possible, but until like a week ago instructions on how to do so existed on nintendo’s official customer support website. This wasn’t some weird exploit that Nintendo just now decided to address while rolling out a new system, this was an intended (if obscure) feature of the Nintendo switch that Nintendo has decided to gut for no reason other than…. to show that they can, I guess.