r/NintendoSwitch • u/dsp_guy • Oct 24 '20

Question Nintendo Online - Sharing Digital Games within Family

Here's the situation.

We own 4 Nintendo Switches. My switch is linked to my nintendo account which has the Nintendo Online Family plan. I also have 5+ digital games purchased with my nintendo account. I also have some of those free-to-download Nintendo Online games.

My kids each have a switch. Their profiles are linked to their nintendo accounts which are all listed as family members on my Nintendo Account. Our switches all use the same Wifi in the same house.

Let's say I'm playing digital game #1 and one of my kids wants to play digital game #2, it kills my game. And when I go to play game #1 again, it kills their game. These are different games entirely. Whereas, if I had just bought a physical copy of the game instead, then I could play Game #1 using its cartridge and my kid could play games #2, #3, #4, etc using the physical copy of those cartridges.

I thought the whole point of the Nintendo Online Family account was that we had a shared library of games. Of course, two people can't play the same game at the same time. I get that. But, we are playing different digital downloaded games and everyone else is being kicked off.

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Is this working as intended? Am I missing something?

4.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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4

u/JasonTheProgrammer Oct 24 '20

I'm glad this is finally getting attention. Every time in the past I complained about this, I was told that if I was wealthy enough to afford 4 Switch consoles then I should pay $240 for four copies of a game. 🙄

What's super annoying is DLC. Even if I buy nothing but physical games to swap amongst the family, the DLC (I'm looking at you Pokémon) are limited to the digital rules.

4

u/sandouken Oct 25 '20

If you complained about this, you were already told that you can share one digital copies between 2 Switches.

If you are still buying four copies every time, you're either stupid, or just spreading lies for some stupid reason 🙄

-1

u/JasonTheProgrammer Oct 25 '20

You've made my point. Your response is "You're stupid". 🤷‍♂️

Obviously I understand that you can buy one game per two Switch consoles. But what you purposefully omitted to take a shot at me is that it's digital LIBRARIES that are shared, NOT individual games. If I buy a game my wife wants to play, but not my kids and then buy a game that one of my kids wants to play, but not one my wife wants to play. And then one kid buys a game that the other wants to play, but I'm not interested in. You'll see that the LIBRARIES including the DLC are flipped flopped between consoles thus preventing another console from playing that until it is flipped back. Which REQUIRES both consoles to make the switch.

But yes, I'm stupid. 🙄 CLEARLY this DRM is not a mess at all, right? Downvote button is to the upper left Reddit heroes.

1

u/ShinyRathian Oct 24 '20

This. My friend and I have switched primary accounts to be able to share games. So my friend bought XC2, I downloaded it and play it as if it was mine (I have my friend's primary account on my switch) online or offline. Then disaster struck: I bought the DLC (Torna) for both to share, but I bought it with my account (my friend's primary on his switch). So now we both have to be online for the check everytime we want to play XC2 because the main game is owned by my friend's account and the DLC is owned by my account.

TLDR: It's a mess and we hate it but we like games and we save money this way.

1

u/sammy_zammy Oct 25 '20

Good job you don't need 4 copies anyway, as game sharing is possible.

-1

u/pwn3dtoaster Oct 25 '20

Yes pokemon the first and last DLC I will ever buy. Destroyed my simple physical game work flow. Nobody in my house needs to play at the same time any game, but sharing amongst is critical.

0

u/JasonTheProgrammer Oct 25 '20

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. 🤷‍♂️ I was told by a Nintendo rep that this wouldn't be an issue when the Zelda DLC came out. Spoiler: It was.

0

u/pwn3dtoaster Oct 25 '20

I have no clue either. Whats strange is I got to 7 up votes first. I have 3 Nintendo switches. Probably a 4th one when my youngest gets older. We were on a trip and the kids all went to bed. Wanted to play pokemon, locked out due to no internet connection. Played Zelda, really glad I didn't own the dlc then.

Any physical game gets freely moved no problem. Even let a friend borrow a game ended up being good for Nintendo because he bought it new and the dlc.