Nintendo just introduced a way to loan out digital games to friends and family

Today’s Nintendo Direct provided a surprising bit of software news. The company just announced something called Virtual Game Card, which is a way to make playing and sharing downloaded titles more convenient.

As the name suggests, this system creates a digital simulacrum of a physical game card. This means that multi-Switch households will easily be able to start a game on one console and transfer to another without any real hassle. Nintendo says they want to make digital games as easy to use as physical game cards.

Sure, starting something on a regular Switch before moving over to the OLED model is a nice feature, but that's not the only hook. Nintendo, a company that famously loves money, is going to let us lend out digital games. This is pretty darned cool.

There are some caveats. You can only loan games to up to eight people on the same Nintendo Family Account, so it’s really for families and tight-knit groups of friends. Also, the systems have to be able to connect locally via the same wireless network. So you can’t loan out a game to someone on the other side of the country.

You can only lend one game out at a time and it lasts for two weeks. This functionality will be available at the end of April. Don’t worry. It’s also coming to Switch 2.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-just-introduced-a-way-to-loan-out-digital-games-to-friends-and-family-150733308.html?src=rss https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-just-introduced-a-way-to-loan-out-digital-games-to-friends-and-family-150733308.html?src=rss