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
Created 4mo | Mar 27, 2025, 4:30:33 PM


Login to add comment

Other posts in this group

Like clockwork, Peacock is raising subscription prices again

Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming home for The Office and Love Island USA, is going to cost a good bit more starting on July 23,

Jul 17, 2025, 10:20:14 PM | Engadget
It only took two years for Vimeo to realize deleting all of its TV apps was dumb

Vimeo, the business-focused video sharing and hosting platform, is

Jul 17, 2025, 10:20:12 PM | Engadget
One of my favorite Steam early access games is now available on Switch and PS5

After five years of development, one of Steam's coziest games is leaving Steam early access and making the jump to consoles. Starting today, you can purchase The Wandering Village on

Jul 17, 2025, 7:50:26 PM | Engadget
The official Tron: Ares trailer riffs on big tech and features a returning Jeff Bridges

There's finally a full trailer for Tron: Ares, the third installment in the decades-long sci-fi franchise. This comes after a

Jul 17, 2025, 7:50:25 PM | Engadget
Unicode's new emoji refuses to put respect on Bigfoot's name

The Unicode Consortium has announced that it's adding what's essentially a Bigfoot emoj

Jul 17, 2025, 7:50:24 PM | Engadget
Google is suing the BadBox 2.0 botnet group

Google has filed a lawsuit against the operators of a

Jul 17, 2025, 7:50:23 PM | Engadget
Someone paid $5.3 million for a piece of Mars

Add this to the list of "things that might be fun if you had a buttload of money": Someone

Jul 17, 2025, 7:50:22 PM | Engadget