Hardware [Tutorial] Access out-of-region eShop WITHOUT creating a new account

[TeconMoon]

EDIT: This changed at some point, you now can't change your region unless your eShop balance is zero. This makes this significantly less useful.

Background: Other region eShops often have cool free demos and content that is available earlier than your region's eShop. Accessing an eShop out of your region is insanely easy and DOESN'T require making a new account.

What we're doing: We are changing the region of your Nintendo Account so you can access another eShop whenever you want.

What you will need:

• A Nintendo Switch
• A device with a web browser (maybe the Switch will have a browser some day )

Steps:

1. Go to https://accounts.nintendo.com
2. Sign-in with your Nintendo Account credentials
   1. Desktop Site: Click the "Edit" button adjacent from "Profile"
   2. Mobile Site: Select "User Info" -> "Profile"
3. Adjust the "Country/region of residence" to match the eShop you want to access
4. Save changes, read any accept any warnings (see Drawbacks section below)

Done! You can now open the eShop on your Switch and access whichever region eShop you specified. Now quick, go download the Puyo Puyo Tetris demo from the Japanese eShop!

Benefits:

• Any purchases made in an out-of-region eShop will transfer when changing regions. If you purchased Snipperclips in the Japanese eShop (which would require a Japanese points card), when you switch back to the USA eShop it will still show Snipperclips as purchased.
• All purchases and downloads are consolidated to one account instead of having multiple accounts for multiple regions.

Drawbacks: (Website will warn you about these)

• If you have a Nintendo Network ID linked to your Nintendo Account, it will be un-linked. This can be re-linked easily when you set your region back to your native region.
• If you have an eShop Balance, YOU WILL LOSE IT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR REGION. This doesn't matter to me since my balance is always $0.00, but if you use eShop cards a lot then make sure you've spent your balance.

Hopefully this helps! This is a fairly simple thing to do, but I've received a lot of questions about it from my friends so I thought to write this.

Buying international eShop cards is also pretty simple, for example you can get digital Japanese eShop cards from http://amazon.co.jp, just make sure you use a fake Japanese mailing address (or something like a Tenso address, not that anything is getting physically sent), heck use Nintendo's Japanese address.

 

[xtheman]

I still find it easier to make an account called japan and one for eur (or usa). Then when you boot the eshop, you can easily select your region with the users function.
Hell, I use the same email for all 3 accounts, I just put a . between the name (like if my main account is [email protected], I use [email protected] for jpn and I will get all the emails in [email protected])

 

[TeconMoon]

People may end up preferring multiple accounts, I just noticed that many people think it's the only option. Having purchased eShop titles from multiple regions, I just wanted all my purchases to happen from one account, and if I'm transferring Switch systems in the future then I'm only worrying about one account.

 

[YourHero]

Nice tip. I prefer multiple accounts. It's just easier.

 

[Mr. Wizard]

If you have an eShop Balance, YOU WILL LOSE IT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR REGION. This doesn't matter to me since my balance is always $0.00, but if you use eShop cards a lot then make sure you've spent your balance.

This is incorrect, according to Nintendo's official FAQ.
Also, my CC did not work so I had to buy eshop cards from Amazon.co.jp. And by using eshop cards there will always be a small balance of change, so I opted to use a separate account.

Can I Change the Nintendo Switch eShop Country?
Applies to: Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch eShop will always match the country setting for your Nintendo Account. If you need to change your Nintendo Account country, you will access the Nintendo eShop for that country the next time you connect on Nintendo Switch.

Important:

• Your Nintendo eShop account balance does not carry over when you change the country that your Nintendo Account is set to. You will need to use the remaining funds in your Nintendo Account balance before you will be able to change the country.
• If a Nintendo eShop exists for your region, credit cards issued from your region will not work in a different region’s eShop. (For example, credit cards issued for the U.S. will only work in the Nintendo eShop for North America.)

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I still find it easier to make an account called japan and one for eur (or usa). Then when you boot the eshop, you can easily select your region with the users function.
Hell, I use the same email for all 3 accounts, I just put a . between the name (like if my main account is [email protected], I use [email protected] for jpn and I will get all the emails in [email protected])

You can also use + to create aliases. For eg.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

It's a lot more functional for filtering.

 

[Wabsta]

I still find it easier to make an account called japan and one for eur (or usa). Then when you boot the eshop, you can easily select your region with the users function.
Hell, I use the same email for all 3 accounts, I just put a . between the name (like if my main account is [email protected], I use [email protected] for jpn and I will get all the emails in [email protected])

I think you could also totally do [email protected], xtheman+jpn, xtheman+eur. And they will all be caught by your [email protected] main address.

(I don't know if Nintendo allows this, but thought I'd let you know, it's a handy trick from gmail)

EDIT:
Aaaaaaaand I was beat to it by Mr. Wizard.

 

[xtheman]

You can also use + to create aliases. For eg.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

It's a lot more functional for filtering.

I think you could also totally do [email protected], xtheman+jpn, xtheman+eur. And they will all be caught by your [email protected] main address.

(I don't know if Nintendo allows this, but thought I'd let you know, it's a handy trick from gmail)

thx guys. I'll see if that works later

 

[TeconMoon]

If you have an eShop Balance, YOU WILL LOSE IT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR REGION.

This is incorrect, according to Nintendo's official FAQ.

• Your Nintendo eShop account balance does not carry over when you change the country that your Nintendo Account is set to. You will need to use the remaining funds in your Nintendo Account balance before you will be able to change the country.

If your American eShop account has any balance whatsoever (say 25 cents) and you change your account region, you forfeit the 25 cents. Yes, the FAQ says you need to use it, but if you try changing your region without using it, you are given the option to forfeit the credit.

The FAQ doesn't seem to state that you can change your region and forfeit your credit, but it is in-fact an option you are given when you go to change your region.

Source: I've done this before

 

[Saiyan Lusitano]

I made an account for the Japanese eShop and it's just very convenient this way, make it and then click on it to open the eShop whenever you want.

 

[WiiUBricker]

One drawback of having multiple accounts is the news spam in the news app. If you opt-in for receiving news you will get US, EU and Japanese news all on the same page.

 

[djricekcn]

Not sure if this will work for everyone but I have a Japanese 3DS...When trying to add points / purcahses on Switch using a JP Account it will not work with my USA Cards, however, if I do the same on 3DS it works. So in short...Switch has some sort of AVS check while the 3DS doesn't. Only draw back is you can't make exact amount purchase on Switch games cause you have to load from the 3DS in incriments of 1000, 3000, 5000, or 10000 yen and up to 20000 yen stored.


Also, you do NOT lose your eshop points when you do the OP's method. Just make your account back to what it was and it will show right back up - at least, that's how it was for me when i tried it on day one

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Not sure if this will work for everyone but I have a Japanese 3DS...When trying to add points / purcahses on Switch using a JP Account it will not work with my USA Cards, however, if I do the same on 3DS it works. So in short...Switch has some sort of AVS check while the 3DS doesn't. Only draw back is you can't make exact amount purchase on Switch games cause you have to load from the 3DS in incriments of 1000, 3000, 5000, or 10000 yen and up to 20000 yen stored.


Also, you do NOT lose your eshop points when you do the OP's method. Just make your account back to what it was and it will show right back up - at least, that's how it was for me when i tried it on day one

You can definitely add the exact amount, I bought 3 eShop games on Switch and picked that option every time.
3DS also has a region check on credit cards. Source: Me trying to figure out how my little brother in Singapore could use the eShop on his 3DS. The Singaporean eShop only showed game updates, it was completely empty, so I changed his region to US, but it wasn't possible to buy anything with a credit card. Found a tip online that changing the region to Brazil allows any credit card to work, so that's what I did, and it worked.

 

[djricekcn]

You can't purchase exact amount if you're doing it from the 3DS since it doesn't show Switch games on their shop. You have the to load 1000/3000/5000 or 10000 yen from 3DS as eshop credits to use on eShop on Switch. eShop Switch doesn't accept foreign cards but 3DS does.

also, at least with USA cards on JP 3DS, there doesnt' seem to be a region check cause I have 4 visa/mastercard cards and they all work, while none work on Switch eShop, same falls true for my friends who've tried it and are in the same situation

 

[blinkzane]

People may end up preferring multiple accounts, I just noticed that many people think it's the only option. Having purchased eShop titles from multiple regions, I just wanted all my purchases to happen from one account, and if I'm transferring Switch systems in the future then I'm only worrying about one account.

This is a smart move. I'm gonna keep the separate accounts just because it's easier to swap between them but if I choose to buy something I will swap regions on my main acct

 

[Mr. Wizard]

I have about 15 email addresses and over 50 accounts throughout the interwebz so 3 Nintendo accounts is fuck all to me.

Spoiler: Top Secret...

http://keepass.info/

 

[Noctosphere]

i have one question though.
im from canada, if i change my region for, example, france, will i pay my digital games in euro or still in CAD?
it would be nice to save few bucks on a game with good exchange rate

 

[Mr. Wizard]

i have one question though.
im from canada, if i change my region for, example, france, will i pay my digital games in euro or still in CAD?
it would be nice to save few bucks on a game with good exchange rate

yes, euro, try finland it will be in english.

 

[Deleted User]

I have an even simpler way. Instead of going all the way to the website, then to account settings, then to edit. blah blah blah, try this.

Spoiler: Tutorial

I used google chrome with this method, so you probably should as well.

1. Go here. https://accounts.nintendo.com/
2. Click the [edit] button to the right of profile.
3. Right click anywhere on the page and click "Save As"
4. Make a new folder named "Switch Accounts" (the word switch kills 2 birds with one stone). Preferably make this where you don't do frequent purges. Like your documents folder.
5. Make sure you are saving it as "Webpage, complete" and replace "Nintendo Account.html" with "[region the account is originally is from].html"
   e.g.: EUR.html, JPN.html, USA.html
6. Then, change your settings to match one of the other two remaining regions. Choose Japan for JPN, or Finland (I chose this one but you could probably choose others) for Europe.
7. Save your settings.
8. Now repeat steps 5-7 until you have all the regions.

Whenever you want to change your account region, all you have to do is open one of the html documents, enter in your nickname, and press Save on the page. Now it requires even less effort for us lazies.

 

[T-Rex]

If I want to buy Night of Azure 2 that only Japan, then when my account change from Japan to USA, the NoA2 will be on the list of the games bought? And vice-versa from ocidental game don't exist in Japan works?

 

[sio]

If I want to buy Night of Azure 2 that only Japan, then when my account change from Japan to USA, the NoA2 will be on the list of the games bought? And vice-versa from ocidental game don't exist in Japan works?

T-Rex, did you find the answer to your question? I want to know this too.

How easy is it to redownload something you bought in another region once it's removed from the Nintendo Switch? Do you have to change the system back to the region you bought it from or can you just download it from any region's eshop? - if the latter; does this give you access to any language version of the game you like (eg buy the JPN language version and then download on the European eShop)