Gaming Can a Switch Account Share Games

[RJMayhem]

sorry for the title couldn't think of a better one.

What I'm asking is if I buy my kids each a switch and they all share a account if I buy a digital game will they all be able to play it? More importantly what about at the same time?

 

[nantalos]

Kind of. But also not really. Basically it is needlessly complicated so Nintendo can sell more games...

Your first switch is your primary switch. On that one you can open and play your games while offline. And all other users on the same switch can open all the downloaded games while offline too.
All other switches you put your account on will be secondary switches. You can open and play your purchased games on it, but you need to be online and only the one user who purchased the game can play them.
Any account can only have one game/app/thing open on one system at a time when online. So if your primary switch is online and you have something open, no one can open anything using that account on another switch. If someone starts any software using your account on the primary switch anyone using your account on a secondary switch will be kicked.
If you have something open on your primary while being offline then one other secondary switch can play open something (while being online). But no other secondary switches will be able to open anything using your account.

So, if only two people at a time play something, that will work fine, as long as any online games are done on the secondary switch.
But if you will ever have 3 people wanting to play something... doesn't work with only one account buying games.

Maybe by now there is a workaround that I don't know about... But in my family we basically gave up trying to juggle digital games from one user and now each person has their own switch with their own account and buying their own games and a nintendo online family plan.

 

[godreborn]

indeed. I own three switches with one account on all of them. I'm the only one who uses them though. the auto save thing also functions well, but you have to have a save already on the system. if you don't do a system transfer, you'll have to download each save manually. only then will it auto download saves made on other switches w/ the same account. can't play anything while in game iirc on one switch on another, even if it's a different game. however, you can play the game if the original switch playing something is in sleep mode. it would be aggravating if I had other people playing the systems. I can understand not being able to play the same game as that would be true if you owned the legit cartridge (only able to play the game on one system at a time obviously). however, not being able to play anything is stupid.

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btw, you do have to redownload everything as well, even if you do a system transfer. I have all three of my 1TB micro sd cards backed up shy of one game, monster hunter rise, since that just came out. it's a pita, and it caused me to get near my data cap last month.

 

[RJMayhem]

Ok, Thank you for the info yea that's a PITA