In the last days of our pre-Switching 2 World, Nintendo is trying to rethink how the game exchange works. The largest announcement of the last direct direct direction of the company was its upcoming Virtual gaming cards functionA new approach to the exchange of digital games, which improves the current system of the company, but still has restrictions that do not allow it to feel in terms of modern.
Virtual gaming cards are trying to make digital games as easy to share as physical ones. This begins with the fact that the company visually represents the games as “cards”, and the use of the language of loading and releasing them, and applies to how simple they should share. Two Switch consoles entered your Nintendo account, they can share any digital game, simply “throwing it away” from one and “loading” it to another. The only catch is that the consoles should be connected to a local wireless network (as in physical terms) when trading occurs, and be able to access the Internet to download the game and launch it for the first time.
Similarly, you can share a virtual gaming card with someone in the same family group Nintendo Accounts within two weeks, after which the game is automatically returned. In both cases, saving on each game remains on the console where the game played, which allows you to share a virtual game card again and continue to play.
Compared to The current Nintendo systemWhich requires the definition of the Switch console as a “primary” and capable of autonomous mode and other devices as “secondary” and needing to connect to the Internet for playing general games, virtual gaming cards are a significant improvement. If you are a parent trying to share games with his children or a super-fan with several switches (something that Nintendo, without a doubt, wants to encourage), virtual gaming cards mostly solved the problem, at least simplified its management and understanding. The company is not entirely leading here, although.
If I have a game for PlayStation, I can download it on my PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and play any console without passing through Rigamarole the exile of virtual cards. The same goes for Steam Games. Valve even goes further and allows you to share the overwhelming majority of games and plays on accounts related to the same Steam familyWithout your computers, which should be next to each other when you “gave” the game.
People are very sensitive to any type of DRM. Just ask Xbox, who had big plans to change how credit games work when the Xbox One was announced, but had to A sharp retreat After all mostly complained.
Nintendo does not pull Xbox as such, but it breaks something adjacent. Virtual gaming cards are undoubtedly better than how everything works now, but they require an Internet connection, and they still limit how many people can play the game at the same time. Nintendo came up with the best mental model to exchange games, but not necessarily the best way to do it.