When Nintendo announced Virtual Game Cards, I was honestly pretty excited. We have 2 Switch consoles in my house, one for me and one for my son. Sharing physical games is fine (as long as he doesn’t freaking lose them) but digital games have always been a hassle. So, when Nintendo showed off Digital Game Cards, I thought my troubles were over! 

I was very wrong. 

For anyone who has never had to deal with trying to share your game library through two Switch consoles, let me explain how it used to work. On each system, you can create different user profiles. In my house, me, my wife, and my two kids each have our own. These profiles have your individual save data attached to them, so, for example, if my son plays Mario Kart on his account, he’ll have whichever characters unlocked that he’s taken the time to unlock whenever he boots it up under his name. But if my wife plays Mario Kart on her account, she’ll only have the stuff she unlocked, not the stuff me or my son did. Makes sense. Basic stuff. But it gets weird. 

For the console itself, You have to assign one as your primary, and on that system, any user can play any game they want (parental controls notwithstanding). On your secondary system, you can still play whatever game you want, but it can only be played by the account holder who purchased it from the eShop. So, let’s say I bought Super Mario Odyssey on my Switch on the eShop, and my son started a game on his account on my Switch, which lives in the living room. If he wanted to continue that game on his Switch, he couldn’t. He could play it on my account and use my save file, but not his. That progress is tied to the primary Switch. 

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This extends to DLC as well. IF]f my son grabs my Smash Bros. cart and puts it in his Switch, he can’t access the DLC characters unless I buy them again on his account. 

This was complete nonsense as far as I’m concerned. I have a Nintendo Switch Online family account, and our Nintendo accounts are all listed as being a part of our immediate family. Nintendo knows my son is my son, and that that’s his Switch. So why on Earth isn’t my digital library just available on both of our consoles? Especially considering the handheld nature of the Switch, these limitations are absurd. 

Virtual Game Cards seemed like a very inelegant, very “Nintendo" solution to this problem. Not perfect, and a little out there, but a step in the right direction. Tragically, they have somehow made things worse. How they were pitched is, your digital purchases would now function like regular game cards. If there's a digital game that I own, my other Switch can just grab said virtual game card wirelessly and play it as if there was an actual game card in the system. Theoretically, that would mean my kid could play my digital games on his account, and it sort of does, except with one tragic flaw. You can only share virtual game cards with ONE OTHER CONSOLE. 

Since the switch 2 launched, I now technically have 3 Switch consoles in my house, and since not every Switch game runs perfectly on Switch 2, it’s nice to have the option of playing my games on my original Switch if I want. But now I can’t do that without disconnecting my son’s Switch from the Virtual Game Card system, which would mean he couldn’t play any of our digital games at all. That's right, he couldn’t even boot them up under my account anymore. Virtual Game Cards can only be loaded on one system at a time, and said system has to be linked to the primary. For example, if he wants to play that digital copy of Super Mario Odyssey, his system has to be virtually linked to my Switch 2, which has become our primary console. But if I then want to play Mario Odyssey on my regular Switch while my wife plays Mario Kart on our Switch 2, I have to go into the settings, unlink my son’s Switch which yanks all the Virtual Game Cards, then link my Switch, then download and play the game. It’s all so needlessly complicated, it’s infuriating! 

Any system on my family account should have unfettered access to all of my Virtual Game Cards. Full stop. That's it. I know Nintendo wants to sell as many copies of their games as possible, but this system is so fundamentally busted that it’s made the act of owning multiple Switch consoles pretty unattractive, and digital games even moreso. 

Heck, if we’re being real here, I should be able to lend my virtual game cards to whoever I want, but I’d be perfectly happy to settle for just having to be on my family plan. But no, not even that works. 

Look, Nintendo doesn't need to sort this out. I would like them to very much, but clearly they don’t actually need to as it’s not hurting their bottom line. I wish with my heart of hearts though, that they would. Yes, I know you can opt out of digital game cards altogether if you want, but even that is a hassle, and only makes things marginally better in some cases. As long as I ignore my original Switch, sharing the Virtual Game Cards between my Switch 2 and my son’s Switch is a decent enough, if a bit odd, solution. But I hope they do decide to make this mountain of insanity work better. I love the Switch and the Switch 2 is off to a pretty great start in my house, but these Virtual Game Cards are a complete gutter ball. 

It wouldn't be too hard to course correct here, but will they do it? Time will tell.