Nintendo Switch’s update 6.00 went live yesterday, and while on the face of things, there are not a whole lot of user facing changes, there is none rather important one that for some reason was not publicized until now. You see, Nintendo has changed how user accounts on the Switch work– in a good way.
Until now, your Nintendo account could only be logged in on one Switch system at a time; you could not deactivate or manage your account logins remotely, and it would have to be done directly from the console itself, short of calling Nintendo (which means that, if, for example, you ever lost your Switch, your account was gone too).
Both of these things are now changed: in terms of user accounts, Nintendo has made it possible for an account to be logged in to more than one system at a time. One system can be designated as ”primary”, which will be the account’s home system. On this system, you can play any and all digital content associated with your account with no limitations whatsoever. On any other system that the account is logged into other than the Primary system, you can still play your digital content, as long as you maintain an internet connection.
Does this sound familiar to you? It is the exact system Sony uses for PlayStation accounts on PS4. It also allows for digital game sharing between friends, by simply swapping their accounts for each other’s respective consoles.
The other important change is that your account can now be managed by going to www.accounts.nintendo.com, and selecting “Shop Menu”, and selecting your device activations for there directly.
It took Nintendo a very long time to get around to this – the company has offered digital content in some capacity since 2006 – but I’m just glad at this point that they did it at all. I didn’t expect them to ever join the 21st century.
