Fimbulvetr
Member
Nintendo's way behind when it comes to digital games on essentially every front, it's common knowledge. They were slow to offer retail titles digitally, had poorly designed shop interfaces that weren't unified between platforms, have had infrequent sales with generally very weak discounts, and their shops were region locked. But the problem most often cited against them was about DRM, the desire to move game licenses arbitrarily from one hardware unit to another, the long sought-after "proper account system."
Now, if you're wondering whether that kind of thing is finally available on Switch, the short answer is no... but they've made one significant step toward it, or at least a significant improvement for user friendliness. What exactly is that improvement? Well, to answer that, I have to explain what the situation was with systems prior to Switch.
Nintendo has essentially had an "account system" since the launch of the Wii U, and the Nintendo Network ID alongside it. Internally, Nintendo was able to track any eShop purchases made by a given NNID, and this was also available to users, albeit obscurely, through the now defunct Club Nintendo service. The issue was that once an NNID was registered to a given hardware unit (one Wii U and one 3DS at maximum), it was locked to that unit (or more specifically, that unit's serial number). NNIDs could only be moved between hardware units by either a direct hardware-to-hardware full system transfer or through Nintendo customer service. This was obviously inconvenient, and is definitely still among the most restrictive DRM policies in use today. The solution the Switch uses is similar, with one key difference: users can now "deactivate" Switch units for a given account and activate another for that account, without having to go through customer service.
Here's the screen where you can do that, found in a user's eShop settings menu:
This is... a step forward. Giving users this ability allows them to transfer digital game licenses from one hardware unit to another without outside intervention and without needing to have both hardware units in the physical presence of one another. However, many of the old inconveniences remain. If the active hardware unit is made unusable (lost, broken, stolen, etc.) while it's still activated another hardware unit cannot be activated without deactivating the original with the help of customer service. Game licenses cannot be shared between multiple hardware units.
This also means that accounts can exist on multiple Switch units simultaneously, but since only one unit can be active at a time, any digital game licenses tied to an account will not come across from one unit to another unless the unit first used is deactivated. Prior hardware must be deactivated for anything to be downloaded from the eShop at all. These limitations make accounts existing on multiple hardware units essentially meaningless. By the way, keep in mind that the "accounts" referred to here are the newer Nintendo Accounts, not Nintendo Network IDs. NNIDs are exclusively for use with Wii U and 3DS and appear to be defunct going forward, though an NNID can be linked with a Nintendo Account for eShop wallet balance sharing between older and newer platforms.
So, this isn't the "proper account system" we've all wanted, but it does give users an important power that was previously only available to Nintendo internally. It's still a restrictive system compared to Sony and Microsoft's, though it's also the least exploitable. It's not hyper-convenient, but it's a step up from Nintendo's earlier policies.
Now I can finally ask the question in the thread title: has this policy shift changed your mind about buying digitally on Switch as opposed to previous Nintendo platforms? I'm asking this both to get a sense of the response to this change, if there is any, and to try to make this choice for myself, since I'm personally torn. At this point, I only have a single game for the system, and it's a physical copy, but I enjoy the convenience of digital and have gone pretty much exclusively digital on all non-Nintendo platforms in the past few years. I've only ever spent money on a single digital game on a Nintendo platform (I have a soft spot for Rhythm Heaven, what can I say).
Also, region fluidity is great, and if you've gone from not buying digitally on previous Nintendo platforms to buying digitally on Switch because of it feel free to talk about it here. I don't want to downplay the end of region locking, it's just a less overarching issue than the DRM scheme, at least in my view.
It also seems likely that a lot of people don't even know about this change. I certainly didn't until I already had the system in hand, and I was pretty frustrated with Nintendo's lack of communication on this issue and the gaming press' lack of curiosity on it. If anyone reading wasn't aware of this stuff, I hope you found this informative.
Now, if you're wondering whether that kind of thing is finally available on Switch, the short answer is no... but they've made one significant step toward it, or at least a significant improvement for user friendliness. What exactly is that improvement? Well, to answer that, I have to explain what the situation was with systems prior to Switch.
Nintendo has essentially had an "account system" since the launch of the Wii U, and the Nintendo Network ID alongside it. Internally, Nintendo was able to track any eShop purchases made by a given NNID, and this was also available to users, albeit obscurely, through the now defunct Club Nintendo service. The issue was that once an NNID was registered to a given hardware unit (one Wii U and one 3DS at maximum), it was locked to that unit (or more specifically, that unit's serial number). NNIDs could only be moved between hardware units by either a direct hardware-to-hardware full system transfer or through Nintendo customer service. This was obviously inconvenient, and is definitely still among the most restrictive DRM policies in use today. The solution the Switch uses is similar, with one key difference: users can now "deactivate" Switch units for a given account and activate another for that account, without having to go through customer service.
Here's the screen where you can do that, found in a user's eShop settings menu:
This is... a step forward. Giving users this ability allows them to transfer digital game licenses from one hardware unit to another without outside intervention and without needing to have both hardware units in the physical presence of one another. However, many of the old inconveniences remain. If the active hardware unit is made unusable (lost, broken, stolen, etc.) while it's still activated another hardware unit cannot be activated without deactivating the original with the help of customer service. Game licenses cannot be shared between multiple hardware units.
This also means that accounts can exist on multiple Switch units simultaneously, but since only one unit can be active at a time, any digital game licenses tied to an account will not come across from one unit to another unless the unit first used is deactivated. Prior hardware must be deactivated for anything to be downloaded from the eShop at all. These limitations make accounts existing on multiple hardware units essentially meaningless. By the way, keep in mind that the "accounts" referred to here are the newer Nintendo Accounts, not Nintendo Network IDs. NNIDs are exclusively for use with Wii U and 3DS and appear to be defunct going forward, though an NNID can be linked with a Nintendo Account for eShop wallet balance sharing between older and newer platforms.
So, this isn't the "proper account system" we've all wanted, but it does give users an important power that was previously only available to Nintendo internally. It's still a restrictive system compared to Sony and Microsoft's, though it's also the least exploitable. It's not hyper-convenient, but it's a step up from Nintendo's earlier policies.
Now I can finally ask the question in the thread title: has this policy shift changed your mind about buying digitally on Switch as opposed to previous Nintendo platforms? I'm asking this both to get a sense of the response to this change, if there is any, and to try to make this choice for myself, since I'm personally torn. At this point, I only have a single game for the system, and it's a physical copy, but I enjoy the convenience of digital and have gone pretty much exclusively digital on all non-Nintendo platforms in the past few years. I've only ever spent money on a single digital game on a Nintendo platform (I have a soft spot for Rhythm Heaven, what can I say).
Also, region fluidity is great, and if you've gone from not buying digitally on previous Nintendo platforms to buying digitally on Switch because of it feel free to talk about it here. I don't want to downplay the end of region locking, it's just a less overarching issue than the DRM scheme, at least in my view.
It also seems likely that a lot of people don't even know about this change. I certainly didn't until I already had the system in hand, and I was pretty frustrated with Nintendo's lack of communication on this issue and the gaming press' lack of curiosity on it. If anyone reading wasn't aware of this stuff, I hope you found this informative.
