Nintendo Is Changing the Way Digital Games Work

Nintendo is overhauling how digital downloads work on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 with a new feature it’s calling “Virtual Game Cards.” Virtual Game Cards, which the company said during Thursday’s Nintendo Direct livestream will launch in late April, are designed to better mimic the flexibility of physical games. It works like this: After buying a digital version of a game, the virtual card is loaded onto the player’s Switch. Players can load or “eject” these game cards; with two systems, a player could eject a game on one system and load it onto another to play from that handheld. Although players will need a local connection to do so, it allows them to swap multiple games between systems quickly. The feature could fundamentally change the landscape for digitally downloaded games, which have become increasingly popular over the past several years as brick-and-mortar retailers have shuttered and physical copies have become less important to some players. Digital copies offer a fast, ... Read full article.