Switch 2 and original Switch owners will soon be able to buy a digital game for someone else, but two rules decide how useful that is over the holidays. According to Nintendo's announcement, the Nintendo eShop feature arrives on November 16, sends gifts only to members of your Nintendo Account family group, and delivers each one the moment you pay.
Gifts can be eligible games, DLC or upgrade packs bought through the eShop on your console. Both systems need version 23.5.0, which Nintendo released on November 9 and which downloads automatically on a connected console. The Switch 2 update notes give a slightly later date: the eShop update that switches gifting on is scheduled for November 17. If the option is missing on November 16, check again the next day.
How to send a digital game as a gift on Switch 2 and Switch
The option sits on the game's own eShop page. Tick the Give as a Gift box, pick the recipient from your family group, and choose which of their linked consoles should receive it. You then pick a wrap color, with eight on offer in Nintendo's screenshots from red to pink, and pay as usual.
On the other end, the gift appears as a wrapped tile on the recipient's HOME Menu, where they can accept it and start playing right away. Nintendo stresses that gifts are sent immediately, and it describes no way to schedule delivery. A game meant to be opened on Christmas morning therefore has to be sent on Christmas morning.
Why Nintendo eShop gifts only reach your family group
Everything runs through the family group. Anyone with a Nintendo Account can set one up and add up to eight members in total. Sending a game to a friend or a cousin means adding them to your group first, and that ceiling caps how many people you can buy for this way.
Three more limits apply. Some products will not be eligible, supervised accounts cannot send gifts, and the number of gifts you can buy in a given period is capped. The cap and the list of excluded games have not been published, which matters if you planned to buy for several people in one evening.
Because supervised accounts, the kind a parent manages for a child, cannot send, the feature mostly flows from parents to kids or between adults. That matches how Nintendo pitches it, as a way to celebrate a special occasion with your kids. On a holiday list, a digital game is now one more option next to the physical gifts that work with a Switch 2.
Gifting a game versus lending a virtual game card
Family groups could already share digital games through virtual game cards, but that is a loan. You can lend one game per account for 14 days unless the borrower returns it earlier, and both consoles need local wireless and internet communication to make the handoff.
A gift is a purchase made for the other person and delivered through the eShop. For a child with their own console, that is the difference between borrowing a parent's copy of Mario Kart World for two weeks and having one of their own. It also gives digital games something cartridges always had: you can hand one over, even as Nintendo says it has no plans to abandon physical games.
What Switch system update 23.5.0 changes besides eShop gifting
On Switch 2, version 23.5.0 also lets you configure accessibility settings during first-time setup, which helps when the present is a new console rather than a game. It adds Portuguese (Portugal) to the text-to-speech languages and to GameChat's option that converts text to speech. The original Switch gets the gifting support and general fixes.
It has also been reported that 23.5.0 closes the vulnerability behind the software-only Switch 2 jailbreak that surfaced in October. Nintendo's notes do not mention it and list only general adjustments and fixes.
The announcement appears on Nintendo's US site, and dates for other regions have not been announced. If you are in the US, the practical steps are simple: install 23.5.0, bring the people you buy for into your family group, and press buy only when you want the gift opened.
Discussion (0)
Be the first to comment.