Topic: Multiplayer with 1 gamecard?

Hi all,
Both my kids have their own nintendo switch device. And they both have an account. Can they play together in the same game? For example, race eachother in Mario Kart? We only have 1 gamecard for Mario Kart. Is it possible to save the game on 1 device and use the gamecard in the other device? Or do I have to buy each game twice now? Thanks for your help!

They can play together on 1 Switch with 1 cart or of they want to play together on their own Switch you would need 2 copies of the game

Thank you!

Is it not possible to download the game from the card? So you can play a game without putting the gamecard in?

No unfortunately you need the cart in the console to play.
You can buy and download games from the E-Store but would still need 2 copies (either physical or digital) to play together on separate switches.

Ok thanks so much for explaining! I have little understanding of how this all works.

And if I buy a game in the nintendo shop, wil they both be able to use the game? I put them both in the same family group.

Unfortunately you would still need 2 copies of the game to play on the 2 switches at the same time even if you buy digitally.
There are ways to gameshare (im not sure how that works as my wife and I just buy 2 copies to play together) but not for them both to play the same game together on separate consoles.

Ok, thanks for your help!! And happy gaming

It's situations like this that really make me miss the days of the feature "Download Play" in the DS/3DS era. The girl I was dating at the time and I would use that feature for a variety of games that had it. So freaking convenient.

I'm confident that feature could be used in today's era however I believe some bean counter figured out they're losing out on potential profits. Why allow them to play the game with 1 cart when we could force them to buy 2 (or more)?

@Ganner Nintendo itself would loose sales and without those revenues we get no Switch games. It's a harsh gaming world but that's how it is eShop games are tied to the account and one at a time can access it. Otherwise we have lan/internet world gamin and no one pays for the game and then developers would stop making Switch games. I doubt those play Nintendo games want that scenario to happen. It's a necessary evil that to multiplayer game require both cart or one cart and one eShop or both separate eShop games purchased on different account to game together. Only Nintendo support can fully answer this question as it's confusing to even seasoned gamers to navigate this pitfall.

@Eve2024 to add to what @Chaotic_Neutral said, if you buy a game digitally, and have the same account on more than one console, then all consoles would have access to the game; however, the caveat is that you still can’t play the same copy of game at the same time on more than one console, just like with cartridges.

An account can only have one Nintendo Switch set as its “primary” console, and that primary console has unrestricted access to all digital content of the account.

Any other console you log in with the account will be considered as a “secondary” console, and it will need to check if the “primary” console isn’t currently active before opening any digital game.

So it is somewhat possible to share digital games in a limited capacity, but it’s kind of not worth the effort.

@Eve2024 @SwitchForce @Chaotic_Neutral On the contrary, I believe there is a workaround. HOWEVER, it is necessary to be a digital copy of the game, so this may not be as helpful if you have the physical version.

What you need:

• Two Nintendo Switches (We'll call them Switch X and Switch Y)
• Two different accounts connected to a Nintendo Account (We'll call them User A and User B)
• User A must have that same account on both devices (User B only has to be on one, though.)

IMPORTANT INFO

• If an account is on multiple Switches, it has a 'Primary' Switch. Any other Switch this account is on will be a 'Secondary' Switch. You'll want Switch X to be the primary. (You can determine which Switch is the Primary by looking in the eShop) User B will be using Switch X.
  remember this: Switch X is the primary console here. For example, if User A has the Primary Switch X, then any user on Switch X can play User A's games. However, on Switch Y, only User A can play their own games.

STEPS:
1. Buy the multiplayer game from the eShop on User A. It must be bought by User A for this to work. I recommend buying on Switch X.
2. Put User A on both Nintendo Switch devices (X and Y) and make sure User B is on Switch X.
3. Redownload the bought game onto Switch Y.
4. Use User A on Switch Y to play the game, and have User B on Switch X (the primary console).
5. That's pretty much it! Kind of complex, although the Nintendo support website might be able to help a bit if this was too confusing. Sorry if I said something wrong, I double checked and I don't think I did, but if anyone notices anything feel free to correct me.

Also friending User A and User B can help with some online things, so I recommend doing that.

Thanks for reading! Sadly if you don't have the digital version of the game it doesn't work, but hopefully if you ever do use digital and get games compatible with online/local play (I don't think I've tested local play but I would imagine it still works), you can use this method!

The above works if you're just wanting two users to play the same copy of a game at different times.

If you're wanting them to play at the same time though, it'll only work if the primary console is offline, so you obviously can't use it to play against each other using online play.

Thanks to all of you for helping me out! I will try and close this topic now, since you all helped answer my question.

@Matt_Barber It does actually let you play the same game at the same time. I regularly play MK8 online with my son using this method and only I own the digital game. As long as you are not using the same account on both consoles and the 'owner' of the game is playing on the secondary it works just fine.

This nature of questions is best handled through Nintendo support as no one on here can talk for Nintendo support about multiple consoles connections.

@dmcc0 Wow, that actually works.

I suppose the caveat is that both accounts need an active NSO subscription, but if you're using a family plan you might well have enough spare ones to go around.

I'd be interesting to see if a download play system could be implemented again. I assume the reason they don't is because having a mode where you can download arbitrary code from a local device isn't ideal. Fine for the DS when everything was in memory and digital distribution wasn't a thing. A bit of a different beast now

Also even if you were able to mitigate that risk through some kind of verification or sandbox or something. We're not talking a couple of MB here. We're talking potentially GB. Imagine having to send something like 10GB over WiFi to multiple players before the game could start.....

I think the easier approach is to just have a second version of the game on the eShop for free that's purely for other players. That's what Clubhouse Games did. They certainly could have done that for Mario Kart. Although.... it's Mario Kart. Not exactly the kind of game your friend won't have

I remember doing DS multiplayer at UNI. We fairly rare we actually needed to do download play for Mario Kart. It happened but pretty much everyone had Mario Kart. For other games? Sure. But not Kart

@Matt_Barber Yeah, it needs to be online. I've never got it to work using the local wireless play, just comes up with an error and won't connect.