A new Switch system update later this month is finally bringing us the ability to gift games via the Nintendo eShop, albeit with some hefty restrictions.
Digital games are increasingly becoming the norm across the games industry, yet strangely the concept of gifting digital games has yet to be widely adopted across all storefronts. While Steam and many PC platforms have supported the ability to send digital games to friends for at least a decade, on console only Microsoft allows Xbox players to do the same. Without it, people have simply had to make do with digital store cards. For Nintendo platforms, however, the company are promising to slightly change that and allow directly gifting games, “just in time for the holidays.”
The feature, added in firmware update 23.5.0 and launching November 16, will allow players within a family group on Nintendo Switch to gift digital games to one another via the eShop. Once the feature has been activated, players will need to navigate to a game’s store page where a check box will allow us to give the game as a gift. After checkout, you’ll select the player within your “family” to give the game, select from eight colors of digital wrapping paper, and the game will appear on their system.
There are notable limitations to this new feature. Supervised accounts within a family group are unable to gift games, and the number of games able to be purchased and gifted within an unspecified period is limited. Some games may also be unavailable for gifting, and any games gifted are immediately sent to the receiving player (so don’t go buying those Christmas gifts early!). The feature, however, will be available to players both on the original Nintendo Switch as well as the Switch 2.
It’s a welcome addition, though the inability to freely gift a game to anyone on your friends list (as seen on Steam) makes the feature bizarrely limited. Still, the fact its available at all is welcome for parents of gaming kids, or the found family of friends sharing a Nintendo Switch Online Family Plan.