What are Nintendo virtual game cards?

The March Nintendo Direct was a relatively quiet one with the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement on the horizon, but there was one key update that did catch our attention: virtual game cards. 

We’ve gathered all the information you need to know about Nintendo’s virtual game cards, including what they are, the benefits, the drawbacks and which consoles support the feature. 

What are Nintendo virtual game cards? 

Nintendo virtual game cards are the newest way to buy and store games on Nintendo Switch consoles, marrying the convenience of digital games with some of the flexibility you get with physical games cartridges. 

The idea behind virtual game cards is to make it easier to move digital games between different systems and lend them to others as you can with physical games cards – albeit with a few restrictions. 

Virtual game cards allow you to store all your games digitally and “eject” them when you want to move them to a different system, whether that’s another console you own or one belonging to a friend or family member. The one caveat here is that this person needs to be in your Nintendo Account family group and you need to transfer the game via a wireless connection. That means no sharing games with friends over the web.

Loans also only last two weeks at a time before the game is automatically transferred back to its original owner, though the loan recipient can pick up where they left off at any time by loaning the game again or buying their own copy. While this is good if you want to ensure your siblings don’t hog your favourite titles, it does also prevent you from using this system to sell or gift games you’re done with them. 

This leads us to perhaps the biggest downside to virtual game cards compared to physical cards – you can’t sell them once you’ve completed the game to get back a bit of money. This is the trade-off required for the convenience of storing your games library virtually as opposed to carrying the cards around in a case.

Virtual game cards were announced during Nintendo’s Direct presentation on March 27th 2025 ahead of the brand’s April Nintendo Switch 2 announcement.

The feature will be compatible with Switch consoles old and new, including the original Nintendo Switch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED, as well as the upcoming Switch 2 at launch.

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