• Nintendo has announced that it is working on a new feature called Virtual Game Cards.
• It is designed to make digital downloads easier to port to other devices.
• Virtual Game Cards are expected to be available to Switch users in late-April.

Yesterday Nintendo held its latest Direct event. With a more anticipated one set to happen next week on 2nd April regarding the Nintendo Switch 2, yesterday’s live stream did feature one intriguing announcement – Virtual Game Cards.

As TechCrunch points out, games have been accessible on Nintendo’s Switch console in one of two ways – as physical game cards (akin to game discs on other consoles) or digital downloads. However, the latter option has proved tricky to make portable to other devices, which is where Virtual Game Cards can come into play.

Moving forward, when a Switch user makes a purchase of a game on the handheld console, it will be loaded onto the device as a Virtual Game Card. Digital downloads will form part of a separate game library for easier management, according to Nintendo, with the ability to select which titles to access on a specific device.

You’ll be able to eject and load Virtual Game Cards onto another device should you have one, provided it is logged into the same account. As such, switching cards between different users will not be possible, and it is also worth pointing out that you’ll need an internet connection for the eject and insert portions of the transfer.

That said, lending between people in a Nintendo Family Group is allowed, with up to eight people included. There are some caveats, however, such as lending only happening over local WiFi, and the maximum period of lending being 14 days.

This new feature is expected to launch in late-April, but it is still unclear at this stage whether all regions will recuve access to it at the same time.

With the Switch 2 confirmed to support backwards compatibility, this new feature could prove one of the mechanisms to make this happen.

You can listen to Nintendo detail the Virtual Game Cards by clicking play on the video embedded below.