Nintendo is making changes to its eShop in Japan. Nintendo announced today that there are changes coming in an attempt to combat fraudulent use. It’s unclear what specific fraud Nintendo is trying to combat.
As shared by the folks over at VGC, Nintendo announced to their store page and Twitter that the Japanese eShop will no longer be accepting any form of account or card that is not issued within Japan.
One of the selling points of the Nintendo Switch at launch was that it was not region-locked (Some of Nintendo’s previous consoles had been). This means that players can play games from any region. However, some players have been using this feature to purchase games on the Japanese eShop from outside regions in order to save money. This occurs because the exchange rate in Japan sometimes influences the price of games. Occasionally games are cheaper there than when compared with rival regions. Now that users require a Japanese account or card they will no longer be able to capitalise on this phenomenon. The changes will take effect after the 25th of March 2025.
As VGC noted, however, there are services that allow international buyers to purchase Nintendo eShop cards online. In this case, users would still be able to purchase their games through that method, albeit with a few extra steps.
If saving money on Nintendo Switch games sounds like a good idea… Nintendo has you covered. They recently announced their big Supercharge Sale. Several games are marked down considerably. If you’d like to find out more about the sale click here. Additionally, Nintendo highlighted some new games that are coming to the Switch in February if you’d like to find out more click here.
