Nintendo says you do not own your Switch games

These are the terms behind the eShop checkout, and this is their word for what you walk away with. The section above it does hand you something at checkout: "Risk of loss or damage for digital Products will transfer to you upon electronic transmission of the Product to you." So a transfer happens the instant the file moves. The risk arrives immediately. The title never does.

The account agreement defines "Nintendo Account Services" to include, by name, video games and add-on content. So this clause is not about some website: it is the licence over the layer your library actually lives in, and it opens with three words doing quiet work. Non-exclusive. Non-transferable. Revocable.

Note the verb Nintendo opens with: "If you buy". The word survives one sentence before the same paragraph strips it of everything a buyer would expect it to mean. No right, no title, no resale, no transfer, no converting back to money. It is the whole argument of this site in four sentences, written by Nintendo.

The third layer: the console agreement itself. And read what the same section says in the very next paragraph about cartridges: physical media you buy at a shop "will be governed by this Agreement" too. The one format everybody assumes escapes the licence is written into it by name.

The qualifier is real and it is inside the quote: the trigger is the section's restriction list, which is about piracy, tampering and circumvention, not anything an ordinary player does. What is remarkable is the remedy. Sony's current terms reach the device too ("terminate your Account and PlayStation Device", on the Sony page); Nintendo is the one that spells out the end state for the object you own outright. Permanently unusable, in whole or in part.

A violation Nintendo believes will occur is enough, before it occurs. Sony reached this predicted-violation standard by quietly rewriting its terms between 2022 and 2025 (we caught it on the Sony page). Nintendo got there in one edit: the April 2021 agreement terminated only "if you fail to comply with its terms", and the May 2025 revision added the belief standard, plus a paragraph applying it to the conduct of any other user under your account.

This is the clause under every "for the foreseeable future" promise Nintendo makes when it retires a storefront. The Wii U and 3DS eShops closed and, to Nintendo's credit, redownloads kept working (see the caveats below). This sentence is why that is a courtesy and not a commitment.

Sony's digital refund window is 14 days and closes when you download. Nintendo's baseline is zero: final, non-refundable, with the exceptions being whatever Nintendo authorizes or the law forces. The support desk's standing line ("We are unable to provide refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases") is informational copy rather than contract text, but it tells you how the discretion usually lands.