One of the problems with buying digital editions of Nintendo Switch games was that if you changed your mind about pre-ordering a game, you couldn’t get a refund. But that has finally changed.
Pre-orders made through the Nintendo Switch eShop can now be canceled for a full refund, as long as the cancellation is made before the game is pre-loaded or at least seven days before it’s released.
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“When you pre-order content on Nintendo eShop, payment will not be processed until, at earliest, 7 days before the game is released. You can cancel a pre-order any time before the payment is processed and the game is pre-loaded on your system,” Nintendo explained. And it posted a handy FAQ that details how pre-orders and pre-loading games works through the eShop.
Nintendo will also spell out when a game will be pre-loaded, giving its customers plenty of warning as to when the cut-off for a refund will happen.
Before this policy change, Nintendo would charge eShop customers straight away for their pre-orders. Given some eShop games can go for quite high prices, it’s not surprising why this policy could frustrate some Nintendo Switch users.
This consumer-friendly move helps Nintendo catch up with other online gaming stores and platforms. Steam, for example, will let you get a full refund of a game if you haven’t played more than two hours of it. And if you don’t play a game downloaded through the Google Play Store, you can get a refund for that if you act quickly.
There's not exactly a vast amount of Nintendo Switch games to pre-order at the moment, with titles such as Breath of the Wild 2 and Metroid Prime 4 still a ways out. And we’d not be surprised to find out that Nintendo is keeping things on the down low while the PS5 and Xbox Series X steal the gaming headlines, with both consoles expected to launch in November time.
