Yes — and there are three distinct ways to do it. A physical game card is the obvious one: it is an object, you hand it over, anybody can play it. The interesting part is digital, because Nintendo now treats a downloaded game as something you can lend, move and broadcast rather than something locked to one machine forever.
In Nintendo’s own words, “The digital games and DLC you purchase through Nintendo eShop are treated as virtual game cards on your console” — and the whole point of that framing is that virtual cards behave a bit like real ones.
Below: the three routes, Nintendo’s own limits on each, and the practical answer to the question underneath this search, which is almost always “can one present cover two children?”
Route 1: lend it to a family member for 14 days
This is the one most owners do not know exists. Nintendo states that virtual game cards can be lent to a family member for 14 days, after which they are automatically returned. The rules around it are published and worth knowing in full:
- You can lend up to three virtual game cards at a time.
- The borrower can only borrow one game at a time.
- “The borrower must be part of your Nintendo Account family group.” This is the condition that decides whether any of it is possible.
- The return is automatic. Nobody has to remember to give it back, which matters when the borrower is nine.
A family group is a Nintendo Account arrangement rather than a paid service, and it is the same structure a Nintendo Switch Online Family membership covers — Nintendo Support’s own article notes that a family membership covers all the Nintendo Accounts in the membership owner’s family group, and that a member who leaves is no longer covered. Our guide to Nintendo Switch Online sets out what the $19.99 and $34.99 tiers actually include.
Route 2: move it between your own two consoles
Nintendo says of virtual game cards: “You can freely load and eject them between your two consoles, just like physical games.”
That is the arrangement for a household with more than one Switch under one Nintendo Account — a Switch 2 under the television and a Switch Lite in a bag, say. The game lives on whichever console you loaded it onto, and you move it when you want to play somewhere else.
The limit is the obvious one: it is one copy. Loading it onto the Lite takes it off the Switch 2. This is a travel-and-convenience feature, not a way for two people to play at once.
Route 3: GameShare, on a Switch 2
This is the newest and the most generous, and it only works in one direction. Nintendo summarises it as “GameShare lets everyone play—with just one game!”
A Switch 2 “can share compatible games with anyone who has a Nintendo Switch 2 or Nintendo Switch system”, and the headline is that “everyone can play the game, even if they don’t have it”. The direction matters: “Only Nintendo Switch 2 systems can share games, but any Nintendo Switch 2 or Nintendo Switch can receive them.”
Two conditions. First, the game has to support it — Nintendo lists GameShare per game on its store pages, and Donkey Kong Bananza is one of the titles where it is listed as supported. Second, sharing in person works locally, but sharing across the internet runs through GameChat, for which “Internet, Nintendo Switch Online membership and Nintendo Account required”.
For a gift buyer this is a genuinely useful fact: buying a GameShare-supported game for the Switch 2 in a house means the siblings with older Switches can join in without anybody buying a second copy.
What none of this lets you do
Three limits, said plainly, because the sharing story gets oversold.
Two people cannot play one digital copy on two consoles at the same time via lending or loading. That is what GameShare is for, on supported games, with a Switch 2 doing the sharing.
You cannot lend to somebody outside your family group. Nintendo is explicit about it. A friend down the road is not a lending target; a physical card is the only way to get a game to them.
A redeemed download code cannot be un-redeemed. Before redemption, a code is a transferable gift. After redemption it belongs to that Nintendo Account, and the only sharing available is the three routes above. Our guide to redeeming a game code covers the mechanics, and how to gift Switch games covers buying one for somebody else in the first place.
So: can one present cover two children?
Usually yes, with a caveat about when rather than whether.
If they play at different times — one after school, one at the weekend — one digital copy genuinely covers both, lent back and forth in 14-day stretches inside the family group. A physical card does the same job with no rules at all, which is one of the real arguments for buying boxed; our physical versus digital comparison weighs the rest of that trade.
If they want to play together, stop thinking about sharing and buy a game whose multiplayer runs on one console. That is what most of the family picks on this site are selected for — four players on one machine, no second copy, no second console. Our family games list and Switch 2 games for kids both lead with that filter, and remember that four players on one console means four controllers — our controller-counting guide does that arithmetic.
If you cannot see how their accounts are set up, do not try to engineer any of this from outside the household. Buy the game, or buy an eShop card and let the parent who can see the family group make the decision. Nothing on this page is worth guessing at.