The freedom of the Nintendo Switch means you can make pretty much any account from any region, and host them all on the same Switch. Even if you have a North American Switch console, you can still make a Japanese Nintendo Switch account if you follow a few relatively easy steps.
Screenshot by Siliconera
How Do You Make a Japanese Switch Account?
To start, you want to head to the main Nintendo account site to create a fresh Japanese account. From there, choose to “create a Nintendo account” and fill out the various information. It’ll ask you for your date of birth, nickname, email address (make sure it’s a fresh email not used for another account), password, gender, and country/region of residence.
That final section is the most important part for making a Japanese Nintendo Switch account. By default, it’ll likely show your current location, such as North America or Europe. But you can manually change this to Japan.
Once you are ready, agree to the user agreement and click submit. You’ll need to confirm your account using the provided email address, and then you’re pretty much good to go. At that point, you want to head to your Switch console, select the settings, then Users, and choose to add a user.
Log into the new Japanese Nintendo Switch account you just made, and you’re good to go. You’ll now be able to browse the Japanese eShop. Just keep in mind that you’ll need Japanese eShop cards from a place like PlayAsia to buy anything.
What Are the Benefits of a Japanese Switch Account?
There are quite a few benefits for making a Japanese Nintendo Switch account. For one, it allows you to play games that you wouldn’t be able to play otherwise on your main account. For me, I love being able to play games that may never be localized like Dragon Quest X Offline.
In addition, a Japanese Switch account is highly beneficial in letting you play some brand new games early. For instance, I purchased a Tears of the Kingdom Japanese version, so I could play it about half a day earlier than I would have been able to otherwise. The best part is that many worldwide Nintendo releases automatically include the English versions, too.
