Update: and it’s gone | Aussies can now buy US Switch games on the Humble Store
Update: Aaaaand it’s gone. We’re not sure if it was just a glitch in the system or Humble pulled the functionality for another reason, but Australians are once again unable to access or purchase Nintendo games on the Humble store. The original story follows.
Earlier this month, Humble announced they’d be selling Switch and 3DS games on the Humble store, and up until now, only those accessing from the US could purchase them. Now, that’s opened up to Australians too, but it comes with a catch.
Humble is selling both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS games on the Humble Store, with a small selection of mostly first-party developed and first-party published games available. Prior to today, Australians could not access the site, with any link to Nintendo games redirecting to the home page — today, that’s changed, and Australians can access and purchase these games too. However, a few small disclaimers on the site, and a test purchase by Vooks staff, have confirmed that these are US game codes. This means that you’ll have to have a US account set up on your Switch to redeem and download them, and you’ll need a US 3DS to make use of those games too — an Aussie 3DS is incompatible with US games.
Nintendo games on the Humble store are also not eligible for Humble Rewards — meaning you don’t get any discounts for using their Monthly service — and unlike most Humble purchases, none of the payment can be contributed to a charity.
Pricing is roughly the same as buying on the eShop, with some games slightly more expensive and some games slightly cheaper, but it does come with the useful caveat of being able to buy a game as a gift for a friend, something not currently available digitally on the Switch. Though again, you’d need to make sure your friend can actually redeem it.
It’s a bit of a weird situation, but hey, if these restrictions don’t bother you, you might be able to net yourself a discount somewhere on there. You can view a list of all the Switch games available for sale by clicking here.
Almost seems silly that the big N won’t let you just redeem codes on any switch account considering the console itself is region free.
Hmm, is it still blocked by region or something? Followed the link and also tried searching but it all comes up with 0 switch games.
The region thing really isn’t too bad unless you’ve got credit on your account. With zero balance you can swap your switch region to redeem the code and then flip back to your local region.
It will unlink your MyNintendo account but you can relink again after without issue – all gold points etc preserved but they are only visible/usable when you’ve got your account on the respective region.
I did this a few times recently to nab some free DLC for Taiko which wasn’t made available on our local eshop.
If you’ve constantly got eshop credit sitting on your account though then making a second account in the US region would probably be better.
Looks like they blocked the functionality for us again after we ran the story. We’ve updated the article to reflect the change.
Ah, damn. I tried visiting using a free proxy as well but same result unfortunately. Maybs can get around with a VPN though, but might as well be easier using the various Amazon sites and a fake address to buy the digital codes delivered by email.