You Can Claim Your Nintendo Switch Username Now

Please, no one claim "xXx_RickmanGruber_xXx" before I do.

By Joe Skrebels

Prospective Nintendo Switch owners can now register a User ID for the console.

Inside the Account Settings page for a Nintendo Account, there is now a "User ID" section - hit the edit button and claim your chosen title. If you haven't logged in for a little while, you may be prompted to change your password before you get to claim a name.

If it seems confusing, it sort of is. Your Nintendo Account is separate from your Switch ID, but is intrinsically linked. Your Switch ID is, essentially, a new version of the NNID you may have created for your Wii U or 3DS, and is completely separate.

With eShop purchases now tied to a Nintendo Account for the first time, it may be that this move was the simplest solution to make sure that the new system could be implemented.

We're truly on the home stretch to release now - with March 3 around the corner, we're learning more about the Switch, from digital game sizes to what its OS looks like in action.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and his usual 11-character username is, according to Nintendo's maths, under six characters, so he can't have it. Go figure. Follow him on Twitter, where he's allowed that name.

Let's block ads! (Why?)