The Nintendo Switch was a big deal for a lot of gamers, providing a console-quality gaming experience in a 100 percent portable format. In addition, you can even put it back on the television to enjoy better picture quality and performance. However, one issue with this setup is that it becomes much easier to lose if you decide to take it out of its dock. But what are you supposed to do if you lost your Nintendo Switch?
Well, before you do anything drastic, try to retrace your steps and figure out where you last left it. Hopefully, you should be able to find it after too much trouble.
If you can’t find your Nintendo Switch after checking your home and safe spaces it may be, it would be a good idea to contact Nintendo about the loss. This will allow them to disconnect your account information to prevent its use by someone else.
Is there anything else that can be done to track down my Nintendo Switch? And if you can’t, what are the risks of someone finding and accessing your info?
What to do if You Lost Your Nintendo Switch
If you can’t locate your Nintendo Switch, tracking it down in your house (or another place it may reasonably be) is your best bet. If that fails, however, the next thing you should do is alert Nintendo if you truly think it is lost. In addition, you should give them the serial number of the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, that is not going to be easy, as you’d have to have a way to find it besides looking at the serial number on the Switch itself. The only way you can get the serial number reasonably is if your Nintendo Switch was already registered with Nintendo, you wrote down the serial number, or you have the Nintendo Switch Parental App on your phone.
Either way, by telling Nintendo about the theft, will let them know whether any suspicious activity occurred on your Nintendo Account while you did not have possession of it, as well as allow them to disconnect the Nintendo Switch from your account.
After you have done that, your next step would be to change the password information for your Nintendo account. This would result in whomever may have it not being able to gain access to your private details without your consent. If someone has your Nintendo Switch and is able to get on the Nintendo eShop, this may also allow them to gain access to your payment information to buy digital products and download them to the Nintendo Switch.
Will Nintendo replace a lost Nintendo Switch?
There are multiple things that would cause Nintendo to either repair or replace a lost Nintendo Switch, but unfortunately, there are a variety of reasons why they will not do it this way. For one, it would be extremely easy to try to scam Nintendo out of getting a second Nintendo Switch.
If I lose my Nintendo Switch, do I lose my digital games as well?
This is a valid question to ask, especially as far as Nintendo consoles are concerned. Nintendo has allowed digital libraries of games ever since the Nintendo Wii in 2006 for consoles, and 2008 for the Nintendo DSi (at least in Japan anyway). With these platforms, if you lost it or it was stolen, recovering your digital library was essentially impossible. Thankfully, with the release of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo wised up and decided to make it perfectly simple to put all of your digital games on a new Switch without any fuss whatsoever.
Is it possible to track my Nintendo Switch?
One great feature found in a lot of portable devices (and even some non-portable ones!) is the ability to track their location. This has obvious limitations, such as only being able to track it as long as it is powered on, able to connect to data or Wi-Fi, and/or still being connected to your account. With the Nintendo Switch, however, it is unfortunately not possible to track it this way. If you wind up losing your Nintendo Switch with no idea where to look, the likelihood of being able to get it back are slim at best. At that point, your best bet would be to hope that a good Samaritan was able to figure out the owner.
How can I find missing Joy-Cons?
Joy-Cons are a lot smaller than your Nintendo Switch, and as such, they are a lot easier to misplace. The good news is that, if your Joy-Cons are in your home, you can just take the Nintendo Switch around with you and use a feature that makes your Joy-Cons vibrate. All you need to do is go to the home screen and select the Controllers option, followed by ‘Search for Controllers’. Here, you will see all Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons registered to your Nintendo Switch, which can be individually controlled to vibrate if they are in range.
What risks are associated with someone getting a hold of my Nintendo Switch?
When someone else is able to get a hold of your Nintendo Switch, whether by finding it or stealing it, they have a certain degree of control over things to do with your account. For example, they may be able to remove people from your friends list if they decide to do something actively malicious.
However, the real risk comes in the form of their access to your payment information. If you do not require a password in order to sign into the eShop, the only way they would be able to get in is if they knew your password or guessed it. But if you don’t have something like that set up, they would be able to purchase games using your money as they pleased.
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