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Nintendo Switch Online Splitscreen for Guests

Since the launch of Nintendo Switch Online, playing online with local guests (users who select "Skip" on the user selection screen) is no longer possible, even when the primary user is paying for online services. This was really disappointing to find out we could no longer play with friends locally who do not own a Nintendo Switch as this is the main reason myself and my siblings purchased Minecraft on Switch -- to play with friends who don't own Minecraft in split-screen mode. In the past, we could have two players with online service play over the internet and have additional guest players play split-screen on either end as player(1), player(2), etc. This behavior was similar to Halo on Xbox, where only signed-in users need Xbox Live to play split-screen multiplayer online. Please consider allowing guest users to play online if the main user they are a guest of has online services.

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  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    It is so huge shame! Before kids have played Monicraft splitscreen online with their friends on their Wii U and PS4, I bought 3 Nintendo Switch for my kids but now we can't  play online in spliscreen with their friends who does not have nintendo switch, shame on developers and Nintendo!

    Other thing, if you run Minecraft on the console that isn't registered as main console you can't  play Spliscreen online at all even if all of accounts has online subscription it just unavailable to choose! WTF!?! So sad so mad!

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Found a workaround: Create "dummy" Nintendo accounts for each guest player (so up to 4 accounts), and add them all to a family Nintendo Switch Online plan. I've done so, and named the accounts Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Toad, and use them whenever I want to play split-screen with guests.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    They want you to buy the family plan instead of the regular is mybguess

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I already have a family group with 8 family members, each with their own Switch. So if a friend wanted to join an online game with me and/or my siblings, we're out of luck? Just because we are at our max amount of family members? This is the only game on switch I can think of that doesn't allow for local/online multiplayer combined.

    Is this because Microsoft's online subscription services work similar to this? Having each account you want to use for online play have a online subscription attached to it? This approach does not really work on Switch since a Switch is mostly tied to just one individual and thus has mostly just one account per Switch (in the case of my family at least), as opposed by a home console which probably has all those accounts centralised on one console and thus allows for easy combined local/online play.

    It's a damn shame how many times Minecraft has disappointed me, because it seems so much fun but there's these little bugs and things that keep that fun at a distance.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Agree but I think that Nintendo is the one that disabled it

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I hope Minecraft does something about this. Nintendo shouldn’t be so greedy.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Before my son had a Nintendo Online account we could play multiplayer split screen, but since having it we can no longer play together because Minecraft requires the other player to also have an online account. This is ridiculous, there should absolutely be an option to play as a guest.