How To Set Up A Nintendo Switch

Don’t know how to set up your brand new Nintendo Switch? Can’t figure out why you can’t buy games from the Nintendo E-Shop? Here’s how to set everything up.

---

1. Try to always purchase games and DLC from the same region

2. If you’re in a country that doesn’t support the E-Shop, you need to be careful when setting up your account

Here’s how to set up a Nintendo Switch. For people living in America, Australia or other countries where the Nintendo E-Shop is supported, it’s pretty straightforward. But for people who are living in Singapore, Indonesia and other countries where we don’t have the Nintendo E-Shop, there are some steps to take note of when setting up your console if you want to be able to purchase games digitally. Let’s get started.

Startup the console and choose the language you want to use the Switch in. That’s English for me. As for the region, you could always choose your own region if it shows up here. Unfortunately, Singapore isn’t here, so if your country doesn’t show up here, any region is fine. You do have to remember though, that it is best to purchase all games AND DLC in the same region, otherwise, some DLC might not work properly if purchased in a different region from your game. Accept the end-user agreement next, then you’ll move on to connecting your console to a WiFi network.

Once that’s done, you get to choose the time zone. It’s perfectly fine for you to pick whichever timezone you want here. Again, Singapore doesn’t show up here so I’m just going to pick a random UMT+8 region. You get the option to connect to the TV, but we’ll skip that for now.

Get through the tutorial to detach your joycons and all, and then you can add your User account. Once done, you can link a Nintendo account. You might need to update your system before you can link the account.

Once done, head on over to Settings and link your Nintendo account from the User section. If you don’t have a Nintendo account, you’ll have to create it via your phone or your computer. Personally, I think using a computer is faster. Either way, head on over to https://accounts.nintendo.com/register and you can start filling up the form.

You can fill up everything as per normal, but when it comes to Country/Region of residence, do NOT put your own region in if you’re not living in one of the regions that have the Nintendo E-Shop. You can pick Japan, Canada or other regions, as long as there’s an E-Shop there and you know you’ll want to use that E-Shop to purchase your games in the future.

You can leave the timezone alone because that won’t affect anything. Once you get everything set up, you’ll be on the User Info page. Check to make sure you’re on the right region, then click on the Shop Menu button on the left. Don’t worry if you messed up and created an account with the wrong region. You can hit the edit button and change your region.

On the Shop Menu page, you’ll see your account balance and payment methods. You can either choose to link a PayPal account or add your credit card details. For Singaporeans, our Singapore credit cards work on the US E-Shop, so no worries there. Fill in your credit card details and then save it. You’re done with everything you need to do on your computer or phone, so you can go back to the Switch now and link your account to the user as I mentioned earlier.

Now that that’s done, you can head on to the E-Shop below, fire that up and buy all the games you want! And that’s how you set up a Nintendo Switch.