How to access the Japanese store on your Nintendo Switch

Way back at the dawn of home gaming Nintendo created the very first region-locked system. If you wanted to play some Japanese games on your Nintendo Entertainment System back in the late 20th century, you were completely out of luck. However, we live in a brave new world, friends. The Nintendo Switch is a region-free system. That means you can buy and play Switch games from any market in the world. Sure there will be other inherent barriers like the ones that language presents but you can buy and play those games none the less.

So let's say that you would like to have access to the Japanese Switch store. Here is how one might go about doing that. It's as simple as can be and no warranty voiding hacks are needed.

Create a new Nintendo account

Go to https://accounts.nintendo.com and create an all new account with a totally separate email address from your normal account. Fill in all the requested data.

Set your region

This is the most important step. When you are asked for your "Country/region of residence" make sure to select "Japan" from the drop down menu.

Create a new user on your Switch

Back on your switch, create a new user account that is separate from your main user account.

Link your new user account

Now all you have to do is link your new user to the Nintendo account that you made earlier.

Easily Switch between worlds

Now that you have a user account with it's region set to Japan, every time you view the Switch store with that account you will be able to see the Japanese store. If you want to go back to your home country all you have to do is view the store with your original account. With this access you can now view and purchase loads of games that simply are not available on the American store.

That includes some games that are decidedly not kid-friendly. Just keep in mind that there are going to be some games that will not offer any English dialog what so ever but maybe that will be helpful as you learn Japanese.