Nintendo Switch Online subscribers are demanding a change to restrictions

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Key insights

  • Some Nintendo Switch Online members want the service to relax restrictions on profile icons.
  • Re-releases of NSO profile icons are currently subject to some fairly restrictive restrictions, such as: B. requiring players to own the games whose images they purchase.
  • Also, icons from different games cannot be combined when designing a custom profile picture.



Some Nintendo Switch Online Members have recently taken to social media to call for changes to the way the service distributes profile icons, arguing that the current system is unnecessarily restrictive. Much of their frustration comes from Nintendo Switch Online's somewhat complicated restriction on icon availability and usage.

Profile icons were originally added to Nintendo Switch Online in March 2022. Since then, subscribers have been able to spend their Platinum Points on a variety of images to customize their profiles. These digital extras are added to the service on a monthly basis and are constantly changing. In most cases, previously released symbols do not return to NSO more than once per year.


Nintendo Switch Online members want profile icon restrictions removed

In this case, however, their availability is even more limited, since all images offered as part of these replays require subscribers to own the games on which they are based before they can purchase them. That's not the only condition for the purchase, as recently pointed out by Reddit user WhispyWhirl, who just missed some Nintendo Switch Online profile icons Animal Crossing: New Horizons because the service insisted that they first had to play the game three times in the last 30 days before they could get them.


NSO Subscribers Flag Profile Icon Restrictions as “Anti-Consumer”

As it turns out, this unusual requirement didn't actually mean that the game had to be launched three times, but rather that it had to be played on three different days over a period of a month. When they finally succeeded, the symbols they wanted to purchase with their hard-earned Platinum Points were no longer in circulation. “This is, in my opinion, one of the worst systems the Switch has ever had,” the fan wrote, additionally calling it “completely anti-consumer.” WhispyWhirl's complaint garnered hundreds of upvotes and subsequently appeared on the front page of the largest Switch subreddit in early October 2024, suggesting that a vocal portion of NSO subscribers share their frustration.

Some people who joined the subsequent discussion also used it as an opportunity to call for more freedom in combining individual icon elements. According to these opinions, the impossibility of combining icons from different games when designing a custom profile picture is an unnecessary limitation.


In my opinion, this is one of the worst systems the Switch has ever had. This is completely anti-consumer.

The chances of Nintendo responding directly to these complaints are slim at best, as the company has long been known for doing its own thing, with all its quirks. But that doesn't mean that NSO won't see changes in the foreseeable future, not least because the service could actually get a revamp to accompany the Switch successor. According to recent reports, the Nintendo Switch 2 could finally be revealed as early as October 2024.

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