New account and online question

Damien

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Hi all,
I have been trying to find a definitive answer and figure out the best way forward.
Currently my son has a PS4 with a child account linked to my PSN account. We did this a few years ago. About a year ago he wanted to play Fortnite with his friends, his profile would not allow it as he was 11 years old (turned 12 in December). Therefore he has been using my account and my PSN is linked to my Epic Games account so he can play Fortnite. At some stage I am going to email Epic to ask if I can unlink my PSN and link his but that's a different issue. The PS4 also doesnt allow for certain content on some lego games.

I am getting there.....
He is about to get a Switch. I don't want to be in the same position as I have been with the PS4.
He will want to play Pokemon with his mates online and various other games online too.
If I set up an account and give him a kids account it appears he can't play online because he is not 13 years old. (I could make his DOB older)
If he is on my account can I still by a single online membership for him? I will not be using the Switch at all.

Or should I sent him up his own account with a different DOB and stay out of it completely?
He does have his own email address.

Appreciate any comments or help, interested to know what others have done.

Thanks
D
 
Switch let's you do this very easily:

1. Create separate parent and child profiles on your Switch.
2. Enable parental controls on the Switch and set up a PIN.
3. Go into System Settings - Parental Controls - Change Settings and enter your PIN.
4. On the Parental Controls screen select Change Settings.
5. On the Set Parental Controls screen, change the Restricted Software field to whatever you like.

This allows you to still enforce control on your Switch and not access the eShop but still allow the child to play whatever games you're happy for them to play irrespective of rating.

We've done this on ours and set Restricted Software to Software rated for ages 13+ so the kids can play Smash Brothers using their own profile (or any other game with a rating up to 13). It won't let them play a game like Diablo III which is rated 16. You can set the Restricted Software field to prevent games rated for any age between 10 and 16.

Another way to achieve the same thing is to just enter your PIN when starting the Switch to temporarily disable parental controls for that session but that means you'd have to do it everytime your son wants to play a game rated above 12 and will also give him access to the eShop.

Best to use the first method which is set and forget :smashin:
 
Thank you. Currently he has just play cartridge games on the Switch, not logged into Nintendo or anything. I think he was a little disappointed he could not trade Pokemon with mates online unless he was 13. Needs to wait until December for that. He can do it on wifi though, normally fine but currently not someone you can easily do.

I will set up a Nintendo child account for him online.

One other question you might be able to help with, when he is 13 and can go online properly with it can I just get a single online subscription or do I have to by the family if I have the adult account. I am not ever going to use the switch.

Cheers
 
Yes, you can get a single online individual subscription when he's 13. However, if you have other family with a Nintendo Switch, the family membership works out better as you can add up to 8 members in one group.
 

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