Nintendo Just Made It A Lot Easier To Cancel Switch eShop Pre-Orders

Those who have pre-ordered a game from the Nintendo eShop only to change their minds later know that Nintendo's policy on refunds is pretty outdated. When it comes to pre-orders, Nintendo charges at the time the pre-order is made, and its policy from that point on has been strictly "no refunds." If you're going to pre-order a game from the eShop, in other words, you better be sure that you want it, because you're committing to buying the game once you place that pre-order.

That, obviously, is not ideal, which is why it's nice to see Nintendo changing things today. As described over on the Nintendo of Japan support site, Nintendo now won't charge you for your pre-order until seven days before the game releases. In turn, you have up until that charge is made to request a refund.

Of course, this isn't a perfect solution, because once you're a week out from release, you're still locked in to your purchase. It would be far better for Nintendo to allow users to request a refund up until the game's release, if not even a little while after, but at least this is better than the way things used to be.

This new policy goes into effect today, and unfortunately, it doesn't retroactively make any pre-orders placed on or before August 31st eligible for a refund. To find the products you've pre-ordered and cancel them if you decide you don't want them, you'll just need to head into the Switch eShop, select your profile, and then select "Your Pre-orders."

So, just like that, it's suddenly a lot easier to refund Switch pre-orders you aren't sure about. We'd argue the fact that you're still locked in a week before release is even more reason to stay away from pre-ordering games in the first place, but that's just us.