Nintendo has some sour news for customers who purchase content from the Japanese eShop, as they will no longer accept foreign payment methods in an effort to prevent "fraud."
Per Japan's official Nintendo Support website, translated by DeepL, the company firstly declares, "Thank you for your continued patronage of our products," before announcing, "In order to prevent fraudulent use of the Nintendo eShop and My Nintendo Store in Japan, we will no longer accept credit cards issued overseas and PayPal accounts opened overseas on and after March 25, 2025."
"In order to prevent unauthorized use," the statement continues, "the My Nintendo Store will no longer accept credit cards issued overseas and PayPal accounts opened overseas after March 25, 2025."
Nintendo further specifies, "Customers who have been using credit cards issued overseas or PayPal accounts opened overseas are requested to use other payment methods, such as credit cards issued in Japan, from now on," before they apologized for "any inconvenience this may cause," urging customers to understand the reason behind this decision.
The company does not specify what entails as "unathorized use." Nintendo's Japanese eShop does offer titles that are not available in Western eShop stores, which is one of the reasons Western customers have been creating secondary accounts with access to the Japanese online store in order to purchase products they wouldn't be able to find otherwise.
Because Nintendo Switch games aren't region locked, customers can still opt to purchase physical media in order to legally circumvent the Nintendo Japan eShop's new foreign payment policy. Furthermore, Japanese Nintendo eShop cards should work for players who still want to purchase products from the Japanese online store.
It is relevant to note, however, that Nintendo Support stipulates, "DLC will only work with games that are released for the same region as the DLC," so players who choose to purchase physical media from Japan will not be able to purchase the respective game's DLC unless they get it from the Japanese eShop
Nintendo eShop stores here in the West are also different from one another, so products found on the North American eShop may not be found on the UK eShop and viceversa. This may also be the case with players from South America or Europe, who find it easier to spend dollars on the North American eShop rather than their own region.
The question that remains now is, will this new policy be eventually applied to Western customers using foreign payment methods, such as Paypal or credit cards issued in a different country, to purchase games within the Western hemisphere as well?