Nintendo has added support for passkeys, a passwordless sign-in method that uses your fingerprint, face scan, or other methods to give you access to your online accounts. As spotted earlier by NintendoSoup (via 9to5Mac), Nintendo now lets you register and use a passkey to sign in to your account from a variety of different devices.
Nintendo now supports passwordless sign-ins
Now you can use passkeys to sign in to your Nintendo account.
Now you can use passkeys to sign in to your Nintendo account.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
What are passkeys?
Passkeys can replace traditional passwords with your device’s own authentication methods. That way, you can sign in to Gmail, PayPal, or iCloud just by activating Face ID on your iPhone, your Android phone’s fingerprint sensor, or with Windows Hello on a PC.
Built on WebAuthn (or Web Authentication) tech, two different keys are generated when you create a passkey: one stored by the website or service where your account is and a private key stored on the device you use to verify your identity.
Of course, if passkeys are stored on your device, what happens if it gets broken or lost? Since passkeys work across multiple devices, you may have a backup available. Many services that support passkeys will also reauthenticate to your phone number or email address or to a hardware security key, if you have one.
Apple’s and Google’s password vaults already support passkeys, and so do password managers like 1Password and Dashlane. 1Password has also created an online directory listing services that allow users to sign in using a passkey.
To add a passkey to your account, head to accounts.nintendo.com from the device you want to use the passkey. Once you sign in to your Nintendo account, hit Sign-in and security settings > Passkeys > Edit. Then, select Register a new passkey and follow the steps to complete the setup process on the device you’re using.
Right now, Nintendo only supports passkeys on devices with iOS 16 or later, iPadOS 16 or later, macOS 13 or later, and Android 9 or later. It will also let you register 10 different passkeys to your Nintendo account. You can learn more about the use of passkeys from Nintendo’s support page.
The company joins the growing number of online services offering support for passkeys as a more secure alternative to passwords. This year alone, TikTok, Apple, PayPal, and 1Password have all rolled out support for passkeys. Google even brought the passwordless sign-in method to Chrome, Cloud, and Workspace accounts, while GitHub just introduced the method today.
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