Nintendo drops free Christmas Switch downloads you can claim now

A bunch of limited-time freebies are currently up for grabs if you have a Nintendo Switch, but you might wanna make sure you have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription if you want to claim them.

Thank you in advance to NSO Icon Alerts on Twitter for their tireless work updating everyone when these are available!

Several brand new (mostly Mario-themed) Nintendo Switch Online Icons have just dropped on Nintendo Switch, in celebration of the festive season.

You’ll need an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription and enough spare My Nintendo Platinum Points if you want to snag what’s on offer however (and c’mon, you know you want that cute Yoshi snowman icon).

Be quick though, as NSO Icons never stick around for too long - and these ones have less than a month left before they disappear forever.

The special festive Icons will only be available until December 25, at which point they’ll leave the NSO store and are replaced with a completely new set.

NSO Icons almost never pop back up again, so this legitimately is your only chance to grab these.

You don’t want the FOMO associated with seeing all of the other now unobtainable Icons online (like the adorable Mario and Luigi snowman Icons that were only available this time last year).

If you’re curious how many now impossible to acquire NSO Icons there have been over the years, then the short answer is; no idea.

The long answer is: we can’t say for sure but (based on this old Reddit post from 2022 that compiled all of the ones that had been released at that point in time) the number is probably somewhere around 3,000 at this point.

I’m mostly just bummed I missed out on the Animal Crossing ones, as I really want the Boomer Icon (the joke is I am old).