Thanks for the heads up! No intentions on getting a Switch, but also no intentions on letting anyone else have mine and I will be glad I did at some point down the line if I ever get a Switch.

Good thing they let you create an account without actually owning a Switch, wouldn't have been able to do this otherwise. Just wish they'd allow capitals in usernames, drives me insane.

It's probably just used as an alternative way to sign in (for the email address) and not so much as a displayed name, same as Steam ID's.

Still, thanks for the heads up as I claimed mine!

Yeah I like the way Steam does it, and Twitter, and other services like that.
Got a unique login/identifier, but you can set your nickname to anything and it doesn't matter if someone else already has the same one.

Yeah, I too like how Steam let's you sign in with a simple ID or email, but let's you change your displayed name to anything at any time you like. It holds a backlog of names for everyone to prevent people from successfully faking other players.

Eh, that's not really reliable. What's reliable is their steam user ID which will always be unique. But that being said you can change that at any time, and I don't think anything prevents someone from taking your old user ID after you change it.
That's only a problem if someone ever changes their user ID though, and the less popular you are on the internet the less it'll be a problem really.

True. You can still fake players that way but it does give players the option to check what their previous names were. It also helped me with a friend who changed his nickname a lot and I couldn't keep up, lol.

Speaking of Nintendo, some people did this a lot on Miiverse too by changing their Mii name. The user ID was the only way of telling who it really is.

Can you do this without a console, if you intend to get one? If so, I'll pounce.

I clicked the link in your guide and got a lovely Access Denied error. Tried logging in manually only to find the page the guide says to visit doesn't exist, at least on the mobile version of that page. Shrug.

Yes and no. I am at work, but using a personal phone (not subject to the firewall/proxy) to follow the instructions, as I can't use a regular computer - all of Nintendo.com is blocked.