Finding Your Game Console’s MAC Address

If you want to use online play for your network enabled game console on ResNet, you will need to register your device manually. To do this, you will need the MAC address of the console. This is a 12 digit number (usually separated by “:” or “-“) that contains numbers 0-9 and/or letters A-F. Double check 8’s and B’s because they look very similar to each other.

If your game console isn’t listed here, just try Googling MAC address and the name of your console. Sometimes MAC address is listed as Hardware Address, Ethernet Address, Wired Address, or Physical Address.

Northwestern seems to maintain a great knowledgebase of how to find the MAC address of lots of things.

  • Nintendo Switch
    1. From the Home menu, select System Settings
    2. Select Internet
    3. View System MAC address
  • Nintendo Wii U
    1. From the Wii U menu, select System Settings
    2. Select Internet
    3. Select View MAC address
  • Nintendo DS
    1. From within a Wi-Fi enabled game, go to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Setup in the game’s menu.
    2. Select Options.
    3. Select System Information.
    4. The MAC address is displayed on the top line.
  • NVIDIA Shield
    1.  select Settings
    2. select Device
    3. select Network
    4. select Status info.
  • Xbox One
    1. Go to Settings
    2. Select Network
    3. Select Advanced Settings
    4. The MAC address is on this screen
  • Xbox 360
    1. Go to the System area of the Xbox Dashboard and select Network Settings.
    2. Select Edit Settings.
    3. From Additional Settings, select Advanced Settings.
    4. At the bottom of this screen you’ll see a heading called Wired MAC Address.
  • PlayStation 4
    1. Power up the PlayStation 4 without a disc in the drive.
    2. Once the PlayStation 4 operating system has loaded, select Settings.
    3. Select the System option under the Settings menu
    4. Select System Information
    5. You can find the MAC address on this screen
  • PlayStation 3
    1. Power up the PlayStation 3 without a disc in the drive.
    2. Once the PlayStation 3 operating system has loaded, select Settings.
    3. Once you are in Settings select Network Settings.
    4. Select Connection Status List.
    5. You can find the MAC address listed under MAC Address.