Topic: Cartridges vs. eShop?

Mixture of both for me, I can be old school at times.

well I heard games run better on switch with digital games. but I still prefer cartridge. old school yo

@Jarester I find that difficult, it could be, but since it is software in hardware and not read from a disk, any form of delay in program processing (if any at all) would be negligible and unnoticeable

Why does it have to be one or the other? Each option servers a purpose

@jhewitt3476 @Jarester
There is a difference in read speeds (and therefore performance) but isn't not significant. As I understand it the internal storage on the Switch is faster than a cartridge but cartridges are about as fast as the microSD card reader. It's a technical difference but it's not as dramatic as the gap between an Optical Disc, Hard Drive and SSD.

Can I just point out that these are pretty much identical points. And it's also one advantage that's not quite as big as it previously was with the latest firmware update. Now if I log in on another Switch with my account I can download games I've purchased and play them there.

And you may say that this isn't quite the same because the other console doesn't have a "permanent" copy. This is true. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It certainly takes a lot of the risk out of the other person potentially damaging, losing or not returning the thing you lend to them. With this way of sharing I can give someone access to games I've purchased AND still have the full copy myself.

From my personal perspective digital purchases now have the upper hand in this regard.

I don't know why people always say this as if it's a compelling argument. It really isn't that much more of a hassle swapping microSD cards at all for one thing. Also, when people parrot this line they're ignoring the bleeding obvious. When you swap out a cartridge you're swapping out a single game. When you swap out a microSD card you're swapping out a LIBRARY of games.

And you may say that some games are really large so it means on a small microSD card it's going to chew up all the space. This is true. But why would you buy a whole pile of small microSD cards when you can buy a single larger card you don't have to swap out? Upto ~256GB it's literally cheaper per GB to buy a larger capacity card.... and at 256GB you have a LOT of games on a single card.

@skywake never said one was top notch over the other, I only speak for myself and perhaps some of my explanations for why i have a particular preference over another, I also take others explanations also, some were very convincing, it's just for my lifestyle and persona, I found far more reasons why physicals work for me, but I like to hear others ideas also

I completely agree, normally, 128GB+ cards can get ridiculous in price, for most buying 32GB-64GB per month (or whenever needed) is easier on the wallet, but I bought my 256GB on amazon for $11 a year ago, I have several for various things like my phone, my camera, ect., despite popular opinion, these cheap cards are not actually that bad quality, I've had my Switch one in the system for a year now and never a problem, I think 512GB cards are as low as $20-$30, but because the price is so low and they look generic, people get scared, too bad, but I do agree, get as big memory as you can the day you buy your Switch, because that 27GB (usable, not the actually 32GB advertised) gets eaten up pretty quick, I updated DLC of my physical copy of DOOM last month, it ate over 7.5GB , just an update for a NON-RPG, so yah, digital downloads of whole games is still a pain in the tukus, that's why physicals work for me

@jhewitt3476
I'm not sure you read my response TBH because I didn't say anything along those lines. I was mostly just responding to one of the two points you brought up in your original post. And yes, there are only two points you brought up.

All I'm saying is that one of the huge advantages physical games had before Wednesday isn't as big of an advantage anymore. You can actually share Digital purchases on Switch now even if it's mechanically different. Yes, the person you "give" the game to digitally doesn't get as much as they would have if you physically gave them the cartridge. At the same time if you share the game with someone digitally, unlike handing over the cartridge, you don't lose anything at all.

If anything I personally think digital sharing is better. If I share a game I don't lose the ability to play it myself and I can share games that aren't on cartridges now. The only thing I'm potentially putting at risk is my save data due to cloud saves but given the eShop is locked behind a password on the second machine by default? I can choose which games I don't want to share anyways. And in any case, your save data was always at risk when you lent someone a cartridge on any other system before the Switch anyways.

IMO the only advantage cartridges still have is the ability to sell the game once you're done with it. That's literally all it has left. And as someone who never sells their games this doesn't really bother me. For me now the only consideration is which game has the cheaper price at the checkout. Which varies depending on what deals are currently available.

Still more convenient than physically driving to the store and I say that as someone with Australian internet. I brought Doom on PC a couple of years ago as a thing to play over the holidays. My PC was literally on all of Boxing day doing nothing but downloading the game. But it could do this while I was sitting in the other room watching the cricket.

Also, as you said, the physical copy still requires you to download patches etc

You can do that same on Switch as long as one hosts the game then others can join in a local wifi lan.

So where did you hear or link that allows digital to be giving away AFAIK it's tied to the NIN account and can't be given away or sold.

Actually Physical uses less space then Digital as it is stored on the Switch and more digital the larger your microSD has to become to hold them all.

Not where I am in NA going back and forth isn't that hard for me so making assumptions is wrong here.

That can also be said of Digital and this take up more space.

@skywake I heard what you said, I just said why physicals work for me, and if you read my first post, I put far more than two points, but even as of Wednesday, Nintendo Direct doesn't bring enough to the table for me and without internet access at home or work, it's not viable for me even if downloads were for me, besides, GS is on my way to work and I can get on online at work (not wifi) and hit GS online along with Ebay and Amazon, so access to purchases of physical copies for me is not an issue

@SwitchForce
What you're saying in response has no relation to the sections of text you quoted. But in any case I think this video explains what I'm talking about here.....

I understand finding stores that sell a larger library than W-M or Targ offer may be difficult for some, but for some god awful reason, they are like fleas on a dog here in Mobile, Alabama, there are two places where you can see another GS store from the one you're in, (about 150 yards away), the other is about 5 miles away next to a W-M, and accross the street is a Targ and next to it ANOTHER GS, (about 200 yards away), it's stupid, but getting to one here is not a problem for most

@jhewitt3476
Yeah, I don't think you understand what I said. I read your post, I don't think you actually had six points. Running down your list what you said was essentially:
1. I can't share digital games and there is no used market for digital games
2. I can't share digital games
3. The cost is the same
4. I can't share digital games
5. There is no used market for digital games
6. There is no used market for digital games

And in response all I've said is that you can share digital games now. Not in exactly the same way but in some respects it's arguably better for digital now than it was for physical. Swings and roundabouts. So all that's left is the used market, which I personally don't take part in, and the comparative cost. For me the only thing that rates a mention anymore is the cost difference. And for comparative cost? Sometimes digital is cheaper, sometimes physical is cheaper. There's no clear winner.

Oh, and I also pass by a few game stores on my way to work. This still doesn't really change my opinion of the convenience factor of digital purchases. At best I pick up a game on my way home and it means 15mins at the shops vs a couple of hours download during which time I can do something else. At worst it's driving to the shops on my day off and wading through the crowds during the holidays only to find that the game is sold out when I could be at home watching a progress bar for a 20min download.

yah, I'm not going past 5.1 myself, I've heard some things I don't like, plus after I found out what Nintendo did for the update system, I'm never updating it again, they actually made it so that the firmware is not just updatable, by resetting the flash memory, they made it so that it has a set number of available slots for updates, and with every update, it burns the slot out, reducing the number of available slots, this may not seem like an issue to most, but if something goes wrong with your system and you need to factory reset it, it redownloads the latest update even if you already have it, if the update is bugged it can actually burn out the ability to update your system, even a teeny power surge can erase your updates, burn the flash for the updater and accidentally brick your system (as reported by many sources so far), God forbid if it's out of warranty, because the repair will cost $200+ if they repair it at all thinking you failed to hack it, ect., no 5.1 works just fine and I'm not going to be doing Nintendo Direct anyway, so unless there is some huge updater that practically makes a completely new Switch, I'm protecting mine as is

@jhewitt3476
Your concern is misplaced, you're misunderstanding how it works. As I understand it what you're talking about is a security mechanism in place to block downgrading the firmware. It doesn't have a "limited number of slots" for firmware upgrades that it "burns out" at all. What it does is when you upgrade to a new firmware it marks the previous firmware versions as unusable. But the only reason you'd ever downgrade a firmware would be if you have hacked the console and were trying to force it to load a previous firmware

But this is only a concern for people who are hacking the console. As a regular end user you're never going to have the option to do this. Even if Nintendo mistakenly put an old firmware on the server all that would happen would be that your Switch would refuse to upgrade to the old firmware. That's it. And even that's assuming that it'd download the old firmware at all. More likely it'd check the version, see your firmware version wasn't lower than the latest and tell you that you were on the newest firmware

I'd also add that your attempts to stay on an old firmware are going to eventually run out of steam. We know from experience that new software, even software on cartridges, eventually requires a newer firmware. Eventually you will have to choose between upgrading from 5.1 or playing Smash Bros/Animal Crossing/Metroid/whatever.

@skywake no, I got the info from ex-employees of the big N, it does burn the flasher slots, physically, the slots are serialized, so it can't downgrade, not that you'd want to, but it adds new vulnerabilities that can be far worse, not that it matters, where there's a hacker, there's a way, but yah, my big thing is the power flux I was told about, less about current flux than voltage flux, current would blow the fuses, but voltage fluxes of less than +/- 5v can go unnoticed except when your lightbulbs go a teeny bit dim for a second, but can effect voltage sensitive components that rely on changing voltages for rewriting data, like the storage, sd cards and most importantly, the update flash, as mentioned, it has already been reported several times, Hiro left because they were hiding this and numerous other things with this and the newer models of the 3DS, and now works for Airbus, but, I know for fact, so yah, I never play while charging anymore and don't charge in sleep mode either

as for a horrible policy of forcing you to update to play new games, I'll deal with it.

@jhewitt3476
I stand corrected to a degree, didn't realise these were physical fuses. In any case it doesn't matter in any practical sense for the end user in the context of our discussion. Another good reason to be concerned about third party power adaptors but not really a reason to be worried about firmware upgrades. There are 32 fuses, 32 versions of firmware Nintendo can differentiate between. If Nintendo "runs out" of fuses to use all it means is that, going forward, that piracy protection mechanism no longer functions.

Also you've still failed to address the other point I made. What happens when inevitably you buy a cartridge and it forces you to upgrade to the newest firmware anyways? Since the Wii Nintendo has physically included the firmware required on the physical copy of the game itself. It won't let you play until you've upgraded the firmware. So why not just upgrade the firmware now and take advantage of this feature you claim to be the main reason why digital purchases suck?

Especially given that some games are digital only!

Well, either one is fine by me, but I love being able to physically hold a game. It makes it feel more like you own it.

never said digital sucked, just gave reasons why it doesn't work for me, as ffor upgrades, I'll just wait to see, I may have to go to McDonald's or Starbucks to do an unfortunate extortioned update, or not, Yoshi's Constructed World will tell me if I need or not

Same thing really. All I'm saying is that of your two (yes two) reasons for avoiding digital as of the 6.0 firmware only one still rings true. All of the points about sharing games or maintaining access to your games aren't really true anymore. Can you buy/sell digital games on the second hand market? Well no. But you can now share purchased digital games amongst family and friends in a way that's arguably better than trusting them with a cartridge.

And the paranoia about upgrading the firmware doesn't change that fact.

@subpopz I find GS online and Amazon's have a good enough selection, I have an elite pro membership at GS, so all my used stuff gets big discounts and orders over $25 on Amazon are free shipping, so I do well when I feel I can't find the game I want locally