Topic: Physical carts vs. Digital for young children?

I am considering getting my 6 year old son a Switch Lite for Christmas, but I am torn on whether to get him physical carts, or buy everything digital. Digital has the benefit of not having to worry about him breaking or losing any of the carts, and the convenience of having all of his games available to him on the system at all times. The thing I can't get past is the lack of excitement in receiving digital games. Thinking back to my childhood, and receiving NES games that I could unwrap for Christmas or my birthday, I don't think it would have been the same if someone had simply bought me a digital copy of a game or given me a gift card to redeem. There are also other family members, like grandparents, who would prefer to give a tangible gift than something digital.

So do I go with physical media for him to preserve some of the "magic" of gaming and make future gifting more fun for everyone, or is that not worth the risks that tiny physical carts bring? For others with children of a similar age, which format did you choose and do you have any recommendations based on your experiences? Thanks!

@Sargon
Give him physical games if you want to teach him your attachment with physical media when you were young. Prepare HORI Switch cart case 24 to store all Switch games inside. Also, you can decorate the box with fancy artwork to make it attractive just like mine.

Supervise him whenever he wants to play Switch games with cartridge and teach him to return the cartridge back to HORI cart case after playing to build his responsibility to take care his Switch.

Oooh, six is quite young, isn't it? That said, I vote for the "magic of gaming" (every time) and would still go physical. As you say, makes gift buying and presenting more satisfying, and also helps with returns and/or exchanges if something doesn't go down that well.

My eldest was six when I got the Switch, and she was pretty reverent of it. That said, I wasn't really comfortable with her switching games in and out for a year or so - but that was more about me than her. You know your kid better than I do, though. She's never lost a cart - and I wouldn't worry about breaking them. They are tough little slices of plastic.

I vote physical to teach ownership. Also, don't they all have some kind of nasty taste to them so kids don't eat them?

It shouldn't be a problem going digital. My two nephews download games when they've saved up their pocket money, plus they've had digital games bought for them aswell.
If you buy games digitaly for your sons Switch for Christmas or birthdays, it'll be worth downloading them overnight so they're ready to play when he wakes up.

Really, it's up to you, but I'd go with physical. I have a nephew and he loves it when his uncle surprises him with a game. Maybe teach him responsibility, for example, when done with a physical game, it goes back in the case. You won't lose the tiny game cards if you keep them in the case when not in use, and it will be a good habit to teach him.

If you go digital, make sure you get a decent sized Micro SD card. Even if you don't go digital, I still recommend getting a Micro SD card as some physical games will have updates and it's worth having the added space. Plus it may come in handy if you decide to have digital alongside physical games later on.

Hope he enjoys his Switch when the time comes.

With a 5 year old myself, I would lean digital. Simple fact is they change their minds sooo much they are switching carts every 10 minutes....

I would vote digital if only because they can't lose the games then

It depends on how responsible your son is.

Children tend to do all sorts of silly things (out of curiosity, perhaps) without understanding the long-term ramifications of their actions.

All of my floppy disks and CDs from back in the day are still in good working order. I used to take my CD-ROMs over to my cousins places as a child, and have some fond memories of those days.

Furthermore, if you decide to get a main Switch to use for local multiplayer, say, you won't have to repurchase any games.

My mum offered to get me a DS Lite in exchange for giving my original DS to my younger brother (who was six at the time), and in a short time, he chewed the tip of his stylus and must have jammed it into the DS card slot as one of the card connectors was chipped off and was no longer able to play DS games. I would never have made the mistake of giving him a console at that age anyway as he was irresponsible and very spoiled, but by contrast, I grew up with a sense of responsibility (I have an older sister with disabilities) and think that I would have been fine owning a Game Boy at six, though my family wasn't very well off at the time, so I would not have asked that of them anyway.

Basically, it comes down to how well you know your son and whether he will appreciate his possessions enough to not treat them like cheap garbage knowing that you have worked hard for them.

Remember Digital requires a eShop account and access to a CC or Paypal account to make purchases. So going Digital has a big downside here.

Carts require changing but if they are playing only a few that shouldn't matter much. Also not all games are Physical but only eShop but that is slowly changing as the Switch Software warehouse is growing.

they likely wont swallow them cause they taste bad.. but i guess imo the most conscern would be the obvious breaking the small sd card or when their putting it in the system they push too hard and break the spring so it wont work anymore.

I'd go with physical when possible, just make sure they put their Switch games away in the case so they don't lose them and such. If only N64 boxes were like those cases, I was so used to just leaving those carts on the table, the following generation I did that with discs and, uhhhh, let's just say some games couldn't read after that.

Digital does have it's space saving advantages, however, that'll take up space sooner on the system memory of 32GB, and with such games as Fortnite being free to play, that'll eat up 7.8GB right there, once space runs out, you'll need a microSD card to increase storage. Switch carts on the other hand don't take up space since the game itself is on the cart (minus updates and DLC), only space it does take up is from save data.

It should be noted that for larger scale games such as Mortal Kombat 11 and Spyro reignited trilogy, while there's a cart present, those games require you to download parts of the game since they didn't put it on a big enough Switch cart, and then there's other games such as Overwatch or Fortnite bundles that have a case with no cart, just a single download code (hopefully Overwatch 2 comes on a cart).

@SheldonRandoms
But, you shouldn't mention any rated M game references to explain to father who want to introduce the Switch games to his 6 years old kid. His son want to play Switch games. Just be careful to pick game references before explaining to certain audience. Consider the age rating first and don't mention to him if his son still under age.

@Anti-Matter I used that as an example of a game that requires you to download a large chunk of it, I wasn't recommending it as a game to get for a 6 year old.