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Update: It appears as if this will also apply to Europe, according to a listing on Amazon.

There is an ongoing trend where certain publishers don't want to fork out the extra coin for proper physical releases on Switch. The European and North America physical release for Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster is somewhat of a nightmare, with the box art ruined by a warning label and no option but to download the second game.

We've seen this sort of thing happen time and time again since the Switch launched as developers and publishers try to cut the costs of production. This latest finding by the lovely folks over at Vooks.net is another level, though.

The upcoming physical release for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy on the Switch in Australia will include nothing but a plastic case and an eShop download code. Don't go expecting a game card because there isn't one. The following information from EB Games (a subsidiary of GameStop) confirms it:

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We recently saw the publisher PlayIt launch a budget physical line in the UK, which seems like a smart way to promote lesser-known titles at an affordable price. In the case of the Naruto trilogy, you would think Bandai Namco might have actually considered releasing the game in physical form down under, for anyone who did want to save some space on their internal storage or SD card.

As Vooks notes, this trilogy has only just missed out on the standard 16GB card because it is 18GB. In Japan, this three-in-one collection is of course on a single game card. The main difference is the Japanese version only contains limited language support, whereas the European and Australian versions covers French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and English support.

What are your thoughts about this? Leave a comment below.

[source vooks.net]