Topic: Pokemon Pokopia

Worth noting that the game is developed by Koei Tecmo and published by The Pokemon Company in Japan (Nintendo worldwide), so I don't think the GKC here indicates anything about future Nintendo-developed and published games.

@PikaPhantom
I don’t wanna call you a liar or anything, but I can’t see anything on Amazon. Haven’t tried Best Buy yet. Maybe it’s just the Amazon app?

@rallydefault It doesn't seem to show up when searching yet, but DekuDeals has a link that I was just able to get working.

@rallydefault

Here it is.

@PikaPhantom I had to google "Pokopia Switch 2" to even get anything.

Yeah if I were to get it at some point it would be just as a regular download.

GKC as a format seems like a combination of the worst of both worlds. But I have no issues with download-only titles.

I'm leaning toward not buying it right now because there's no excuse for the game not releasing on a real cartridge, but I may end up being tempted depending on how the final product turns out.

@ElRoberico @PikaPhantom
Thank you!

Yea, bummer. I was on the fence, but I’ll be sitting it out now.

@rallydefault I'm glad it at least seems like the filesize will be 10 GB, since it's easier to accept a digital download when it's a smaller filesize. Regardless, I'm not buying a Game-Key Card version of Pokopia, and it being for a first-party exclusive is more of a turnoff for buying it digitally than it is for other games because there's no good excuse. At least third parties are pricing their games below $70 and have to deal with paying around $16 per cartridge, with retailers and Nintendo also receiving cuts

Gosh, it looks really fun and cute...

Game really does look fun, but since I've once again become unsure of whether I'm getting a Switch 2 or not, I may have to end up passing on this one.

The announcement that it was a Game Key Card really did kill a lot of my hype 😢

@Nep-Nep-Freak
It's a bummer because it does actually seem fun to me, but I refuse to support the game key card stuff. One day it will become inevitable, but I don't think we're there yet.

@rallydefault Why not buy it digital then?

@OmnitronVariant
It's not about the resell ability.
It's about ownership.
Purchasing an empty cartridge without any game data inside and must download the game from eshop while still available is a scam in my opinion.
I"m games collector so I don't want game key card, partial download games, code in box games, streaming only games.
I want legit physical games with game data inside the cartridge / disc.
I don't care convenience, if convenience killing physical media, I would rather refuse the convenience.

@Suketoudara @OmnitronVariant
I only buy physical games, so I guess you could say I'm equally "angry" (though that's a pretty harsh word for a hobby) with GKC and digital-only games.

I like to own my games.

And the "every game gets a patch these days" argument doesn't work: you just don't download the patch. I have hundreds of games for Switch/Switch 2, and only a handful have patches that you are absolutely required to download, and those are usually online games like Mario Kart or a very small few that are correcting game-breaking bugs that the dev deemed the patch necessary.

I've played probably a dozen games on my Switch 2 so far, and the only one that I've HAD to download a patch for MK is World, and even then I only had to because I wanted to keep playing online.

I think it's just how some people feel emotionally rather than anything particularly concrete. From my perspective, physical media means 2 things - you can resell and you have a pretty box to shelve, both of which exist in game key cards. I suppose technically there is an edge case where the apocalypse happens and we have no Internet but we can use our hand electrical generators to run our Switch 2s and plug in some brand new purely physical games we looted from a burning gamestop and have them run because they aren't GKC.

Sorry, this is getting very off topic. 😅 Personally I'm planning to buy Pokopia digitally if it turns out to be a good game... although $70 is a bit much for a spinoff so I may wait for a sale.

@FishyS
There’s definitely an emotional component, sure, but I store all my cases in a tub at the bottom of my closet lol No display factor going in with me.

It’s just nice to be like… “Hey, I wanna play Kaze again.” I put the cartridge in and play. No updates. No redownloads if I had deleted it to free up space. No “checking to see if this software can be played. Oh, and no need to buy pricey express cards. Woof.

Because I just own it. On the cartridge.

And I do that a ton. I tend to play games first just finish and experience them, and then I like to loop back in a few months to really dig in and fully complete the ones I enjoyed at the first pass.

The bonus is that I can resell them if I wanted, but I haven’t sold any of my Switch games and have no plans to.

@rallydefault And I just own the digital game too. I can just play them when I want to. Even years or decades later. I play and replay pretty much the same way you just described. I say 'I want to replay Kaze' and then I just click the icon. I even have a server backup if my house burns down which is an extra perk. I admit that the time to redownload a game is a negative, but it has nothing to do with ownership or not. And most of my games can be redownloaded in the same time it takes to search for a game in a closet. And if you say 'well, Nintendo could eventually become evil and block digital if you don't have it backed up on an SD card', well, that's true. We know Nintendo could become evil and brick everyone's Switch 2s also. Evilness is a bit more likely than my apocalypse example, but I prefer to be more optimistic and not plan my life around either option.

I 100% agree with your bonus of being able to sell (or just lend) physical games. That's a great perk. But you can do that with Game Key Cards also which was the original point.

@FishyS
I'm not even talking about losing access through the eShop or anything, at least not at first. We'll get to that in a sec. I'm talking about the hassles that go along with digital "ownership."

Absolutely everyone who games mostly digital has had to clear space to make room for more games at some point. Some people do it pretty habitually, trying to get by on whatever storage they have. Express cards are, again, pretty pricey. What happens when you wanna play an old game after a few years of it being deleted? You gotta redownload it, so hopefully you're on WiFi. If it's a bigger game, then plan a couple hours ahead lol

What if you regularly game on a couple different Switches? I know a lot of us here do. I have my S2 and a Lite. When you do that and play the same game across 2 different systems, after every 3 hours the current console needs to connect to the internet to "check if this software can be played." Or you can reload the virtual game card. Either way, you still need the internet and Nintendo's "permission" to play the game. (This is actually one of the good points of the GKC - they do not need to do this, so we'll give credit where it's due.)

And like you said, ultimately you don't own your digital games. If Nintendo (or whatever company) so deems it, they can indeed block access and download AND even block our consoles. If you're physical, the only one there that applies is if they block all our consoles. I guess they could do that if they wanted to put themselves out of business in a spectacular fashion. BUT even then, you can only do that to the systems that are connected to the internet. And mine rarely is lol

Yep, that mild inconvenience versus the mild inconvenience to sort through physical games without having 100s of games one instant click away at any given time. I can understand having a preference of one or the other but fundamentally they are both pretty mild quibbles and either feels to me like an odd reason to avoid a game you want to play.

I believe it's once a week for things like NSO which need to be verified, not once every 3 hours. I often juggle between my Lite and my primary console (now Switch 2) and this has literally never been an inconvenience. Even when I travel, its a couple seconds to swap which my primary console is. Conversely, I can play the same game on 2 consoles at once which is occasionally useful. One of the two consoles has to be connected to the Internet if you want to use both at once but, well, wifi is almost everywhere? Unless you are in a park and for some reason want to swap games crazily between 2 handhelds...in the park. Although Game Key Cards would still allow that I believe.

I guess my point was more that technically you don't truly own your physical games either since Nintendo can brick or block everything. Sure, you could keep the physical cartridge but you can keep an SD card also. But all those are technicalities. The future is not 100% predictable-- games could be outlawed by the government and taken from us. Many things could happen, but for now and as far as we know, we own both physical and digital for the long term. 'what ifs' are a little silly when we have zero reason to believe they will happen.

@FishyS
Let’s at least stick to the facts, my friend: I never mentioned NSO games. I’m talking about regular digital games you “own.” That check is every 3 hours if you are switching between consoles.

I keep my cartridges in these little cases that hold 72 games each. Takes maybe half a minute to open the case and locate the title? And like… 6 square inches of space below my TV lol

Let’s pose this:

Having to “check if this software can be played”
or
inserting a cartridge and playing.

Which sounds like ownership?

Needing the connect to the internet to download/redownload a title from a server run by a company
or
Inserting a cartridge and playing.

Which sounds like ownership?

You don’t want to live your life beholden to “what ifs,” but if I can get used physical games cheaper than digital consistently, that’s the way I’m gonna keep going.