Topic: Square Enix has lost a customer until they support the switch 2 properly

@zool
My advice, get the PS5 version with proper physical release than BS game key card version.
And DQ7 Reimagined PS5 version is running on smooth 60 fps.
Even most of PS5 games needs update, a lot of them can be played without update.

This in no way takes away from your point, but the eShop sale price of those 3 games is also about 40 bucks, although I'm waiting for a better sale for pacman.

@Anti-Matter With all due respect, that's a bit extreme don't you think? I used to feel the same way back in 2013 when I bought Windwaker HD digitally on my Wii U. I justified it as it being akin to a virtual console game, it was just a retro remaster after all.

Then I got MK8 digitally on Switch. And then down the line, Tears of the Kingdom. And I realized the convenience and instantaneous loading of games makes my games feel they're way more connected to my Switch than a cartridge ever will. Is the box art nice? Yeah. But I can't tell you the amount of times I've skipped playing a physical game because I can just open Mario Kart World or Kirby Air Riders in under a minute. I am playing more games than ever because it's so easy to swap between them.

I still enjoy buying physical games from time to time. Sometimes I don't want a game to take up too much storage space. So it's still viable for me on occasion. But believing that Digital games are lesser doesn't sound like it's a viable way to enjoy gaming. Does it also not occur to you that PC gaming is basically all digital and has been for a long time? Steam is the biggest gaming platform in the world for a reason.

@Anti-Matter I don't have a playstation. (Not that I can't afford one) Just that I've been loyal to Nintendo. But it's times like this, starts me thinking about getting one and moving away from Nintendo.
They left the Switch 2 for to long before launching it, and it's backfired on them. Things are not going as well as they would have wanted.

@zool
Better having both of them so you can always pick the better version you want if you have enough budget.
I played both Nintendo and PlayStation games so I can always get the better version from the same games.

@FishyS
It’s 74 bucks with Spirit of the North on sale now. It would be 90 if it wasn’t. I’m getting my prices from the Nintendo website digital listings.

@Anti-Matter good idea.

@TerribleTerabytes
That's why I don't play PC games anymore after year 2013.
Used to be played The Sims 1 & 3 PC version (with pirated software) but not anymore after my PC get broken in year 2013.
I switched to total physical gamer after I got my first original 3DS physical game LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER, bought by my own money.
It was priceless happiness that cannot be traded with the convenience of digital games.
I used to be played Dillon Dead Heat Breaker 3DS USA digital version but after I got the physical version of Europe region, I immediately stopped playing the digital USA version.
I have ever tried but playing with actual physical games even though I knew the modern games have updates and patches unlike retro games, it gave me more satisfaction by swapping the disc or cartridge for several seconds rather than tapping the digital games app in second.
It's so easy and fast to play with digital games, but I didn't feel their presence and it turned off my motivation to get engaged with the games.

Am I imagining things, or are the key card discussions more prevalent than the code in box ones ever were?

The alternative to key cards is more games that are a download code in a box or just on the eshop, not necessarily a full physical release. I mean key cards exist and Skyrim and Fallout 4 are codes in boxes anyways.

I don't know maybe I'm just paying more attention now.

@Dang_69, I don't really think they're ruining gaming at all, they just have different priorities.

The only sad thing is that their priority means declining physical sales which means less physical games over time, which means that eventually, there may come a time when there will be no more physical games. Which would be sad for me, because I only buy physical media unless I really trust a company. That's why I bought Nintendo games digitally from 2023-2024, but starting in 2025, I started going for a mix of digital and physical (with more focus on physical), because I started not trusting Nintendo of America as much after the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth debacle that happened in late 2024, which caused my trust in Nintendo of America to drop significantly. If Nintendo of America hadn't started canceling niche Japanese game releases for no reason, I'd probably still be buying digital to this day. But now I'm buying physical once again like I did in the late 2010s, and also getting into PS4 a little bit, just to spite Nintendo of America a bit as payback for what they did. Yet I'm still giving them $500 for a Switch 2 once I save up the money for it, since I'm giving NOA one more chance, while still buying more games physically. This ended up being a longer rant then I expected 😅.

Basically, what I'm saying is, if Nintendo of America doesn't let stuff like Neptunia on their platform again by the end of the Switch 2, and if they start putting stuff like Pokémon Gen 10 on Game Key Cards, then I'm out and the Switch 2 is my last Nintendo console.

@NoodleWad While there were some code in box releases and games with partial downloads, it was more common for Switch 1 3rd party boxed releases to be fully on the cart. Meanwhile the vast majority of Switch 2 3rd party boxed releases are Key Cards, even Nintendo themselves are joining in with Pokopia which means we may see stuff like Pokemon Gen 10 be Key Cards.

If it resulted in more games being eshop-only, that would be totally fine. . . because those games are being released digital-only now, the publishers are just lying about it by tying said digital release to a dongle. Like I've said elsewhere, digital is fine, just like physical is fine. Its keycards specifically which are not, because they are an attempt by publishers to have their cake and eat it too.

However, in practice I suspect it wouldn't result in that many games being eshop-only. . . because the reason publishers are pushing keycards? Is because they know they actually do need retail presence. If a retail presence were disposable, they'd have switched to digital-only sales on the eshop long ago, because it would be much cheaper. Instead, they keep putting out goods for store shelves because they know they actually do depend on walk-up sales and retail presence. Keycards are just the latest effort by them to go "But we don't want to actually have to pay money for that retail presence, waaa!" Deprived of any other options, they'd put out actual physical products, possibly with a price bump to cover the actual costs ( but also possibly not, since I'm pretty sure most of the offending publishers are already pricing their games as high as the market can bear anyway ).

@Grumblevolcano you make a fair point.

@metaphysician I'm saying if they want their retail presence (not as necessary as it used to be), and key cards didn't exist they would be download codes instead like what we are seeing with the Bethesda games. I am interested to see if the rumored smaller switch 2 cartridges will change things.

I am not a key card fan either, but it isn't lying if it tells you what it is on the front of the box.

If gamers want to buy their game then 'key cards' are not the way to go, you will never own the game.
If like me you are a 'buy-play-trade' gamer, that's ok. You can trade them like you would a physical game.
If you like games saved on your Switch 2, to switch on the console and play, 'key cards' are not for you.

Nintendo chose game cards over discs because they were supposed to be more secure, but they are also more expensive. And now the bigger games don't fit on the cartridges. Cartridges that hold larger amount of data are about £14/$20 more to buy, making Nintendo games much more expensive. If gamers buys their own expensive memory card and the manufacturers just stick a blank plastic card in the box, then they don't have to pay anything for a memory card. Let the gamer supply their own memory at their own cost.
Win win for the game maker, rather than the game player.

Nintendo also chose game cards over discs because it reduces the moving parts in a portable device. The PSP had to have it's failure prone disc drive use custom discs that came in a shell.

Plus, with what games require in terms of speed these days, as shown on PS5, a Blu-Ray doesn't cut it. The games have to install anyway.

@Dang_69 The same can be said of people like you. By hoarding physical copies just to go look how shiny it is drives up the prices later on. Physical copies have a limit while digital is unlimited. Thinking about that for awhile.

@zool I own all my digital games. They are on my Switch as I speak. While all my phyiscal 3DS games that were stolen from me 5 years ago I dont own anymore so tell me again how I dont own my digital games.

@rallydefault This is a totally different discussion about owning physical games when it comes to retro gaming. Unfortunately if you are going for the true retro gaming experience like original hardware then yeah you are going to have to buy the physical games because they dont have digital versions. I mean yeah you can play Super.Mario Brothers on the Switch on NSO or buy a digital copy of Mega Man Legqcy collection on Xbox but as have stated before especially in the case of the Mega Man Legacy Collection they sometimes dont run right and dont have the same feeling as the originals on the original hardware.

What I am more about is the whole misconception of You dont own the game digitally. Thats the thing People need to get over.

@Tasuki as long as Nintendo keeps your games on their servers they are yours. But when Nintendo decide to close them down and they will, They've gone forever.