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

@zool Lets be honest what does it matter then? By that time I will be either six feet under or sitting in a rockeing chair drool running down my chin and playing a Switch game from 2026 isnt going to be a priority. And before you say what about future generations are your kids or grandkids going to care about a Switch from 2026? Even if they want to play a game from that gen I am pretty sure they will have Remasters and ports of older games on newer consoles then.

And even if you purchased them, you can still download tbem and play them its just new purchases you cant make.

@zool That's not how it works at all. They can't rip your games from your system. The only thing that can shut down is online play. But games will still be very much playable. Until there's an example of Nintendo forcefully removing Digital copies from Switch owners, all you're doing is spreading misinformation and fear mongering.

Even if down the road, the eShop shuts down and you can no longer purchase or download games from it, chances are you will have moved on to at least the next two or three systems anyway.

Additionally, physical copies have a shelf life too. Some of my Gamecube games from my childhood are unplayable because GCN disks scratch easily and are hard to repair. My rereleases and NSO games work just fine though. You like to pretend physical games last forever but they absolutely do not. And once they deteriorate, the price on retro market skyrockets. Retro gaming is nearly impossible these days because of how sky high some prices are. So physical copies have their own set of problems and you should acknowledge that too.

I use and like both physical and digital. My only reason for not liking key cards much is because of how the boxes look, that's it.

Now, in the defence of digital games on Nintendo platforms, I have two original Wiis and the disc drive is broken on both of them. Yet I can still download my digital virtual console and Wiiware games. I am working on getting at least one of the Wiis fixed but until then I can play Ocarina of Time on my Wii.

Yeah, I don't necessarily buy the "Nintendo will take away your digital copies when servers shut down" thing. The only thing that will go is online play. What I am more worried about with digital media is updates that change stuff in media for no reason.

Here's an (absolutely unrealistic, but does prove the point) example. Suppose potato chip bags required an internet connection (just bear with me 😅). You buy a bag at your local store. You connect that chip bag to the internet and open it up, then eat the chips, and you like the chips. So you decide that the next time you go to your local store, you will grab another bag of those delicious chips. So about a week later, you do. But that evening, when you are about to open those chips, you connect your chip bag to the internet (because in this imaginary scenario, potato chips bags require an internet connection to open 🤣). However, as soon as you open the bag, you encounter a prompt: "please update for a better chip eating experience". You had been doing research about that chip brand and had found that a bunch of people don't like the flavor of that chip brand. But you do. Still, based on the way the update is designed, there are two different ways this scenario could move forward:
A. The update is optional, but the update prompt will show up every single time you try to open the bag, making you need to cancel the prompt every time unless you update
B. The update is forced, meaning you have to update in order to open the chip bag.

Either way, you probably end up updating (either because of the annoyance of the prompt every time, or because you can't open the bag without updating). After the update, you finally open the bag and eat a chip, only to find that the chip tastes different, and it doesn't taste as good now, because the update changed the taste. Probably because of all the complaints from others that you knew about. But now, even though you purchased those chips expecting that specific taste, the taste is no longer the same, all because of a stupid update.

Now how does this relate to digital games? To purchase and download digital games on your console, you need an internet connection. And once your console is connected to the internet, as long as it remains connected, you will get update prompts, some that may be forced, some that may not be forced. And even if you get an update prompt but disconnect your console from the internet, the prompt will still be there every time you press a button to log into the game, and you'll need to start pressing an extra button to log in to the game every time, even if you decide to remain disconnected. To get the annoying prompt to go away, you will have to update, or else it will keep showing up (I lived through this experience myseld when I refused to perform a system update for my Switch 1 late last year, and held out until early January 2026). A scenario like this happened with Splatoon 3 with its recent update that added things like health bars and Flow Aura. Some people didn't like those features (and if I played that game, I would be more upset about those features myself, since I would be used to not having them), but that update is required to play Turf War, so now anyone who doesn't like those features still have to deal with them anyway, even though they most likely purchased that game back when it didn't have those features. Their purchased game, which may actually be one of their favorite games ever, is now changed forever, even if they didn't want those changes, just because of an update. Another example would be the update for Neptunia Sisters vs. Sisters that unnecessarily removed any swear words (that's a whole different debacle entirely that can be discussed another time). Now the only way to play the game with the original dialogue is to buy the PC version (which still has the swear words removed because of the update), and download a mod that restores the original dialogue.

I am not saying that physical copies don't have any issues. And I am not worried about digital games suddenly being taken away. But companies using online features to randomly change their products, especially if it's to remove something just because of a controversy, is something that does need to be talked about more.

At least if you have a completely offline console with all physical games, you won't get any updates that make unnecessary changes to your games, and you won't even get any update prompts.

And Key Cards just suck because they include the worst features of both physical and digital.

@TerribleTerabytes I read that the Dragon quest 7 is over 40gb and that is on the smaller side as games go.
Just a few of these games will fill a memory card. So to download a new game you will either spend out on a new memory card or upload some games you've played. So you are renting games 'not' owning them. While on Nintendo's server they are their games.
There are plenty of gamer/collectors who will only buy physical games.

If you download a game, say Dragon quest 7 and I buy a KeyCard version, we both downloaded the same game onto our Switch 2. The difference between them is; you can turn your console on click on the game and play. I have to insert a card with no game data on it and it must remain in the console while playing.
But, I can sell or trade my copy as though it was physical.

@Tasuki you don't seem to grasp the difference. I buy-play-sell most of my games. So the games I play cost me a lot less than if I left it on a shelf for years. I am not a collector.

@zool And that right there is one of tne reason devs prefer digital media no trading/used sales. Devs only get the money from the initial purchase of the game they dont get any money from a used sale and of course they dont get anything for a trade. Why make is so one person buys a game and four others play it for free essentially. They rather all 5 buy their own copy. So basically you are against these devs making a living. Maybe you like working for free but others dont.

I like replaying my old games too much to offload them. Petty much everything I buy is a keeper these days.

If I just wanted to play a load of new games and not keep them, I'd probably have kept my Game Pass subscription going.

@zool Wrong, it's my game. On my system. And it can't be removed. Stop spreading misinformation.

@JaxonH maybe you have gone a bit overboard. 600 is a lot. And I suppose you werent actually planning to play them all.
Personally I have 150+ switch games. Its been fun to collect. Will I ever play them all? Hmm... Idk.. Plus there is backlog from other systems, lol. Think its more of a library of games that can pick games from whenever/if I feel like.

As for digital/gkc, I think its about perceived value (aside from the collecting aspect ofc). A physical item is a physical item - it can be sold. A digital account isnt that flexible. GKCs are different, tho. But they also require space. And unless you wanna delete/redownload you need to invest in storage - even a 1TB card will fill up fast with games like ff7R.
While there are some decent discounts available at times for digital games. Digital games have often been more expensive than physical games, at least in my experience.

End of the day, you are absolutely right. We will die one day, and chances are the person who will inherit and/or clean up our mess will simply dispose of or sell our collection for pennies. Thats just how it is.

Eithet way, GKCs are here to stay and while I prefer physical media I will occasionally cave in and get some must have key cards as I only play on nintendo consoles.

@Tasuki Don't fall for the myth that developers or any business has the customer for-most in mind.
Any presumed losses will be factored in to the on sale price, so we are all paying for it, same as shop-lifting is.

You can take your example to the NTH. Degree. Lend a book to a friend, Let them watch your streamed movie with you. Lend a friend a video game. etc.

@Nep-Nep-Freak Have you heard of Pocket?
It's an app, you can save stuff from the internet to read later. It could be information you may need at a later date. Even a whole website. That's the idea anyway. I had that sort of thing saved. Then one day it closed down. They had better projects to work on. Luckily another app did a similar thing that we could transfer your stuff. Nintendo will sometime in the future close their servers to Switch game downloads.

You said:
"And Key Cards just suck because they include the worst features of both physical and digital."
It's basically a digital copy that you can sell or trade and you get a box. Only collectors will be hard done by.

@Tasuki
Well, I mean, come on, man - you don’t own the game. You own the license to a digital download of the game. No?

But yea, the way things are now, no company is gonna put themselves out of business by revoking digital licenses. It would be business suicide.

@rallydefault don't quote me, but I did read only last week it has happened to the Wii.
A licence is not ownership, it can be revoked. Ask James Bond 😃

@zool
Yes, that's the crux of it: licenses can be revoked.

But, I do agree with @Tasuki and others: As things stand currently, revocation of digital licenses just isn't happening like some people try to fearmonger us into believing. And I've learned to not try and read too much into the future... so I'll just leave it at that for now.

Another point, too, is that modern consoles themselves can act as licenses if you're connected to the internet. Hardware manufacturers can "brick" your system if they choose, but again, they're only going to do that if you do something to violate their terms.

That being said, keeping your console offline 100% of the time is the only way to avoid that possibility. And if you would do that, you would eventually only be able to play physical games or digital games that you currently have loaded to your system: Any new digital games you would want to load or obviously download would require an internet check, at which point the big bad company could deny you access to your system.

But at that point you're pretty much the equivalent of a person building a bunker for the end of days and stocking it with baked beans lol It's not a realistic scenario as things stand.

@zool Ah I see you are one of those. So pretty much there no reason to have a conversation with you as you made up your mind and all devs are evil. Good to know I wont take your bait anymore.

Yeah, sorry, I meant the periodically reoccurring eshop sale prices, not the current price. I bought 2 of those games on sale and if I had also bought pacman (which I almost did) it would have totaled $40. Rune Factory goes on deep eshop sales quite often. I just thought it was funny the prices lined up so closely with what you paid.

I feel like stalking the eShop (or other digital shops) and waiting for insane sales is actually a similar game sub-hobby to stalking the game stores and looking for great pre-owned prices.

Of course first party games are the place where buying used can more often be far better than eshop sale prices.

Code in a box is cheaper than keycards, as is. Why do publishers not go for that?

Answer: because they got rejected by the market. If keycards didn't exist, publishers would have to choose between "the code in a box that sells badly" or "actually being willing to cough up the money for a real retail product" or "just make it a digital only eshop item". And we already know what they really think of code in a box, because if they actually thought it was viable, they wouldn't be spending the far greater cost on keycards.

Some publishers are still doing code-in-box releases. Bethesda/Microsoft just announced them for Fallout and Elder Scrolls, for instance.

Key Cards appear to be more popular for now, but they're still less than a year old. Let's see how they fare long-term before declaring them the winner.

The main format that appears to be dead is third party games where you get the full game on the cartridge. There really aren't a whole lot of those now.

@OmnitronVariant My issue when I started this thread was that Dragon Quest 7 was only available on switch 2 as a digital copy. I don't buy digital copies if I can help it because they've got no trade-in value. If I don't like the game, I don't play it. It sits on my console. If it was too hard a game same sort of thing. If it was good value for money then I might have had some of my money's worth and it will still sit on my console or in the cloud.
I watched quite a few reviews for that game and not one of the reviewers mentioned how the key card worked. I just assumed it was a code like the code in the box used to be. After a little bit of research, I found out that the key card was slightly different. It was like having a digital download for the game but when you finish the game you could trade it in at at any shop or sell it on eBay just like other games. So I'm quite happy with that. I can buy the game. I can spend a few months playing it. I don't need to keep it. I can take it back as a trade-in. The people that lose out I guess are the collectors who would like to play the game and keep it, and why shouldn't they have a physical copy to keep? We haven't yet gone down the road of getting rid of physical copies but as far as I'm concerned, it works okay for me. I'm not saying I wouldn't keep the occasional game. I've got Mario kart that came with the switch 2 which I can't sell. Hasn't been that great but I might dip into it sometime down the line.
This key card is not something that they conjured up, out the blue 2 weeks ago. This is something that they had intended to use to bridge the gap between downloaded games and physical games and I think they should have made that that a little bit clearer before people actually bought the switch 2, that a lot of games will not come as physical games.

Take the new Mario tennis game and I understand that not all people like that sort of a game but some do and as far as I'm aware that game doesn't have a Switch 1 version, to encourage gamers, I guess, to buy the switch 2.

Games that don't need patches I guess are quite rare but I always thought this was because those making the game were on the deadline which they couldn't really go over the due to cost. So they released the game. Maybe not checked as thoroughly as it could be.

Video games are far too expensive. I'm really not worth the money. I get round this by trading in and so the game costs me half the price. I don't need to keep games in a box on a shelf in case I might want to play it again. If I was that desperate I'd just repurchase it, probably by then at a reduced cost.
Lastly, this key card will save the manufacturers the cost of the game card which is quite expensive yet it doesn't seem to be passed on to the gamer, just saying.