I think it (mandatory 64GB blank carts) incentivizes full physical releases.
That is a truly optimistic take on this rumor! I imagine larger 32-64GB games at least could be more likely to get a full-on-cart release, if nothing else.
Pessimist that I am, I can’t help but think that the net result will be fewer proper physical releases, though. This is an age of cost-cutting, after all - the best way to incentivize cartridges would be to lower the production costs. Standardizing on just 2 cart sizes (64GB and whatever pipsqueak they use for the wretched game keys) may well economize things, but probably not that much for the publishing partners.
Nintendo offering the easy, cheap way out with these detestable game key carts will inevitably result in more companies using them, I’m afraid.
The proliferation seems to be upon us already, if the news from Japan that @GrailUK shared is accurate.
Can you imagine if 95% of 3rd party games were just game key carts? I’d start spending my gaming money elsewhere.
@Teksette
I think it will mean less physical releases, but less partial download physical releases.
The real barrier isn't the 64GB cart which is being subsidized by larger orders imo, it's the high data transfer speed. These carts just naturally cost more.
But this is all speculation. I could be wrong.
I was the biggest physical collector for Switch with 600 games but I'm 100% digital on Switch 2. I just stopped caring. The convenience of digital was a huge factor but also the realization most of my fears of "losing games" were unfounded. I'm no more likely to lose a game stored on a plastic MicroSD then I am to lose a game stored on a plastic cartridge. And at least digital gives me a warranty where I can redownload it for decades after purchase
But I do want to see physical continue. I just think people are going to have to accept that a portable system which needs high speed data transfer in a compact medium can't do so at a low cost. And that means more and more games will release digital only. And we knew this was coming. Steam set the model many years ago. Id just be grateful theres any physical high speed data transfer games available at all, at this point.
The whole insistence on physical only was a huge mental block for me. Once I started to re-assess and be honest with myself, I realized it was just my fixation on collecting. Not a genuine fear of anything. And my room is full. Which helped to throw off the shackles of such a mindset.
All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans
God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John
@JaxonH My problem with digital is that it requires verifications.
It is like I need to ASK them for permission to play something that I PAID for.
GOG eliminated that with their offline installers on PC that you can backup and use whenever you like. Copy them as many times as you want.
On console we do not have that. The only thing that is allowing me to reinstall my games offline are the discs of the PS4/PS5/Xbox360. The Switch ones you play from the cart because it allows for faster reading speeds.
Also digital only allows the devs/publishers to give us unfinished games because there is no fear of printing something that is not working. "Ship it now and fix it later." That only allows for even more bad practices.
Also having a monopoly on the market as the copies still need a permission from Nintendo's servers to me set up. This could be taken away. Yes, unlikely but, NEVER trust that a large company to care about your convenience.
Nintendo want us to handle the liabilities now:
1. Pay for the game.
2. Pay for the internet.
3. Pay for extra storage.
What is next? Another try at streaming only services?
If the allowed backups without online verifications I could settle for that but no, they want to control even that. And people ask themselves why is piracy a thing.
Nintendo used to subsidize the publication of cartridge games on Switch, by eating the cost of up to 8GB as part of the platform fee.
Now that key cards are available, they're presumably the cheapest option for Switch 2, and it's the publishers who would have to eat the cost out of their cut. They're a predictable bunch, for the most part, so it's no real surprise to me what they're going to do.
I'd imagine that anyone primarily catering to the collectors market will still use cartridges with the full game on them, although they'll also be passing that cost on to the consumer.
@Zuljaras
No you don't? You download once and then never need to connect online again. There's no verification. And since 99% of physical games have to connect online anyways for updates, patches and DLC it's not like people arent doing that anyways.
If I had to do a DRM check before playing then no, I would never have gone digital. But thats not the case. Furthermore, digital allows you to copy the contents of your microSD for archival purposes. If your sd ever fails, just copy the data onto a new card and you never skip a beat.
I also wouldn't say Nintendo wants us to pay for storage as all their games are on cart. It's just a fact that the costs are prohibitively expensive. Publishers wouldn't care if it were cheap.
So ya, we gotta pay for games. Obviously. And Nintendo isnt gonna pay your internet bill for you, so yes you have to pay for that yourself. And let's be real- EVERYONE already has internet or they wouldn't be here chatting online.
And yes we have to pay for storage. Just like on Playstation. Just like on Xbox. Just like on PC. It's a cost that simply is. You cant get around it on any platform. Space costs money. If you buy physical games Nintendo doesn't pay for your shelves and cabinets.
All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans
God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John
"Step 3: Play the game.
Once the game is downloaded, you’re ready to play!
An internet connection is only required when you launch the game for the first time. After this, the game can be started even without an internet connection. However, like regular physical software, the game-key card must be inserted into the system in order to play the game."
As you can see it requires an internet connection on first launch.
So, you can copy the SD card with your games, and you do not need to connect to the internet for verifications when you use the new SD card on the current switch? I know that on another Switch it will not work since it is tied to your account.
We have to test it with key cards because if you download the game data on SD card and transfer it to another card (copy) and use it on a new Switch 2 and insert the key-cart. If this works, it will be awesome but as you can see it requires internet connection on first launch maybe it will not work on the other Switch 2.
Also, I do not care for updates as long as the game is not utterly broken. A playable version of the base game is enough to justify the publisher effort towards its customers.
As someone who's played games mostly on PC for the last 20 years, and who only got back to console gaming with the Switch a few years ago, it's been a surprise to me how adverse to digital games a lot of people here on Nintendo Life are. I get it if you're a collector of physical games, but the fear of losing access to your digital games seems very exaggerated. I can still redownload and play games I bought from Steam 15+ years ago, and AFAIK the same applies to digital games released on the Wii. It doesn't seem likely Nintendo as company is gonna go bankrupt in the next few decades, so the idea of their servers suddenly disappearing and digital games bought from their store not functioning anymore seems unrealistic to me.
As someone who's played games mostly on PC for the last 20 years, and who only got back to console gaming with the Switch a few years ago, it's been a surprise to me how adverse to digital games a lot of people here on Nintendo Life are. I get it if you're a collector of physical games, but the fear of losing access to your digital games seems very exaggerated. I can still redownload and play games I bought from Steam 15+ years ago, and AFAIK the same applies to digital games released on the Wii. It doesn't seem likely Nintendo as company is gonna go bankrupt in the next few decades, so the idea of their servers suddenly disappearing and digital games bought from their store not functioning anymore seems unrealistic to me.
I wouldn't be surprised if Hello Games were the lone exception. They didn't ask for extra with the PS5 version if you had bought the PS4 version. I'd pay a little extra for a Switch 2 version if HG were adverse to porting the game to Switch 2 for free.
On a side note, mentioning HG makes me wonder how Light No Fire is coming along?
You can copy your sd contents to a brand new SD, pop it in and the console thinks it's the same one you've always used. Because the data is identical.
I always keep a spare of my sd card as backup. Good practice.
As for game key carts, no you won't be able to copy the sd from one console to another. Because each console uniquely codes the games on it. Having said that, now that we're beyond the early days online shops and have the new permanent eShop moving forward, I expect games will be available to download for decades to come, much like Steam. Perhaps when I'm old and Grey haird the day will come that game carts can't download the game, and that is a possibility to consider, but by that point it's unlikely anyone will be sharing those carts anyways. As long as it's downloaded on your systems you'll always be able to play them. And keep a backup just in case.
All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans
God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John
Less on the subject of digital vs physical, and more on the subject of availability: This morning I was at my closest GameStop to pre-order the system and some games. The supply of systems was surprisingly healthy, almost everyone in line was able to get one (about 61 consoles). However, the pre-orders for games was wildly more limited. Most games they could only pre-order were single digit amounts. Things like BotW, TotK, Street Fighter, and Mario Kart World were in short supply it seems for GameStop's day one availability, almost all under a dozen. Amiibo and accessories weren't much better off either. I think one of the most available things was Pro Controllers, which I recall them saying they only had 12-18 available (less than a 1/3 of buyers would be able to get one). And amiibo were down at about 3 or so per amiibo.
They offered digital pre-orders in place of the games, but I imagine it's a sign that the margin on shipping games in must be very thin or at a loss. Or perhaps production is really backed up/delayed. I don't know if other retailers are going to have more, or if those wanting physical versions of games are going to have be extra diligent and patient. Hopefully this is just a short term problem.
@Teksette Between Virtual Game Cards, Key Cards and 1st party physical games being more expensive than digital outside NA it seems Nintendo wants to kill off physical.
Given all the indications this gen, you certainly could make strong assumptions about Nintendo's intent here. From a publisher's POV, digital distribution costs less and has all the advantages - it costs less and is easier all around, and no worries about tariffs even! I think it's only people's buying preferences that have kept physical releases on life support, and that is changing quickly as more and more people settle for digital. Nintendo and other publishers aren't shedding any tears over this trend!
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I think I've figured out my opinion on physical releases vs. other retail releases. I don't have the strongest opinions about physical vs. digital, but its cringe to buy a game in a box and not have the game in the box. That is dumb. And it is expensive and bad to need more storage because of that.
That is the extent of my opinion, I do not need to elaborate on anything.
Like I got a second SD card for my Switch, realized I might've under-appreciated file sizes for indie games, and have now decided I refuse to ever buy a third one for Switch and will just stop buying digital games at a point. My Switch 1 digital collection will be forever limited because I refuse to waste money on more storage that could go towards games. Thankfully this was made way easier when I realized that Omori is and eventually Antonblast will be a physical release that will, as far as I can tell anyway, exist beyond a one-time limited supply, so I feel like I dodged a bullet. (this is not LRG slander, they are the only reason I have Doom Eternal and Alien Isolation right now).
I wish NLife would interview Limited Run, Super Rare etc to get some infomation on how they plan on supporting Switch 2. Even if it's a "we are still looking into it" kind of answer.
There are too many games these days. We have all been saying it for years. I am, in a weird way, grateful for these key cards because it means I can disregard so many games and appreciate the ones I do have more. That means going back to the old days where you can forgive little quirks because you can't just play something else as easily. Honestly, this is a good thing in my book. And Nintendo are still leading the physical charge anyhoo...and their games are always inspiring.
I never drive faster than I can see. Besides, it's all in the reflexes.
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Topic: Switch 2 Boxed Physical Releases
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