Topic: If I lose a physical game for the Nintendo Switch, can I buy the digital copy for free?

This is the exact reason all of my 270+ Nintendo Switch games are digital

No, even if If the cartridge is broken or corrupted, you have to buy another digital copy of game, so I highly recommend to buy a physical copy of games, so you don’t have to worry about rebuy it.

If the selling point for digital is so you don't have to worry about losing your physical games, then it's for muppets lol.

This conversation is why I almost entirely buy digital; I have had a lot of physical games lost and broken in the past.

That and the fact that I am too lazy to get off the couch when I want to swap between playing several games.

Also, the sales are often a bit (or sometimes massively) better.

I suppose space is a 4th reason — I switched to digital books because I had no more room for more shelves. Switch cartridges are tiny so it is less of an issue at home but when I travel with my Switch I like that I can easily take my entire library since it is mostly digital.

So I guess I have several reasons, but losing the majority of my older games to e.g. water damage, theft and loss while moving was the original reason I started switching to digital games. I guess it would be neat if you could redownload a physical game you lost, but if you could do that, why even bother having the cartridge to begin with.

Same. I have 100s of games as well and it would be so sad to lose them all if they were only physical. Although to be fair, the majority of my Switch games are cheap eshop games which don't even have a way to buy them physically.

I feel like most muppets would have difficulty even inserting a Switch cartridge.

Probably not. You’ll have to called Nintendo about this.

Alot fail to mention that your sd storage at this point in time is limited to 1tb and 2tb isn't coming out anytime soon. Digital takes up space on the sd storage so least not minimize this elephant in the room. We can debate Digital vs. Physical all day and have no resolution. There's plenty of reason to get Digital and plenty of reason to get Physical and they are not mutual exclusive to one or another. Listing the listing is not worth the effort because is someone wants Digital they that's there choice but they have to consider the storage medium capacity long term and swapping sd carts is the same as Physical carts that in itself becomes a mute point then. Physical is you can re-sale or give away if you done with the game or don't want it anymore as oppose to Digital it's tied to the account that purchased the game. This is a long deep rabbit hole that has no ends and debate all day long and go no where fast.

I mean... 1TB cards started getting affordable so let's just assume 1TB and say that it fits 40 huge games or 200+ average games. Unless you're playing more than 40 games at once, there is no need to ever swap SD cards so there is no elephant; you just occasionally archive one game and download another which can happen in the background; this gives you effectively unlimited space without needing more SD cards.The point of this thread is that if you lose a physical game you lose it but if you lose a digital game you can always redownload it. As you said there are other pros and cons of each, but the redownloadability is a clear pro.

@FishyS Problem here is the games are getting bigger and not everyone finish a game as well so this is the part being missed. One can only archive so much and a Physical cart not those requiring one game and three Digital isn't efficient use of sd memory space. What is missed is Digital is tied to the account that purchased the game that is the biggest con to owning Digital games. Sure redownload but only the purchased account no other. Physical you aren't tied down to the Digital account unless one has DLC for the game.

@SwitchForce I agree being able to sell and share a physical game is a huge pro of physical games. I just meant there is no real reason to swap SD cards. I have 350 games on my SD card right now and if I ever did need more, redownloading is easy. I doubt even Switch 2 will have many truly enormous games so 1 TB should be plenty for another console generation.

Note also that Nintendo stores your save state so redownloading won't lose anything. You could have Nintendo save progress for 100TB of games and redownload as needed if you really wanted to play 4,000 at once.

Only downside if you want your data backup one has to buy NSO subscription to have up to date backup of games with some expectations ACNH is biggest one. Digital once bought you have access as long as your account is in good grace with them. Archive is good but you will have to redownload to play and remove others to re-play games again. And as it does get bigger it becomes a headache managing them as for Physical to just pop it in and update or wait and just play right away. That part of Nintendo saves not one's console save is a paid Save game data that's not a free service.