Topic: Switch Physical Boxed Games List & Release Dates (US & CA)

RAG has their Spring sale live, 30% to 70% off select games, and the selection is tasty. I've got my eye on $200-worth of RAG stuff. Unfortunately, their timing couldn't be worse. I've got a new SRG bundle and The Hundred Line CE to pay for soon.

https://www.redartgames.com/42--spring-sale-

I'm really going to have to wait and see if I'll still go full physical for the Switch 2. For now ordered Mario Kart and Donkey Kong physically, but if most third-party games are going to be sold as "key cards", I feel might as well buy everything, including first-party, digitally.

@Monkeido

Nintendo certainly are doing their best to help me save money by convincing me to purchase fewer physical games. I confusingly, at the same time, both love and do not appreciate their efforts. I'll be going from 95% physical and 5% digital on Switch 1 to what appears to be roughly....60% physical and 40% digital on Switch 2?

It's probably worse than that, because I mostly play third party games on Switch. And if those are going to be mostly game-key cards? Well...c'est la vie. Although I am exceedingly interested to see how the boutique publishers are going to approach this situation.

In theory, how eager would fans be to order a $90 complete copy of Elden Ring from Limited Run?

@Magician Definitely a though choice. I've been fully digitally on PC for decades by now, but at least I know when I buy new PC parts, I can always still play all my Steam games. Whereas with consoles, you have to hope for backward compatibility, which is always going to stop at some point from some generation to the next.

I really love owning my games for Switch and knowing that even if Nintendo eventually turns off the ability to download your games on Switch, which would obviously be many years from now, seeing as you can still download previously bought Wii games, I'd always still be able to access these games.

I don't really want to have a 60/40 spread either and feel like I might as well go full digital if that's going to be the case, due to the convenience of being to switch games on the fly and always carrying your whole library with you.

My thoughts exactly. I think the boutique print runs will be smaller as the price of a complete-on-cart rises. For some, it'll be a must-have. Others, a hard pass given the price.

@Magician It would obviously depend on the game, but I would happily save up for Elden Ring and Star Wars Outlaw if they were physical. But seriously, if they start doing this, they seriously need to chill with their release schedule, or at the very least, make games permanently available.

@Magician For Elden Ring complete on cart 90$ is nothing. It varies from fans to ... fans. I am really ready to give them 160$ (up to 200$) for Base game + Shadow of the Erdtree all on the cart.

Elden Ring is really special game for me, and it is way too close to perfection.

@Magician - I mean, with almost 2000 Switch games under my belt, I would say I'd be willing to pay 90 for them even now.

More if it is a game I want. If anyone can get Interplay to port a Earthworm Jim Collection with Booger Man, I'd shell a pretty penny.

Double point Easter promo.

Now I have to spend my days waiting for a restock at VGP.

Yesss! Someone else who knows and loves Boogerman! My dad went to CES that year and came home with a goodie bag of stuff promoting that game! A gummy booger hand, a whoopie cushion... So good, even better as a kid.

@Hamstrman - I am jealous, that is awesome.

My family was pretty low-end middle-class. So for them gaming and tech was essebtially beneath them, so I never got that luxury of going to any cons or tech shows till I was in college. Good times.

@Paraka I'm sorry your family didn't care about tech or gaming. My dad had quarterly meetings at various places (and was not in tech BTW) and he would fake a business to get in. Back then, without internet, who could check, really?

We would play Super Mario World, but because he's dyslexic, he could never use cape because anything more than A and B he couldn't process.

I agree though. We need something like a wacky game pack to come out physical. I somehow doubt they'd put more than one game on a cart at a time though and just make them all $70 each.

@Hamstrman - I wouldn't worry about my past much, it was what it was, and I still appreciate games now, so there is that. Plus, though my family was very abrasive about gaming, I was raised with survivalist people. So I still got good memories of the outdoors and such as well.

But I wouldn't rule out collections like that. Interplay may be a tantrum throwing company that only exists on paper (how else would they drop C&Ds on that Clayfighter fan game?), Interplay does not have the luxury, nor IP power, to pull off single-game releases like that. Maybe individual series, that I can see, but no way could they pull off individual releases like that.

... Maybe Clayfighters Sculptor's Cut, because that game is rocking 2 grand for just the cart alone, but nothing else.

Hot off the press. After having their planned western releases cancelled due to Nintendo tightening their game publishing guidelines, seems as though Play-Asia have nabbed the exclusive release for Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1. I would assume P-A will have locked up Re;Birth 2, Re;Birth 3, and Hyperdevotion Noire as well...but we'll see.

https://www.gematsu.com/2025/04/hyperdimension-neptunia-rebir...

I'd be among those who would shell out the cash for complete copies of Elden Ring, etc. Heck, I just spent $80 to upgrade my TOTK cartridge and probably would have done the same for BOTW, had Nintendo not omitted the DLC (such a cheap move on their part).

I'm really interested to see if titles like Fast Fusion, Hades II, the Marvel beat'em up, and Enter the Gungeon 2 - games I would have bought physically without hesitation on Switch 1 - will be relegated to game keys. It's so sad to think that likely is their fate, and I'll probably just skip and wait a long time for a cheap digital bargain. I imagine not all publishers will want to play ball and outsource to boutique small-press companies like LRG, unless it's well after their game key carts finish the retail run.

People who prefer physical will have to be very patient this gen, I'm sure. For now, I'll support those companies like CD Projekt Red and Marvelous who care enough to provide the intact game on the cartridge!

@Teksette

I have a Japanese copy of BotW + Expansion Pack.

I wonder if it'll be upgradable or will only standard copies of BotW qualify?

I'm glad I have a Japanese eShop account. Suppose I'll find out.

Limited Run's first Switch 2 game is...a game key card. You couldn't make it up.

@Magician
I imported that very same BOTW “game + Expansion Pack” cartridge from Japan, and I wondered much the same question! Will it play nice with the Switch 2 upgrade if we purchase the upgrade, or download the upgrade as our NSO perk?

Just another question for which we probably won’t have an answer until June 5th, earliest.

@GrailUK
Oh please, is this what we’ve sunk to? I have to check this out.
If that LRG news is legit, so much for being a pro-preservation “physical forever” company!

Edit:
Oh wait, stow the pitchforks (sorta) - I see now It’s Atlus’s Raidoh remake, and it’s not a numbered LRG release.