Batman Arkham Trilogy For Switch Only Includes One Title On The Game Cartridge

Hoping the next Nintendo console is a disc-based, non-portable system with a cart reader so we can be done with this nonsense and still keep backwards compatibility. They should still run the Switch as a portable console.

I knew there's gonna be a catch with this one. Welp, we should be thankful we have this game coming Switch rather than it not coming to Switch at all.🤷‍♂️

How much storage space will it take up?

Yeah, Arkham City and Knight are massive games. I knew it would be difficult to stuff all three games on one cartridge, especially on the switch

Sucks, but it is what it is at this point. Happy to play them portably.

Anyone who thought this was gonna be different? I mean the BEST you could have hoped for was 3 carts, and the price woulda been $100+ if that happened.

I always prefer carts over discs, but they REALLY need to do something about storage space on em. When you can get 64-128gb sd cards from Amazon for $20 or less…. Yeah. Nintendo needs to partner with Sandisk for their next game carts, get them ranging from 64-258 gb in size…..I think current ones are 32-64 but the 64s are not cost effective. Def an over sight. It’s because Nintendo based the cart needs on the size they make their games….. not everyone makes games that cap at 16gb….

Also need to make the next system have at least 1TB internal storage. Cause I’m at least double capped with 32+400gb card.

I almost exclusively buy digitally so don't really care, but I do hope the ports are, like, good? Arkham City runs terribly even on PS4 and Xbox most of the time so I don't have the highest hopes.

I figured as much since you know, WB. But at least it's the best one.

These games are gonna take hella space. Not a big Batman fan but the games are well received and look great. Might pick it up

Then sell three carts in three cases.

why not just have 3 cartridges?? it's not like the cases aren't big enough for 3, sheesh

I'm actually more surprised that there will be a physical release than that there will only be one game on the cart.

Not a deal breaker for me. Just happy these games are finally coming over.

That's dumb, just really dumb

2 collections i was intending to get but not anymore..

Ladies and gentlemen, start your SD cards!

I’m actually ok with this especially after Metal Gear Solid situation. Also glad it’s not cloud. Seriously I would’ve paid full price for one game but we’re getting the whole trilogy

Disappointing, but not surprising.

I rather this then them just deciding to make it a cloud port, I will happily take this, plus they are big games, so I’m honestly not surprised.

Not a fan of this practice. But that's the forced Digital future, I guess?

I was hyped af for this, I'm still probably gonna get it but I dislike this practice on the switch

NOOOOOOOO!! First MGS, now this?! Darn it man!

As others have said, at least they’re not like, cloud versions or something. As I said with MGS, I will now wait for a sale.

I’m honestly fine with this. Never expected all three [especially Knight lmao] all inside one cartridge.

That is par the course of most “physical bundle” Switch games that are each a big game. See Borderlands collection, Bioshock collection, Enzio collection, etc.

At least ONE GAME is on the cart instead of barely anything for the Metal Gear Solid collection so I’m not downloading 90% of everything and essentially being a glorified code on a box.

I'm mostly an digital kind of guy anyways, so it doesn't matter to me. Love to have my Batman Arkham trilogy on my Nintendo Switch... Man I probably need a 1tb for all my games.

Yep I knew there was a catch. -_-

Cool I will just get it digital then. I just wanna play games not amass a collection. My xbox copies are digital as well.

Who didn’t see that coming? That’s pretty much the norm.

Thats ok, just make sure to clear out all your other games on the tiny memory so all you have is the arkham trilogy!

Expected these days, annoying as it might be. At least its not a digital code in the box for each individual game, THAT is the worst. This method can retain resale value and can be lent/borrowed/etc.

At least they’re native ports and not cloud versions. I’ll probably get physical to save on some space at least.

A hard buy for me now.
I'd have gladly paid $30 for each game individually as long as they were physical.

can we stop normalizing this?
can we, collectively, stop rolling over and going "well that's just the new normal!" it does not have to be.
business practices like this can and should always be called into question.

this barely qualifies as a physical release. Warner Bros could have split this up into multiple releases, or shelled out extra for a bigger cartridge. but no. gotta save those pennies so WB CEOs can get themselves new mansions this christmas.

This is all a waste, you can get the Arkham trilogy from steam for peanuts, epic store will basically gives this away for free and even PS store it's on sale often, it's just very odd that people are wasting their time with the switch release when there are better options out there especially as it's multiplatform 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

@HugoGED Blame Nintendo for going with cartridges.

@huyi Some people only have a Switch so I understand why people wait for Switch ports.

@CharlieGirl Nintendo should’ve learned their lesson from the N64 era.

@CharlieGirl it's worse when people know very well when they own multiple current gen consoles and waste their time with releases like this and keep on supporting this practice, even the average gaming pc or laptop can play this game fine and it's far more cheaper, playstation or Xbox front it's often on sale, my point is why would anyone buy this when there are better options out there for this trilogy?

@tobsesta99 right so switch owners and even the oled users don't have a simple laptop with a average processor, these games don't take much to run so what is the problem?

@tobsesta99 Yes. Portable blu-rays. Definitely.

@huyi ...because the Switch is a portable. I hope that helped.

Another instant buy to now an easy pass. I’ll not support these releases. If they wanted they could make 3 separate game carts and sell them in one package.

Easy skip as the games are so cheap and widely available elsewhere; however, they're mostly digital elsewhere, so it's a wash IMO. Great games none the less, with only Arkham Knight running out of steam late.

@GameOtaku yep my thoughts exactly. I’m sure we’d end up paying a bit more but I’d shell out a little more for metal gear had they done this and possibly the Batmans as well.

@tobsesta99
Considering that's ultimately why square soft switched to playstation from nintendo64 for ff7. You'd think nintendo would learn but nooope....

Makes sense. I mean, Arkham City and Arkham Knight are big games (especially Arkham Knight).

@Thwomp_Stomper
Holy cow, Batman! I knew you’d be here for this article. And with an eminently appropriate gif, too!

But cmon, curse these gimped physical releases! Though I’m glad Arkham Asylum is on there, at least - it’s the one I’m most keen to play.

@huyi I know this may be difficult for you to comprehend, but bare with it: There are people that don’t game on a PlayStation, Xbox, or PC for a multitude of reasons. Crazy right?

@huyi I’m buying because I want it portable on my most used system and before you say it no I don’t own (or want) a steam deck and yes I already own these on console (xbox). People buy what works for them. Folks rebuy collections and remakes all the time.

Yeah waited so long for this to come out in switch I bit the bullet and bought on steam deck. Very glad I did what’s the point of a worst performing physical game if it’s not even on the cartridge

@IceClimbersMain Nintendo won't go back to discs. They're terrible for portable consoles.

@CharlieGirl
I completely agree! It’s sad when I feel grateful for getting even 1 title from the collection on the cart.
(Says me glaring angrily at Konami for their pitiful physical release of the MGS “Collection.”)

Sigh…. But given how cinematic these games are, I guess I can forgive WB and Konami this time.

Will we be able to buy each of them individually, on the eShop?

@anoyonmus
Arkham city is 16 gb according to google and knight is 46 I believe which could be compressed to smaller. So asylum and city could be on one cart and knight on a 32 gb cart if they compress it.

Not surprised, especially considering the download sizes involved. This still gives me pause....What I do next may depend on if these will release separately on the eShop.

Judging by the wording of the FAQ, you'll have to download the other two games in the form of a software update, as opposed to one-time use download codes, which is preferable to codes, but it still sucks.

If they need a 64GB cartridge to house all three games or to release them individually, then so bloody be it.

Stop. Pulling. This. Crap.

I have only just barely tolerated this practice a handful of times, but only based on the strength of the games themselves (and usually at a discount). But the majority of the time, it's an immediate skip.

Well that was obvious. No buy.

Are there any multi-game collections like this where all the games are on the cart? I don’t mean retro collections, but anything that’s more than two semi-recent games with 3D graphics. Seems like this is the norm for a massive collection, I’ve just started to expect it.

This looks almost reasonable, when compared to Konami's MGS swindle (Just 2 GB of data in the cartridge? Are you kidding me?).
It would be nice to know if you can purchase the games individually on the eShop.

@Sisilly_G I'm not so sure a 64GB cartridge could fit all three games, unless there has been some serious compression, which would translate to either lower quality assets or longer loading times (or both).

@Waluigi451 : Switch cartridges can spawn separate icons for individual games, unlike consoles of old, where games within a compilation had to be consolidated into a single launcher.

Some of the multi-game collections that I own include:

• Atelier Dusk Trilogy (Asia)
• Atelier Mysterious Trilogy (Asia) [this spawns SIX icons, including individual digital art books for the three games]
• Doraemon Learning Collection (Japan) [four 3DS ports]
• Hasbro Game Night [Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit Live, and Risk]

Grand Theft Auto Trilogy includes III and San Andreas playable via the cartridge (though San Andreas has a massive but optional 6GB patch). An icon is spawned for Vice City as well, but it's unplayable without a 5GB "patch" (the "Version 1.0" that's on the cartridge takes you to the splash screen, and does nothing else).

@Kochambra : Maybe, maybe not, in which case, perhaps, separate releases would have been preferable. But it's likely that the games would come in a LOT smaller in the transition to Switch given that the file sizes that we know about reflect that of PC/consoles, and this rarely translates 1:1 where Switch ports are concerned. For example, DOOM and DOOM Eternal are only about 1/4 of the size of the PC/console versions.

But smaller scale games that are less demanding tend to be virtually identical.

I'll wait for a sale I think.

The cartridge must be in Nintendo Switch console to if you want to play the other two games that you have downloaded. I did not like it that part. It is not that big problem to.

Just invest in a 1TB card they're not that expensive these days and don't need to worry about it, I've had a switch from day one and over 100 big games mostly digital and think I've 300gb spare still, plenty of space for this and mgs collection. And I have these games on other platforms but will triple dip they're that good.

At least it’s not code in a box. Just.

@tobsesta99 which format do you think Nintendo should have used instead for a portable machine.

Cartridges is the only viable option.

@IceClimbersMain you won't be getting disc format for Nintendo next portable machine. That would be utter madness if they did.

OK so this all but confirms that the 3 games will be available individually on eShop. I reckon that's good news overall... I can buy Knight and save myself some money. Asylum and City are excellent games, but I've played them plenty of times.

@Dm9982 the mistake you made is comparing Nintendo cartridges to SD cards. There is no chance in hell Nintendo would use SD format in the future. They have to produce there own carts. The cost to manufacture Nintendo cartridges is way more than SD cards.

@Speedo I agree with you and I also have a high capacity memory card for my Switch.

However, I can see why people are annoyed. The real issue is that digital games are too expensive. They should be cheaper than physical, but publishers don't do that because they have agreements with physical stores - who they rely on heavily for discovery and impulse buys (which is still a big proportion of sales, particularly for Nintendo in the UK).

Make digital cheap and your retailers on the high street will suffer. That's the theory anyway, and it rings true.

So you've got a more expensive digital format AND you need to buy a memory card on top. I think there's also a right for people to be annoyed at the low capacity on the Switch hardware... but again, this is deliberate. Nintendo will get "mate's rates" on the storage in their hardware and game cards, because the memory card companies know they'll make their fortune from you and me buying memory cards.

None of this is a coincidence!

So worst of both worlds. Can’t collect them, they take up storage, but you have to carry around a cartidge to play. Basically a hardware key.

Who is this for? Unsuspecting grandmother buying last minute presents? Bargain bin sales in 2 months?

Called it, but it was to be expected. At least City and Knight aren't dowload codes.

The Switch is the last system that I buy physical 3d party for. Been great while it lasted but I don’t see the point anymore from now on.

I'll bet my house that the physical release in Asia will have all 3 on the cart. If I do decide to get this if the port is decent, it'll have to be from PlayAsia

I hate download codes. I want the whole package on the cartridge, end of. I had to rebuy Final Fantasy X/X2 when I realised only the Asia version had both games. ...Will never make that mistake again.

That is very disappointing. It is bad enough it doesn't have Arkham Origins in it.

@kobashi100 Oh no, I knew that, and I wasn’t trying to imply using micro SD cards per se. However, Sandisk is in the business of making such cards. So much so Nintendo did partner with them for Officially licensed storage expansion. I think Nintendo and Sandisk together could come up with a winning solution to the issues carts face, mainly storage space/cost. Because if the next system runs 1080p handheld, which is likely, then we are gonna see average games hitting 20-30gb, while games like Witcher and such would hit on the 60+ size. The only other answer is pure digital, and I doubt Nintendo nor gamers want that.

Someone mentioned discs, and that won’t work either. 2 massive problems with discs that we’ve already seen. Psp proved that to be too loud for handheld. And last generation proved that there’s a massive bottleneck in terms of reading a disc and transferring that to memory for processing. As seen this Gen, where discs install and nothing can run directly from disc, that was the only solution to allow games not to keep increasing load times. Lest we forget there were games that had load times of 3+ mins last Gen.

Partial cart and install is another route, but that seems to irk people as well. And current disc systems both require internet PLUS installing/patching to run any game.

As you can see there truly aren’t many options to appease both sides, and the most likely route chosen next round for Nintendo will be cart+digital as it is now. I just hope they have a bit more foresight on cart costs and size, cause they’ll need to have at least 128gb at the ready, but possibly 256gb carts for expansive titles and collections…..

Wow, neat that NintendoLife got the actual Batman to answer the question about whether the full trilogy was on the cart.

@IceClimbersMain,

It's not going to be a disc based system, Nintendo will simply make bigger storage game cards, not all that difficult looking at how cheap 64 and 128gb micro SD cards are.

Until I see how all three run on Switch (especially Knight) I won't be really considering a purchase anyway.

I'm all digital these days anyway so this doesn't affect me.

Also from the trailer it seems they still can't get the lip syncing right. This been a problem since the original 360/PS3 release and it is ridiculous especially considering how great the voice acting is.

@CharlieGirl,

It's not the developer it's Nintendo, they have made storage cards up to 64gb, but these are rarely used as they are expensive, even 32gb ones are not the norm. The 64gb cards were supposed to come out 2018, but got delayed until 2020.

Nintendo are pretty good at compressing game code, so they themselves will rarely need any card bigger than 16gb, and a lot of times the 8gb card will suffice.

Info on Nintendo Switch Game Cards.

The cards come in a variety of capacities: 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB.[19] 64 GB cards were planned to be introduced in the second half of 2018, but due to unspecified circumstances, Nintendo delayed the launch of this variant to 2019,[20] and then delayed it again to 2020. The 64 GB cards were then released in 2020 after being delayed for two years and are made using XtraROM technology from Macronix.

@Dm9982 I would imagine cost of carts has come down now and is around same as Blu-ray discs. As the switch is coming to end of its lifespan publishers are not gonna bother requesting to use 32GB+.

Problem for switch 2 is that if the costs are still too expensive for publishers to use than Nintendo won't manufacture the very large cartridges as that would be throwing money down the drain. It's all in the publishers hands really. They will dictate what Nintendo does going forward.

That's too bad. I hope you can buy them separately in the eShop.

@kobashi100 This is true, and a large reason why publishers don’t deem it cost effective to release physical versions, or delay physical versions so they can collect pre orders to guarantee the sales.

I really don’t know the answer going forward for Nintendo, but I do hope it’s not an end to physical sales, although that’s where we are truly heading to at some point.

Happy to still pick this up as asylum is still my fav and fancy double dipping…

@IceClimbersMain Discs wouldn't change that much about this. The other consoles also often require downloads.

@GameOtaku So you didn't actually want to play these on the Switch. Why were you going to buy them then?

@nolf69 These cartridges are expensive. They would probably want to charge more with three of them.

Hrmm...I wonder what the file size is then. The PC file is only like 7g for AA. Even Arkham City is only like 20g iirc. Knight is monstrous tho. I'm curious how much optimization was done for this.

Serious.. research first what your buyers actually want. Dont cry later when the sales are low.

Well that's one less person that will be buying it.

At least it's not as bad as Konami's Metal Gear collection where none of the games are on the cartridge but yeah having one game on the cart is fine. If it was me I would had bought these Arkham games separately anyways as I only enjoy two of em.

It annoys me when it is something like Sonic Origins where it doesn't take much space, but I understand it for this collection since Arkham Knight is 50GB

It has really resonated with me where someone said "why not provide it on 3 individual carts". This is so true, as a physical purchase this should be an option. I am fed up with DLC been forced onto me when buying a physicsl copy. I eish this wasn't becoming standard practice and consumers had a way of feeding back.

I'd like to say I'm surprised, but given the cost of the larger cartridges (would the top 64GB cart even be enough, without having to reduce audio quality etc?) it was probably inevitable. Unless they sold the games individually.

But if the games are simply a download option in the menu, not a single use code, that would be a step up from the PS4 trilogy. With the PS4 trilogy you get Asylum & City on disc, but Knight and it's DLC is included as a single use code.

@Patendo Would people be willing to buy them individually at a higher cost, that a cart per game would require? That I'm not so sure of.

People were scoffing at paying £40 for both Pikmin 1&2, would they really be prepared to pay £60 to £90 if the Arkham games were sold individually (with an estimate of £20-£30 per game)?
For 'Pikmin' at least, the cost of old GC & Wii discs actually makes that £40 affordable by comparison (good luck finding 'Pikmin 2' GC or Wii for £40), whereas the Arkham games are on multiple platforms, regularly heavily discounted in sales.

Why do companies keep giving their customers the middle finger like this?

@huyi quick question for you! Do you think everyone has other gaming consoles?

A real shame only one game of cart. How hard is is to have an advanced order / crowd funded like system where people are asked to preorder the a game/game collection on the 32/64GB cartridge and only happens when the minimum Nintendo production level is met? I will be corrected but think it 2000 or 4000 copies.

Was it a surprise? Cartridges are expensive and publishers don’t want anything above 16gb carts

Well yeah, on PC the original arkham asylum uses 8gb, city uses 18gb and knight uses 55gb that's 81gb keep in mind this is for the original GOTY versions not the new versions which most likely have updated textures, shaders and shadow maps. The highest capacity game cartridge is 32gb, the updated versions of the games probably use more capacity which would justify only having 1 game on the cartridge.

A little disappointed but o well, this is the excuse i needed to finally get a 1TB sd card

Thank you, but no thank you.

I’m shocked this game can even be made on Switch

@Waluigi451 Both Subnautica games are available physically and on one cart with no shenanigans. I bought it Day 1 to show support.

@IceClimbersMain @tobsesta99

If Nintendo doesn't release a portable console that runs on carts, then the Switch doesn't become the massive Cinderalla story it is, and ports like the Arkham Trilogy probably don't come to it to begin with.

This trilogy could have come to the Wii U across multiple discs, but did it? Nope. So could Borderlands, Bioshock, the Ezio Collection, MGS, Devil May Cry and others, but traditional Nintendo home consoles weren't attractive enough for publishers to bother. The Switch, with all of its flaws and compromises, is. Heck, I have most of those games/collections on PS3 already, so that proves timing and power weren't the reason for the Wii U not getting them. So I'll take ports with a catch over no ports at all.

@BTB20
I absolutely want to play them on switch. I just refuse to support such a anti consumer practice and you shouldn’t either. The more we let companies get away with this sort of thing the more emboldened they will get.

@acidflare
There is a 64 gb cart so the first two games could easily fit on a 32 bit cart and they could include the final game on a 64 gb cart in the same box.

Wow, both this and the Metal gear collection! I'm gonna need me a new sd card.

This stings, but is not surprising. I was expecting them to get ASYLUM and CITY on a 16GB cartridge and then a download for KNIGHT. Regardless, I will still be getting this

@Bablommebite
I've been using a 400GB one for the past couple of years. Got it on sale for around $40.00 USD. Thinking it might be time to spring for a 1TB...

@GameOtaku and pay over $100 for 15 year old games? No thanks. Also those sizes are for the GOTY editions not the new versions which have been updated so it would most likely see bigger file sizes. It's not a feasible idea by any means to include 2 carts for a compilation, it's much easier to make the additional games available as an update file for the compilation. Spyro trilogy did the same thing even on PS4 and Xb1, the sizes of the games were so big only half the second game would fit on a DL-BR disc so they opted to have the first game on the disc and have 2 and 3 downloaded as a day-1 update.

@acidflare
They wouldn’t cost that much. Don’t forget they can compress the data so it could be smaller. Heck square charged $70 for ports of the classic final fantasies and they weren’t anywhere near 32 or 64 gb to justify the price. If they were to divide the collection as asylum and city in one double pack and knight in a stand-alone release they could absolutely do so. This is purely an anti consumer practice. Even if I was to have the largest memory card available (1TB) these games that are like this would cannibalize that space quickly. It’s not as if they are incentivizing consumers to go strictly digital with cheaper prices! You are still being charged the same price either way. Anyway I’d sooner pay a slightly higher price to play straight out of the box than hunt around and make a special trip just to download games I bought in store to have to go to the eshop to download the rest.

@IceClimbersMain no thanks

Well at least the first game is on cartridge
So will get the cartridge one

@IceClimbersMain

Hope not. I just hope it'll be a cartridge-based, portable system that you can dock to your TV.

@IceClimbersMain Everybody is addressing what you said about discs, but for me the crazy part is that you suggest a non-portable system. No thanks, I think that sales indicate what most people prefer and that would be a huge step backwards.

Sounds like it the same as Bioshock collection. Which is good at least due to this.

You insert the cartridge and the missing titles just download. No entering codes (like borderlands collection) I can share the physical cart of Bioshock with my wife and she'll be able to download and play the games. As long as cart is inserted.

How are these not cloud-streamed games like the Kingdom Hearts games?

For resale purposes after an eventual eshop closure, I prefer this to only having parts of each game on there.

@huyi Why did you say "basically"? Epic literally gave this collection away for free a while back!

And yeah, while I understand that some people need the portable aspect of the Switch (and carrying a laptop and controller around isn't quite the same!), I do find it odd how averse some others are to playing on PC in general.
You don't even need a gaming PC- just a typical office laptop now has better graphical capabilities than the Switch (even my office laptop from 2015 came close!), and the whole aspect of tweaking settings is typically a non-issue, unless you really care about having the best possible graphics you can get at 60fps... in which case you wouldn't tolerate most consoles/handhelds, anyway.

@Dm9982
Same here. Closing in on 500 Switch titles. Will probably be looking for 1TB SD Card deals this holiday season.

@acidflare Those figures are for the PC versions of the Arkham games, though, which support way higher texture (and video) resolutions than Switch. You can probably knock a gigabyte or two off the first two games, and take off half the file size of Knight. Maybe even more, with better compression. Just guessing, though, as I haven't analyzed the folders to see what all is in there.

Also, Spyro Reignited is 39 GB on PC, which is easily small enough to fit on a dual-layer BD. The third game was probably just not ready on time.

@huyi
I own the first game on 360 and PS4. The second one on 360, WiiU, and PS4. ORIGINS on WiiU and KNIGHT on PS4. Have most of the DLC. That being said, I am not shelling out $600.00 for a SteamDeck. I will gladly pay $60.00 USD to have the proper trilogy in a portable format. That's who this game is for. Not people who will play it on a TV or monitor.

@dil_power
Because the PC ports are trash.

well better than creedy konami with their mgs collection that has only 2.4 gb on the card

So, if I buy a used copy one day while eshop is still active, I'll still get all three games, unlike with the collections that use downloadcodes?

Thanks, I‘ll pass on buying in that case. Nice to save all that time I would spend playing!

thats dumb arkham city was on a disc on wii u another developer being lazy as usual.

Well I'm sure even Stevie Wonder saw that coming.

This was predictable

@IceClimbersMain - Yeah, because COD and GoW and MK11 are entirely on discs and not totally 300mb keycode with a mandatory download.

Cause that would be way too true!

i remember capcom did the same with the mega man collections which is lazy as well.

Why even bother with a physical release? This is the one thing I really hate about the Switch.

It is not surprising, I think I would be better off buying all these games on Steam for far cheaper so I can play them on my Steam Deck where they will run and look better. In a mostly digital world that makes the most sense for me.

Will not get it then. Gonna go for MGS pack 1 because I like the franchise, but it bothers me the amount of things you have to download. Not gonna do that with 2 different games/franchises

Another reason to avoid

To be honest, I'm mostly digital on Switch, it's not like the Vita where the memory cards were proprietary and over priced, so I just like the convenience of having lots of games on there at once. With these types of collections I tend to only download the game I'm playing. Mainly I hope they run OK, as the remastered version of City on PS4 is a mess.

Having said that, for people who do like physical carts, this is not ideal.

What a horrible news! I planned to get it but I changed my mind now. Then I'll get it on Blu-rays for PS3 and PS4.

@Teksetter If it involves the Bat, I’ll be there😂
I agree. I’m glad we have the first one on the cart at least. Gotta love those scarecrow sections!

@huyi I already own all the Arkham games but will buy this as it would be great to have portable, same as I've done with Doom, Dying Light and others. Also some may only have a Switch and might have missed out on these games previously. I get your point but no everyone fits the same mold.

Not that I sell many games, even once completed , but for those that do, does this not stop resale value. Once you have donwloaded the non cartridge based games and say you sell the cart. The fact that the download has been done previously , does this not make it impossible to do so on another console. Or is it different with a included cart as oppossed to a code in a box copy.

is this a form of drm.

@GameOtaku I will buy it digitally anyway.

@KITG_GROUP If the cartridge is not in the console the game can not be played. It's as simple as that.

@IceClimbersMain not going to happen. Why disc based? You do know that games on other platforms need to be installed to run on them right? It takes a freaking long time to install the game from the disc, and then the disc only works as the key to access the game. At least the Switch uses the carts to play the games.

@WhiteTrashGuy Same here. I’ve been tempted to grab it during one of the Amazon sales when it’s $100, but I keep telling myself no because of how long it’s gonna take me to reinstall everything 😂😭 Sucks living in a rural area where the internet speed caps at 25mb/1.5mb

Nintendo could earn a nice little side gig, offering their services in cramming massive games into tiny amounts of storage space…

Seriously, how are they so good at fitting big games into such small file sizes?

@Dm9982
I am lucky in that department. But still... If I want to re-download any of the Saints Rows, Darksiders, NBA2Ks, or MK11 I am looking at an hour. Would rather just have everything on there.

@Dm9982
What I typically do is format the new SD card after ripping all the old files to my PC. Then just move the Nintendo folder to the new SD card via PC. Still takes 3 hours, though, lol.

Bummer, was about to double dip as I own the trilogy on Xbox, but I think I shall pass with these news.

@Thwomp_Stomper
Same Bat time, same Bat channel!
It’s been way too long since I watched the old Adam West TV show. Didn’t Vincent Price play Egghead in that series?
You know I was happy somehow seeing someone made a game homage to He-Man, Thundercats, and Saturday Morning Cartoons in the Direct this week (MythForce?). Maybe someday somebody will create a campy Batman game.

As it is, I’ve only played City and not the others in this trilogy. Asylum is so well-regarded, I’ve wanted to try it for a while now, though.

@WhiteTrashGuy Lol yeah, it’s lengthy either way. And the times I’ve used the pc I usually end up with a lock up/error, so I gave up on that route.

It’s really surprising to me they don’t allow multiple storage cards. Same issue the Vita had, so you’d think it woulda been rectified for Switch. 3DS did the same as well, but a 64-128gb card there gave you an amazing amount of room. There’s only a few games left on my 3DS cloud that I can’t install at the same time, but I also have a bunch of digital titles - all the Pokémon, all the Mario, all the Zelda (minus Oot/MM3D, those I have physical), Metal Gear, all SMT, all FE, all Monster Hunter, Donkey Kong, Luigi Mansion, Castlevania, and a bunch of other JRPGs/RPGs. Much harder to run outta room even with cheaper smaller cards…..

Another option would be allowing portable HD/SSD to run the games….. truly hope they figure something out for Switch 2 (and I hope they keep the portable nature for the next console!)

Arkham City on Wii U was the first time I ever played an Arkham game, & it's one of my favorite games ever. Then downloaded Arkham Origins &, despite it's many bugs, is also a really, really fun game (I like it just as much as Arkham City). And while not as good, I also really enjoyed Arkham Origins: Blackgate HD on Wii U, as well. So I'm ecstatic about the trilogy coming to Switch, as I've never owned any form of Xbox, & the last Playstation I've owned was a PS2. I'm super excited to be able to play Arkham Asylum & Arkham Knight now. I just wish Arkham Origins (& Origins: Blackgate) would come to Switch.

Is there a way to purchase Arkham knight separately?

I totally understand why people want physical games (it's no longer practical for me given my life and work requirements). But in this day of endless DLC, patches and season passes are there really any physical games left that don't require extensive downloads anyway.....?

Also, I am really surprised and happy to hear that Knight (admittedly in my opinion the weakest of the three) is not a cloud version.

@IceClimbersMain There's very little chance of that happening. Many switch owners bought a switch for its portability so they'd be left behind. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a proper home console as it may mean a significantly more powerful system but the Steam Deck has shown that you can have a recently powered handheld system.

@Dm9982 I raised the storage issue on here as my main desire for the Switch 2. 2TB SD cards still aren't out and will be very expensive for at least three years after release. Two SD slots or more seems like a no brainer to me but still nithing to date, even on Steam Deck I believe (biggest thing that puts me off of getting one).

I don't care about that! I'm going to get it digital anyway, since I don't have much space left for my physical games. I'm just glad it's not cloud based. Cloud gaming is awful. I have 1 gb of speed and it still lags.

@johnvboy
I am curious to see what will happen with the next system, while im hoping its still a "switch" i wonder how well things like compression has progressed or whether the larger more expensive carts will end up the new norm or how much larger the file sizes will end up.

Then again looking at something like crisis core the ps5 version ended up having a smaller file size than the ps4 version, almost half the size of it in fact.

What?! How lame. I despise partial downloads.

It's a pity. When the Switch was announced, One of the most interesting things when the Switch was the possibility of having entire games in one cartridge instead of needing to download the rest. Too bad manufacturing costs coupled with reluctant publishers scuppered that dream...

@Qwertyninty Almost certainly. Borderlands and bioshock could. I know this is a different release but I'm sure we'll have the option.

@Dm9982
Yeah, most of my 3DS collection is physical. Really didn't start downloading retail releases until the WiiU / PS4 era. As such, I have an external drive hooked up to my WiiU and it works great. Being able to have one hooked to the dock for the Switch 2 and then being able to freely access the games when docked or move games back and forth between the system's internal/SD storage would be way better than having to use the internet all the time. But yes, it's time for 1TB, lol.

They should've just added the Return to Arkham set, then take more time to tune Knight and sell it separately. I have the Ezio Trilogy for Switch, and Revelations looks REALLY bad.

Not ideal, but at least it means it's not a "cloud" game. And I'd still take this over a sheet of paper with download codes... then you lose all the benefits of getting a physical game.

It does mean the cart is effectively just a physical license key, but you can still share/trade/resell that for as long as the Nintendo servers are online.

@Warioware It means you can trade, share, loan and resell your games. Even if the cartridge is just a physical DRM key effectively.

@IceClimbersMain Most games in other consoles still need to download 10GB+ of data for "updates". Sometimes even more.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/589d6i/beware_of_return_to_arkham_update_sizes/

This makes no difference, because of patches. There's no point putting any data on the physical release when it's obsolete on release day anyway.

@Warioware Yeah multiple cards would help fix the issue, even allowing to swap. This should be able to be patched into the current Switch truthfully. If you’ve ever popped the card out accidentally while the switch was running it’s really no different than popping a cart out. The games retain the thumbnails but can’t play them obviously until you pop the card back in.

So why can’t I have a second card with some of my bigger titles on it ready to go at a moments notice, turn the system off and swap them out?

@sremick fair point. I was all physical for years but I move around too much these days.

@Dm9982 I actually want a couple of card slots so I don't have to keep changing and doing this Tetris job with data management. Also constantly changing can put wear on the cards ans inceeases the risk of losing the tiny things. Another thing that doesn't help is the Switch's awful save data manager that only allows one deletion at a time. Pretty sure I have a couple of GBs in wasted system memory because deleting saves individually (and the refresh load that happens after) is so time consuming. Just let us delete multiple save files!

@Warioware Yeah most definitely on the next Switch. And it’s not like multiple card slots take up a tremendous amount of room, or battery. Very minimal.

And I concur. If the system can select 3-4+ to delete at once for you to clear room for a big game, why can’t the user? So odd. They def need to patch the data management. For the current system if we could get multi file select, card hot swap, and a quick sort of games via genre without having to manually make those folders…. Just an easier way gather similar games all up and dump them into a folder. Instead of having to browse 400+ Thumbnails and attempt to remember which game is which genre for sure.

Im a dad with two kids, I ain’t got time to organize that slowly. 😂

I buy physical because Nintendo don’t have the best track record at keeping their digital services available in the future (although I do think this will change as of Switch). I seriously would’ve considered this and MGS vol 1 but now I’m put off.

This kind of thing is unfortunately becoming common. As long as the publishers are being upfront about it I think that’s amicable.
I’ll just be getting this digitally now, that’s all!
Can’t wait for a review to see how Arkham Knight runs, that’s one I’ve never played and it looks fairly graphically intense.
Still very much excited about this release!

@RiasGremory the crap they pulled with mega man is BS and made no sense to me. No way that didn’t all fit on even a 4GB card.

@IceClimbersMain
We all know the reason why Nintendo avoids discs, especially with today's situation where a certain company holds a monopoly on discs as a physical medium. They aren't gonna work with Panasonic again to get some knock-off proprietary Ultra HD Blu-ray in an attempt to avoid paying licensing fees to Sony and the BDA, not to mention the handheld form factor is what put the Switch up in 3rd place.

At least it sounds like the games run NATIVELY and won't need an internet connection to stream the gameplay...right?

@Sisilly_G ahh so good to know about the multiple launchers. I was curious what would happen w the Pikmin 1+2 bundle…

@Dm9982 : And loading the list of save data whenever I want to delete something takes so friggin' long. Has Nintendo never heard of a cache?

And heaven help you if you want to delete more than one file...

@ChromaticDracula : Both collections should have been thrown onto a single cart. Capcom's handling of the Mega Man Legacy releases was so unfathomably stupid and inexcusable.

The only way of owning the entire collection physically was to buy an expensive (and long out-of-print) box set, as part II of the first Mega Man collection was not made available physically any other way.

@Sisilly_G Yeah! I love my Switch, hands down my favorite current system, and favorite handheld Nintendo has made. But there’s a few small things that could be easily fixed and should be. A large portion of it in Data Management.

I get I’m probably in the minority club of 200+ games, but there’s enough of us that Nintendo should keep in mind our issues. I need more space dang it! And a better way to organize it!

@Dm9982 : I'm a touch embarrassed to admit to also being a member of said club.

I don't even think it's hyperbolic anymore to say that my backlog would take more than a lifetime to complete.

@Sisilly_G haha, same here. I still have 3DS, Ps4, and Xbox backlogs as well, tho not quiet as massive. Few big games amongst em though like FE Shadows, Radiant Historia, DQ7&8, Fantasy Life….. God of War & GoW Rag, Fallout 4, Hogwarts. Cyberpunk, Elden Ring…. Just a few of the major ones I’ve either not started or barely started. Still haven’t finished BotW or started TotK yet either.

Did finish Infernax and the story of Diablo 4 recently. Have so much still to do on D4 though. 😂 Slowly but surely…. I’ll be happy if I can complete like 30-40% of my backlog at this point.

@Dm9982 : I've been playing almost nothing but TOTK since its release, so, I haven't made so much as a dent in anything else.

@Sisilly_G lol, don’t blame ya! I made the mistake of starting D4 first, largely because my friend had finished TotK and started D4. Ah well, end in sight on this and can start TotK soon. I usually have a second game rotating at the same time to break up monotony on larger games. Currently I’ve been bouncing between Fantasy Life (such a great game, can’t wait for the sequel!) and Empire of Sin on Switch. Needed a mobster fix, and sadly Godfather never got remastered/ported forward. Need more games like that.

Another oldie that’s not mentioned often that I wish they’d bring back - Def Jam Fight for Ny/Vendetta. Need to keep that rpg-lite build your own fighter tho.

@nocdaes btw I just want to add but I checked wikipedia regarding the Arkham Asylum port to Switch. It seems it is being based off the original versions and not the Return to Arkham version.

@Dm9982
That would be amazing. Being able to have a hard drive hooked up to the dock and then you could just transfer games to the Switch when wanting to play portable. That's what I do with the WiiU and my digital PS4 collection for my PS5.