Uh-Oh! It Looks Like Donkey Kong Bananza Is Already Out In The Wild

Can you imagine what would happen if it were a game-key card for real? Man, I'd have to go fetch popcorn.

Figured as much.

Really wish they made the game card yellow like the N64 ones

@SirLink Whatever faith I have in Nintendo would have gone up in smoke, I tell you that!

I'm not surprised by this. Some things always manage to get purchased before the official launch date.

Can’t wait to play this Thursday, gotta avoid spoilers till then!

No biggie imo

@Bower227 and Donkey Kong Land, Donkey Kong Land 2, and Donkey Kong Land 3!

I can imagine they are far less bothered if they are not dumped and leaked Online. (And playable).

I'm just surprised the game leaked 4 days before launch rather than a full 2 weeks before release.

GameStop charged me yesterday I think. So I assume I will be getting it in the mail before launch.

Why would anyone think it was a game key card? Nintendo said weeks ago they will not be using game key cards.

I expect Nintendo will be bricking his Switch 2 any day now.

Welp, Nintendo vs the internet continues.
Who will win?
Big corporation that can't see everything?

Or the masses who can just keep reposting these games as soon as they get a digital preorder/person lets a cart slip?

Really, at this point, you'd be doing yourself a service only reporting on a Nintendo game NOT being out in the wild days before its release. It's more rule than exception.

@TheFunkyPhantom
It's the internet. How else are you gonna start a rumor?

My copy shipped on friday. Hopefully it arrives tomorrow, or on tuesday 😁

It was nice seeing all of you guys, see you in 2 weeks, I don't want to get spoiled for this one 🤣

When they launch it will barrel brick their console.

"The same individual says they didn't get it from a store, but instead through their "connection""

Other words Theft from warehouse and they will find whom did it.

its kind of fishy for him getting that game through a connection he knows so it tells us he got it illegally.

i have seen some games on store shelves a week before they officially suppose to be released so this is nothing new some stores will sell them before the official release date.

Hopefully, everyone who wants to avoid the leaks does so successfully!

I remember the SNES and N64 days with fondness where you used to get paper inserts like care leaflets, posters and adverts with games. Now we get jack

@SirLink I can already imagine the BS scenario. Then comes the rants and the attitudes and blah, blah, and blah...It's not even new to me anymore.

Why am I NOT surprised...? We all expected this to happen. It shouldn't be a surprise anymore. This has been like this since the 2010's or earlier...Honestly...

I've grown numb and jaded to this stuff already by this point.

Why is someone getting a game before its release date actually a bad thing?

@Purgatorium Mostly because of spoilers. That's a majority of why folks have this issue. I can understand not wanting to be spoiled but some will take it to the most ridiculous extremes. Almost to the point of being incredibly petty. for me...it's one thing to see spoilers but it's another to experience the game itself when I actually play it.

@Purgatorium

Because people want to be angry about things that don’t matter in order to get attention on the internet.

I have a copy as well but I’m not going to load it up early and risk getting my console banned…

@Bower227 yeah but they're red like doom and maximum carnage for snes instead!!

Not really a big deal, hell, many people have played a few hours at the expo things, I don't think there's a whole lot to spoil/be surprised about.

I was not interested in the game at all but the Direct totally changed my mind. It looks hella fun and I can't wait for Thursday!

Can SOME people not wait like the rest of us?

I'm just waiting for the review embargo to drop.

@SirLink Don't they always disclose whether it's a game card or not on the box? I don't even know why people were questioning it.

@Orwellian87 how'd you get it?

@Yojimbo
This stuff is big business, you can probably find videos with hundreds of the thousands of views claiming it’s a key card release and other BS.

...Didn't Nintendo make it where the Switch 2 was completely locked out if people got it before launch?...Can't they just do that with the games at this point? lol

@Joeynator3000 I thought it was digital purchases only but I could be wrong

@DominionGamma I think it needed to go online and check before it could be used for anything. So if you got it a week early you were pretty much screwed, even with physical games. lol

EDIT: Now that I think about it, think this was after launch, too...if you had no internet when you got the Switch 2, it'd be completely useless. lol

@Lanmanna luck of the draw I suppose. It was delivered last Thursday.

He doesn’t have to wait till release date to update the title. Plenty of reviewers already have the copy, and Nintendo is not gonna brick their system for updating to a patch that they purposefully uploaded ahead of time.

Are they actually giving them to the media early this time? If not, this guy should auction it off to reviewers.

Once my Switch 2 arrives (managed to snag one via Target's website a couple days ago), this is going to be one of the first games I am going to get for it. While I kind of like the Donkey Kong games, they were never my favorite nor my first choice (especially compared to Metroid, Star Fox, Zelda, and Super Smash Bros.); but this one looks fun! So I am definitely looking forward to it!

"Some replies to this post also raised some concerns about the type of game card included, and the user responded, stating it's not a "game-key card" but an "actual" game card."

It's not like Nintendo has included this ugly wall of text on every box when it's a game key card, with a big "game key card" visible 😑

It would be funny if Nintendo "brick" the Switch 2 if you play games early. That would teach them!

I mean if they got a game a few weeks early I could understand it being a news story. But 3 days? That's nothing. Distribution will have started a while ago. Thousands probably already have their copy.

@RadioShadow Hard to see how they could possibly get away with this given that the fault would lie with whoever sold the copy early rather than the recipient. You can't expect everyone to magically 'know' when a game is and isn't supposed to be available after all.

Seeing as its alrdy available to dl on private trackers, im not surprised someone actually admitted to having a copy.

People being angry about some of us getting the game early, has nothing to do with spoilers, it's just envy.
And I bet all the once complaining, would be happy themselves, if the game arrived early.

No idea why people thought this was gonna be a game key release. Mario Kart World wasn’t a key release either. 1st parties isn’t gonna be an issue at all regarding key releases because

1. They are not gonna be bigger then a 64 cart on release

2. Nintendo is not gonna cheap out on their own software to kill their own sales ceiling potential.

It’s most third parties is what you got to look out for.

@eldersnake Given the leaks we have now seen, that is way off.

Edit: I simply mean that we have confirmation that the 3D Mario team have not forgotten how to surprise and delight us.

Why does stuff like this always make headlines? This happens with literally every game before release. Someone out there gets it early, posts it on social media and everyone acts like it's the first time it's ever happened. Then people go "Wooaaoohh! Will they play it before the rest of us!?!" and the answer is always something along the lines of "Something something we can't because XYZ, or update, or cuz we'll get our console bricked, so we have to wait until release day "

I remember when Cyberpunk was coming out, and it was the exact same type of post... Same when Pokémon Scarlett & Violet, etc. You never know where the game comes from or how it was obtained, and the "sources" are always secret.

History repeating itself. At this point, I'm getting the impression that it's all scripted to build hype / chase clout.

@Arawn93 Yeah thinking Nintendo's 1st party AAA releases would be game-key cards is nutty - the game-key cards are just going to be for smaller eShop things that would've probably not gotten any kind of physical release otherwise. Obviously all the big first-party games are going to be "real" game cards.

Would you really want to expose yourself to the high chance of getting your console banned by playing Donkey Kong a few days early?

@DevinRex Yeah, games have been leaked online for as long as there have been online networks to leak them onto.
Even SNES and Genesis games apparently got leaked ahead of release, with scene groups begging for leakers to boost their warez cred. It's just that far fewer people had online access in those days to ever be aware of their activities.
(There's even at least a few games that never made to legitimate sale though.)

I was only looking at the leaks in order to get directions away from the leaks.

I just couldn't help myself and looked at the leaks. I really wanted to know whether K. Rool was in the game or not. Now that I know the truth, I could almost cry. I won't spoil whether they're tears of joy or sorrow, though.

That's concerning. As much as i want physical media, with so many day 1 patches needed, what's the point? Later physical carts won't have the day 1 patch on it. And if it's a game breaking bug that the patch fixes, you'll never be able to play pre-patch.

Someone please give me the story details so I can keep them safe.

Coming soon: All games will require an initial online connection to work to ensure the game can't be played earlier than its scheduled release. 🤭🧐

@RadioShadow Or maybe it won't play until system date is correct and anyone who manually changes it will screw themselves up as the system.can only have a manual date offline and as soon as you go online it corrects clock and screws future dated saves. You can't innocently get a game early and play it then.

@Bower227 now I need my copy to be yellow. I hope you are happy creating me a need for a yellow game card.

We know Nintendo games won’t come on game-key cards because we eat up Nintendo news every day. How is the average person supposed to know? Where is Nintendo’s statement about it, they’re not plastering it on billboards.

Nintendo thought these were a good look for the console and “good enough” for 3rd party games, so not a stretch to think their games would also come on them.