@Coffee-Waffle Actually, I believe the upper-right of the trio of 12s on the European box is the Russian rating (PEGI's the upper-left, German USK is the lower). Keep in mind this came out before Putin went [words and reasons I can't describe on this site].
@Liam_Doolan So, we're talking about a Switch 2 SKU that supposedly launched nine months ago, before we even knew much about the Switch 2 including the fact that the dreaded game-key cards that this SKU avoids using were even a thing...What kind of wizardry are they trying to pull off, anyway?
Gotta wonder, just when did basketball become more of a space hog than golf? I remember when some PGA games (EA's, this was before 2K was in the golf game) needed two Gamecube discs due to the vast number of courses included; nowadays, golf's roughly half the size of basketball...
Well, there's three games I've narrowed down to in my mind as to what I think GOTY will come down to...Which is probably bad news for all of them, since I similarly narrowed down last year's field to three in the same manner, and Astro Bot was not one of those three...
(Of course I'm not going to say which three of this year's crop I've narrowed it to! Don't want to jinx things!)
@Tainaru That analogy of yours (the plastic case being the only thing physical about it) fits code-in-box releases better. A game-key card release at least has the card (which has the download key coded on it) in the package; the card is the reason why there are people and outlets who can call it a physical release. Keep in mind that there are some PS5 and Xbox Series X releases--many of those put out through the brands within the Xbox corporate fold--that are just as bad if not worse than game-key cards (minimal data on a medium that costs far less than even game-key cards, and no requirement to be upfront about their nature unlike game-key cards)...
Now, game-key cards do allow easy sharing, easy trade-ins for those who are in the habit, and possibly the best way to get games not actually available in a player's region without needing to use a foreign eShop account (the best example of that would be a hypothetical Switch 2 port of "Venus Vacation Prism: Dead or Alive Xtreme" assuming its regional availability and language options precisely match those of the already-extant versions of the game; the versions of that game already extant are available only in Asia but have English-language support). For most people, though, the cons tend to outweigh the pros...
Now, I don't yet have a Switch 2, but I still gotta say this given what I do with my original Switch (and what I plan to do with a Switch 2 once I actually get one)...where's the option for "I don't use a dock at all"? What are us handheld-only players to whomever came up with these polls, chopped liver?
@RoboCube I think you mistook Astro's Playroom for Astro Bot there. Astro's Playroom's the PS5 pack-in, pre-installed on every console. Astro Bot's a full-on retail release and typically a separate purchase (although given how much of a tentpole game it is, PS5 bundles including the Astro Bot game do in fact exist--which may have helped stir up the earlier-mentioned confusion to begin with)...
"Save data carries over"...sure, but almost certainly not between a Switch 1 demo and a Switch 2 full version. Demo save's platform's probably going to have to match that of the full version given the nature of their SKUs...
@MirrorFate2 All of the characters in question (Sally, Bunnie, Nicole, Rotor, and Antoine) originated on SatAM, and Sega has full ownership of the characters who originated on that series. Doesn't mean they're in by any stretch of the imagination (they'd be based on their SatAM versions if they do somehow get in), but the legal red tape you're implying keeping them for-sure out doesn't actually exist (at worst, you mistook those characters for actual OCs from the Archie comic continuity--THOSE characters are the ones snarled in legal red tape, not anyone originally from the games or SatAM).
The fact that the comic versions of all of those characters survived the Penders incident (or, to get technical, the "Super Genesis Wave" as in-universe events played out), albeit not unscathed (as if any of the survivors really did make it through unscathed), should've tipped people off as to who owns them...
@MisterStu Actually, we've already had an instance where Japan/Asia got a game-key card but the west got a proper physical, in the form of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Expectedly, the PS5 version sold better in Japan while the Switch 2 version sold better in Europe.
Now, we can't say for sure something like that's going to happen again--but we also can't say for sure something like that's not going to happen again. (Also can't rule in or rule out a situation where the regions are reversed--as in Asia gets the proper physical and the west gets the game-key card.) Doesn't have to be the game this article's primarily talking about...
@HaNks As much as I'd like to see that, I'm willing to bet the oddsmakers are already taking bets as to which anime license makes use of this engine first...
Ah, the days when it was more common to reskin games when it came to deal with regionalized source licenses as opposed to just leaving them inaccessible completely. Back when the Internet wasn't widespread, it was far easier to get away with such a thing--after all, back in the late 1980s, would any westerner have been expected to have even heard of Anmitsu Hime, much less been able to piece together that its licensed Master System game was reskinned into Alex Kidd: High-Tech World for the western market?
(It's also the whole "untranslatable source license" deal that I believe J.J. & Jeff on TurboGrafx-16 caught a bit too much flak for the censorship it underwent. Yes, the content certainly was toned down for the western market, that much is undeniable, but its original Japanese incarnation had an untranslatable source license, meaning they actually had a valid excuse to tone things down. Now, "Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan" did have one segment get adapted internationally--the segment in question led to "America's Funniest Home Videos"--but the licensed video game in question adapted a different segment of the original Japanese show unrelated to the home video portion of the format...)
@Elektrogeist1287 Just don't count on there being a true physical in the event such a release were to happen. ****, given the track record nowadays of the distribution network we'd be going through now (read: Xbox), there's no guarantee the rival platforms would get proper physicals either, especially if such a proper physical would need more than one 50 GB disc to facilitate an Xbox hardware release (even though the discs necessary would cost less than a Switch 2 game-key card)...
Wonder just how the upgrade path will actually work? We know it's not in the same fashion as a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" deal, since those don't get game-key cards (they either get full-on-card physicals--ones that can also be played on the predecessor system at that--or else no dedicated Switch 2 physical at all)...Still, other publishers cough*Sega*cough*SquareEnix*cough should take note, given the amount of products being given no upgrade path whatsoever...
Gotta wonder, just who's that mainly blue-clad plumber on the cover? He does have some red on the scheme, so it may or may not be a distinct character from Mario...a scrapped Inverse Mario power-up, perhaps? Or maybe an early idea for what eventually became Wario? (They did have roughly four years from this point to flesh him out, though...)
@Bizzyb Yeah, given the track record of the brands under the Xbox umbrella (of which Bethesda is one) these days, odds are better you'd get struck by lightning while holding jackpot-winning tickets for both Powerball and Mega Millions simultaneously than this announcement leading to a proper full-on-card physical release. Shoot, track record suggests even (the Switch 2's) rival platforms wouldn't have gotten full physicals if such an option were there...
(Yeah, the Xbox physical track record is so bad these days, full-on-disc physicals even on their own hardware being few and far between as of late, one might think Nintendo was taking note when they whipped up their game-key card guidelines. And we all know how well THOSE have been going down...)
@PlusFan Nope, never been rereleased. And unless they do some sort of "Collection of Gaia" (Square Enix doesn't do NSO), it's likely to remain in purgatory...
@HammerGalladeBro Now you've got me thinking "Rare Kart" here...which may not be that bad an idea--such an idea would probably be the closest we'd ever get to a proper follow-up to Diddy Kong Racing roster-wise...
What's the rest of the platform split for Little Nightmares III, then? There's still 67% the article itself didn't account for (well, at most 67%--the numbers don't always add up to a clean 100%), and the chart doesn't list any platform splits for that title...
Volume 10...The one that, if it were to get an American release, would be the one that carried the ESRB's M rating on it (possibly on an E-M rating range icon, given the nature of the collection), given it's got the one and only game in the entire Arcade Archives line thus far to be rated so harsh (Samurai Shodown V Special)...
(For the record, a hypothetical European release would carry the PEGI 16; Australia'd slap on their MA15+...)
If this rumored Singaporean eShop is anything like the corresponding already-extant Singaporean PSN when it comes to offerings and interface options...something tells me it'll get quickly slammed by foreign traffic. Such a storefront would presumably offer a sizable number game releases offered specifically in Asian regions while including an option for an English interface. I've read that Singaporean PSN cards are popular among the import crowd for those very reasons--I'd bet that import-specialty sites would have trouble keeping Singaporean eShop cards stocked in the early going...
So, looks like even the Japanese have revealed they've caught on to what game-key cards are like, given Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion sold better on PS5 at retail than on Switch 2 (the Japanese Switch 2 "physical" is one of those dreaded game-key card deals)...Guess those Japanese who wanted a physical of that game either got it on PS5 or imported a western Switch 2 copy (those are proper physicals), the latter of which wouldn't show up on their charts...
(And yes, for the record, the western Switch 2 physicals do in fact support Japanese...)
@AverageGamer Somehow, I'd've thought we wouldn't get "street-date break, playable copies in the wild early" situations like this with game-key cards...You'd think they'd've, at the very least, locked the download to unlock at the official time, much like a digital preorder, in order to render the street-date-breaker's efforts futile...Guess many of us now have even lower opinions of these game-key card things than ever before (and I was already pretty much no fan of them to begin with), now that probably what could've been their biggest "advantage" is nullified...
@Serpenterror Don't count on a full physical. In addition to being a very hoggy game, we're talking a game under the Xbox umbrella, they've basically been "game-key discs" on the platforms competing against Nintendo's without upfront disclosure, if they even get physical versions at all. A Switch 2 game-key card may very well be the best this game treats consumers at retailers, if only for the fact that Switch 2 game-key cards are upfront about their nature...
Winning at Street Fighter 6 with a guitar? Reminds me of those fishing rod controllers that you could play the original SoulCalibur with (and they worked with a tennis game, too)...
@Coalescence Could even toss the originals onto the Nintendo Classics applications for good measure, complete with support...And given that the control remapping options in both the N64 and SNES applications explain how the controls work, they might not necessarily have to hack into the game code itself...
@Ulysses I do seem to recall the original Game Boy had a pocket sonar, complete with fishing minigame. That's all the dedicated fishing-related stuff I recall on the Nintendo front, although I'm sure quite a few of us remember the Dreamcast's fishing controller (a few of its primary-purpose compatible games have already been mentioned--and I say "primary-purpose" compatible games since there might be some mentions of its existing crafty non-fishing applications forthcoming)...
@DiamondJim Knowing the third-party trends, that'd be a longshot. The sportsbooks will probably be listing odds heavily favoring use of the dreaded game-key cards...which begs the question, who'll make more money when it comes to "physical" copies of this game, Capcom or bookies selling sucker bets?
"and a physical version is also believed to be on the way to the Switch 2"
Define "physical version". Is it full game completely on the card (yay), is it one of those dreaded game-key cards (boo), or is it one of those ghastly code-in-a-box deals (grab the pitchforks)?
As much of a can of worms the game-key cards are on Switch 2, keep in mind that the brands part of the Xbox fold have been guilty of scummier practices. Nintendo packaging for game-key cards, codes-in-boxes, and even "partial physicals" are more often than not upfront about their nature (as in, you know what corners have been cut just by looking at the package); Microsoft's been known to put out a few "game-key discs" on both their own platform as well as PS5 and not being upfront about it on the packaging (keep in mind they're using a medium capable of storing as much as 100 GB and putting on enough data that would leave quite a bit of space to spare on a mini-CD)--a "partial physical" (as in, enough data to fit most of a single-layer non-4K Blu-ray disc) is a godsend in comparison. Let's just say if Switch 2's game-key cards have gone down like a lead balloon, those "game-key discs" have gone down like a balloon made/filled with something even denser and heavier.
And keep in mind quite a few of these games are so hoggy that even a "proper" Switch 2 physical wouldn't exactly be practical in most cases (as in, a proper physical would probably take up at least two or three whole 64 GB cards, and another beyond that if they went for the approach of being able to directly play off any of the cards rather than the installation card approach, and even those figures probably wouldn't be sufficient for something like Call of Duty)...
@KingMike Popeye and Spartan-X at least have valid excuses for not showing up--they're external licenses (Popeye to his comic strip origin with music originating from earlier adaptations, Spartan-X to the film "Wheels on Meals"), meaning Nintendo doesn't own the music that originated from their respective source materials and earlier adaptations. Odds are if either one of them were to show up with a playlist, it'd be a stripped-down playlist of music that Nintendo does own--and there's no guarantee that there's any game-original tunes in those games, and no guarantee that Nintendo would actually own such game-original tunes if there were.
Any other external license Nintendo took out is also unlikely to ever show up on Nintendo Music for similar reasons; don't expect to see Hamtaro or Eyeshield 21 game soundtracks on Nintendo Music anytime soon, and if there were to be a PlayStation counterpart to this service, we wouldn't expect their Bleach stuff to show up there...
70 minutes, huh? Given the 1st-4th place results screen takes 53 minutes or so (64 loops of the first set of beats) to even get to its second set of beats, that either leaves just less than 17 minutes for the rest of the stuff or they somehow truncated the 1st-4th place results screen track to take less time to cover all of its distinct beats (probably the latter, 64 loops is quite excessive)...
@Mariotag Prime 4's not up for preorder yet, unlike Legends Z-A. I have a feeling Prime 4'll get added to the scheme once the preorders do open up (assuming the current release window holds)...
@Jumwa Exactly--straight up comparing every specification at once isn't going to be one-to-one. We could be looking at "only slightly better than base PS4" in one spec, "comparable to PS4 Pro" in another, and "just short of Xbox Series S" in a third. (Quite easy for people to forget that PS4 Pro, and Xbox One X for that matter, is even a thing these days; don't really remember mentions of those particular models being thrown around that much since the initial Cyberpunk 2077 debacles--let's just say that game might not have gotten as much initial flak had they been allowed to cut the base PS4 and base Xbox One out of the loop and require the PS4 Pro/Xbox One X at minimum...)
@Grumblevolcano Not surprised...I'm as much of a non-fan of these game-key card things as anybody else, but given just how hoggy these kind of games are on the first Switch (let's just say they would've needed a 64 GB option there to even have the possibility of not requiring a download--keep in mind publishers were skittish on the option half that size as it was), it was already clear a straight-up full physical version wasn't on the cards...
@XenoShaun "NBA 2K26 Superstar Edition and Leave No Doubt Edition not available in Belgium and South Korea." I wonder why...
@ROOCIS That'd be moreso the "technical issues" than "requiring the Expansion Pak". The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask also requires the Expansion Pak, and that's already in the regular collection; Perfect Dark's functionality is extremely limited without the Expansion Pak, and that's already in the mature collection.
Gotta wonder...if we were to make use of 64 GB game cards for something along the lines of Black Ops 7 proper (not factoring Warzone), how many would they need? Doubt two (one for the campaign, one for its own dedicated multiplayer) would be enough given just how hoggy Call of Duty is these days even in comparison to other hoggy games.
Hate to say it, but something super-hoggy like Call of Duty might justify the game key card format for some people; to be fair, for one, we can assume multi-launcher is possible to allow separate downloads of campaign and multiplayer (and also save a trip to the eShop when it comes to Warzone, that of which we wouldn't anticipate a proper physical in any event), and for two, Microsoft these days have been known to be even scummier when it comes to physical discs on the rival platforms...
Wouldn't be the first time Tomba's had problems with a successive-generation system...at least this time the problems can be fixed, unlike the problems that cropped up when playing the first game on a PS2...
@SillyG ...A less-than-1GB game getting a full-on cartridge release? Now, I'm as much of a non-fan of these game-key cards as the next guy, but a super-small full-cartridge release has me wondering just what the size of the memory map of the model of card intended to be the "game-key" model actually is--not sure I've seen any exact numbers for that floating around, but I could see some form of loophole abuse if there's enough extra room on the memory map...
Gotta wonder, if they were to attempt a true-physical Switch 2 version of Rebirth (as in, not a game-key card--knowing the trends, that's what it'd probably be)...how many 64 GB cards would they need, assuming they don't come out with a 128 GB card in the interim? I'm not even sure two would be enough, especially if you'd be able to play directly off any of them (keep in mind, the PS5 version ran two Ultra-HD Blu-ray discs--I'm not sure that could even drop it even close to one 64 GB Switch 2 card even with the best compression techniques, and we might be cutting it close even with a hypothetical 128 GB card)...
Gotta wonder, given the version numbering went from 1.13 to 2.0, did they transition the server code from NEX to NPLN with this update? Given both the Genesis and NES collections made similar version jumps when they went NPLN...
The game that hit the eShop today is a 1984 release from Micro Cabin.
The game that launched the parent series of the Trails games was first released in 1989. That game has already seen a Switch release; the title you're looking for is "Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes" ("Dragon Slayer" being The Legend of Heroes's own parent series).
Same announcement's come out of South Korea. South Korea gets the international set of these game collections (as opposed to the separate Japanese set, seen nowhere else but Hong Kong). Based on this, something tells me western announcements are going to be whens, not ifs.
If I've calculated right, the target time of the delisting'll be noon same date in Sydney, 2 PM same date in Auckland, 1 AM same date in London, 9 PM previous date in New York City, 6 PM previous date in Los Angeles, and 3 PM previous date in Honolulu (note: DST will have begun in most of North America but not any of Europe, and will still be ongoing in Australia and New Zealand, on those dates; Honolulu does not observe DST).
@ButterySmooth30FPS Eh, I doubt that even Nintendo at its most permissive would've let something like that through. A title like that is basically screaming AO from the ESRB, and that's a line Nintendo ain't letting anyone cross on their hardware (for the record, Sony and Microsoft also keep that line in place)...
Comments 67
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - SNES Classic Mini Console
@Coffee-Waffle Actually, I believe the upper-right of the trio of 12s on the European box is the Russian rating (PEGI's the upper-left, German USK is the lower). Keep in mind this came out before Putin went [words and reasons I can't describe on this site].
Re: Marvel Cosmic Invasion Scores 'Deluxe' Physical Release On Switch And Switch 2
@Liam_Doolan So, we're talking about a Switch 2 SKU that supposedly launched nine months ago, before we even knew much about the Switch 2 including the fact that the dreaded game-key cards that this SKU avoids using were even a thing...What kind of wizardry are they trying to pull off, anyway?
(EDIT: Since been taken care of.)
Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Is Teeing Off On Switch 2
Gotta wonder, just when did basketball become more of a space hog than golf? I remember when some PGA games (EA's, this was before 2K was in the golf game) needed two Gamecube discs due to the vast number of courses included; nowadays, golf's roughly half the size of basketball...
Re: The Game Awards Nominees Announced, Donkey Kong Bananza Up For GOTY
Well, there's three games I've narrowed down to in my mind as to what I think GOTY will come down to...Which is probably bad news for all of them, since I similarly narrowed down last year's field to three in the same manner, and Astro Bot was not one of those three...
(Of course I'm not going to say which three of this year's crop I've narrowed it to! Don't want to jinx things!)
Re: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is Now The "Best-Selling" Physical Game In The US This Year
@Tainaru That analogy of yours (the plastic case being the only thing physical about it) fits code-in-box releases better. A game-key card release at least has the card (which has the download key coded on it) in the package; the card is the reason why there are people and outlets who can call it a physical release. Keep in mind that there are some PS5 and Xbox Series X releases--many of those put out through the brands within the Xbox corporate fold--that are just as bad if not worse than game-key cards (minimal data on a medium that costs far less than even game-key cards, and no requirement to be upfront about their nature unlike game-key cards)...
Now, game-key cards do allow easy sharing, easy trade-ins for those who are in the habit, and possibly the best way to get games not actually available in a player's region without needing to use a foreign eShop account (the best example of that would be a hypothetical Switch 2 port of "Venus Vacation Prism: Dead or Alive Xtreme" assuming its regional availability and language options precisely match those of the already-extant versions of the game; the versions of that game already extant are available only in Asia but have English-language support). For most people, though, the cons tend to outweigh the pros...
Re: Poll: Is Your Third-Party Switch 2 Dock Still Working After This Week's System Update?
Now, I don't yet have a Switch 2, but I still gotta say this given what I do with my original Switch (and what I plan to do with
a Switch 2 once I actually get one)...where's the option for "I don't use a dock at all"? What are us handheld-only players to whomever came up with these polls, chopped liver?
Re: Sony Once Again Takes A Leaf From Nintendo's Playbook In Japan
@RoboCube I think you mistook Astro's Playroom for Astro Bot there. Astro's Playroom's the PS5 pack-in, pre-installed on every console. Astro Bot's a full-on retail release and typically a separate purchase (although given how much of a tentpole game it is, PS5 bundles including the Astro Bot game do in fact exist--which may have helped stir up the earlier-mentioned confusion to begin with)...
Re: Octopath Traveler 0 Demo Now Available For Switch And Switch 2, Save Data Carries Over
"Save data carries over"...sure, but almost certainly not between a Switch 1 demo and a Switch 2 full version. Demo save's platform's probably going to have to match that of the full version given the nature of their SKUs...
Re: Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds New Free Characters Update, Coming Soon
@MirrorFate2 All of the characters in question (Sally, Bunnie, Nicole, Rotor, and Antoine) originated on SatAM, and Sega has full ownership of the characters who originated on that series. Doesn't mean they're in by any stretch of the imagination (they'd be based on their SatAM versions if they do somehow get in), but the legal red tape you're implying keeping them for-sure out doesn't actually exist (at worst, you mistook those characters for actual OCs from the Archie comic continuity--THOSE characters are the ones snarled in legal red tape, not anyone originally from the games or SatAM).
The fact that the comic versions of all of those characters survived the Penders incident (or, to get technical, the "Super Genesis Wave" as in-universe events played out), albeit not unscathed (as if any of the survivors really did make it through unscathed), should've tipped people off as to who owns them...
Re: Pokémon Pokopia Gets March 2026 Release Date, Brand New Trailer Coming This Week
@MisterStu Actually, we've already had an instance where Japan/Asia got a game-key card but the west got a proper physical, in the form of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Expectedly, the PS5 version sold better in Japan while the Switch 2 version sold better in Europe.
Now, we can't say for sure something like that's going to happen again--but we also can't say for sure something like that's not going to happen again. (Also can't rule in or rule out a situation where the regions are reversed--as in Asia gets the proper physical and the west gets the game-key card.) Doesn't have to be the game this article's primarily talking about...
Re: Kirby Air Riders Looks To Be Powered By Bandai Namco's New In-House Engine
@HaNks As much as I'd like to see that, I'm willing to bet the oddsmakers are already taking bets as to which anime license makes use of this engine first...
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Dragon Power (NES)
Ah, the days when it was more common to reskin games when it came to deal with regionalized source licenses as opposed to just leaving them inaccessible completely. Back when the Internet wasn't widespread, it was far easier to get away with such a thing--after all, back in the late 1980s, would any westerner have been expected to have even heard of Anmitsu Hime, much less been able to piece together that its licensed Master System game was reskinned into Alex Kidd: High-Tech World for the western market?
(It's also the whole "untranslatable source license" deal that I believe J.J. & Jeff on TurboGrafx-16 caught a bit too much flak for the censorship it underwent. Yes, the content certainly was toned down for the western market, that much is undeniable, but its original Japanese incarnation had an untranslatable source license, meaning they actually had a valid excuse to tone things down. Now, "Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan" did have one segment get adapted internationally--the segment in question led to "America's Funniest Home Videos"--but the licensed video game in question adapted a different segment of the original Japanese show unrelated to the home video portion of the format...)
Re: Anniversary: 20 Years Ago, 'GUN' Brought America's Old West (And An All-Star Cast) To GameCube
@Elektrogeist1287 Just don't count on there being a true physical in the event such a release were to happen. ****, given the track record nowadays of the distribution network we'd be going through now (read: Xbox), there's no guarantee the rival platforms would get proper physicals either, especially if such a proper physical would need more than one 50 GB disc to facilitate an Xbox hardware release (even though the discs necessary would cost less than a Switch 2 game-key card)...
Re: Co-Op RPG 'Nicktoons & The Dice Of Destiny' Scores Free Switch 2 Upgrade Next Month
Wonder just how the upgrade path will actually work? We know it's not in the same fashion as a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" deal, since those don't get game-key cards (they either get full-on-card physicals--ones that can also be played on the predecessor system at that--or else no dedicated Switch 2 physical at all)...Still, other publishers cough*Sega*cough*SquareEnix*cough should take note, given the amount of products being given no upgrade path whatsoever...
Re: Nintendo Seems To Be Uploading Old Nintendo Power Covers To Nintendo Today!
Gotta wonder, just who's that mainly blue-clad plumber on the cover? He does have some red on the scheme, so it may or may not be a distinct character from Mario...a scrapped Inverse Mario power-up, perhaps? Or maybe an early idea for what eventually became Wario? (They did have roughly four years from this point to flesh him out, though...)
Re: Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition Brings The Apocalypse To Switch 2 In 2026
@Bizzyb Yeah, given the track record of the brands under the Xbox umbrella (of which Bethesda is one) these days, odds are better you'd get struck by lightning while holding jackpot-winning tickets for both Powerball and Mega Millions simultaneously than this announcement leading to a proper full-on-card physical release. Shoot, track record suggests even (the Switch 2's) rival platforms wouldn't have gotten full physicals if such an option were there...
(Yeah, the Xbox physical track record is so bad these days, full-on-disc physicals even on their own hardware being few and far between as of late, one might think Nintendo was taking note when they whipped up their game-key card guidelines. And we all know how well THOSE have been going down...)
Re: Anniversary: SNES Action RPG 'Terranigma' Is 30 Years Old Today, And It's Still A 10/10 In Our Book
@PlusFan Nope, never been rereleased. And unless they do some sort of "Collection of Gaia" (Square Enix doesn't do NSO), it's likely to remain in purgatory...
Re: Feature: "We're Going To Need More Toilet Paper" - This Is Mario Kart-Attack!
@HammerGalladeBro Now you've got me thinking "Rare Kart" here...which may not be that bad an idea--such an idea would probably be the closest we'd ever get to a proper follow-up to Diddy Kong Racing roster-wise...
Re: Reminder: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Switch 2 Hardware Bundle Now Available
@1UP-HUSKY Then be thankful you're not Americans...otherwise she'd have to wait until age 10 as per the ESRB's E10+ rating...
Re: UK Charts: Mario Galaxy Loses Steam As Battlefield Blasts Onto The Scene
What's the rest of the platform split for Little Nightmares III, then? There's still 67% the article itself didn't account for (well, at most 67%--the numbers don't always add up to a clean 100%), and the chart doesn't list any platform splits for that title...
Re: SNK Announces ACA NEOGEO Selection Vol. 9 And Vol. 10 For Switch
Volume 10...The one that, if it were to get an American release, would be the one that carried the ESRB's M rating on it (possibly on an E-M rating range icon, given the nature of the collection), given it's got the one and only game in the entire Arcade Archives line thus far to be rated so harsh (Samurai Shodown V Special)...
(For the record, a hypothetical European release would carry the PEGI 16; Australia'd slap on their MA15+...)
Re: Opinion: NSO Subscribers Outside Key Markets Get Less, And Nintendo Should Fix That
If this rumored Singaporean eShop is anything like the corresponding already-extant Singaporean PSN when it comes to offerings and interface options...something tells me it'll get quickly slammed by foreign traffic. Such a storefront would presumably offer a sizable number game releases offered specifically in Asian regions while including an option for an English interface. I've read that Singaporean PSN cards are popular among the import crowd for those very reasons--I'd bet that import-specialty sites would have trouble keeping Singaporean eShop cards stocked in the early going...
Re: Japanese Charts: Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots Scores An Eagle Despite Mixed Reception
@StewdaMegaManNerd You can easily compare using the Play-Asia listings:
Japanese: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion-multi-language/13/70igdv
Asia: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion-multi-language/13/70igdx
VERSUS
USA: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion/13/70igf3
Europe: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion/13/70igf5
Re: Japanese Charts: Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots Scores An Eagle Despite Mixed Reception
So, looks like even the Japanese have revealed they've caught on to what game-key cards are like, given Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion sold better on PS5 at retail than on Switch 2 (the Japanese Switch 2 "physical" is one of those dreaded game-key card deals)...Guess those Japanese who wanted a physical of that game either got it on PS5 or imported a western Switch 2 copy (those are proper physicals), the latter of which wouldn't show up on their charts...
(And yes, for the record, the western Switch 2 physicals do in fact support Japanese...)
Re: The Force Isn't Strong With Star Wars Outlaws On Switch 2, Initial Impressions Suggest
@AverageGamer Somehow, I'd've thought we wouldn't get "street-date break, playable copies in the wild early" situations like this with game-key cards...You'd think they'd've, at the very least, locked the download to unlock at the official time, much like a digital preorder, in order to render the street-date-breaker's efforts futile...Guess many of us now have even lower opinions of these game-key card things than ever before (and I was already pretty much no fan of them to begin with), now that probably what could've been their biggest "advantage" is nullified...
Re: Mini Review: Arcade Archives 2: Aqua Jet (Switch 2) - Classic Aquatic Racer Lags Behind Wave Race
Reminds me of that Hydro Thunder cabinet I played from time to time at a pizza buffet...Never was the best at it, but still...
Re: Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Will Launch On Switch 2 In 2026
@Serpenterror Don't count on a full physical. In addition to being a very hoggy game, we're talking a game under the Xbox umbrella, they've basically been "game-key discs" on the platforms competing against Nintendo's without upfront disclosure, if they even get physical versions at all. A Switch 2 game-key card may very well be the best this game treats consumers at retailers, if only for the fact that Switch 2 game-key cards are upfront about their nature...
Re: Review: CRKD x Gibson Guitar Controller For Switch + Switch 2 - Great Quality, At A Price
Winning at Street Fighter 6 with a guitar? Reminds me of those fishing rod controllers that you could play the original SoulCalibur with (and they worked with a tennis game, too)...
Re: Nintendo Patent Featuring Crank And "Clickable Wheel" Attachments For Joy-Con 2 Surface
@Coalescence Could even toss the originals onto the Nintendo Classics applications for good measure, complete with support...And given that the control remapping options in both the N64 and SNES applications explain how the controls work, they might not necessarily have to hack into the game code itself...
@Ulysses I do seem to recall the original Game Boy had a pocket sonar, complete with fishing minigame. That's all the dedicated fishing-related stuff I recall on the Nintendo front, although I'm sure quite a few of us remember the Dreamcast's fishing controller (a few of its primary-purpose compatible games have already been mentioned--and I say "primary-purpose" compatible games since there might be some mentions of its existing crafty non-fishing applications forthcoming)...
Re: Capcom's Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Announced For Switch 2
@DiamondJim Knowing the third-party trends, that'd be a longshot. The sportsbooks will probably be listing odds heavily favoring use of the dreaded game-key cards...which begs the question, who'll make more money when it comes to "physical" copies of this game, Capcom or bookies selling sucker bets?
Re: Rumour: SpongeBob SquarePants Is Bringing A New Game To Switch 2
"and a physical version is also believed to be on the way to the Switch 2"
Define "physical version". Is it full game completely on the card (yay), is it one of those dreaded game-key cards (boo), or is it one of those ghastly code-in-a-box deals (grab the pitchforks)?
Re: Xbox Will Reportedly Announce "More Game Ports" For Other Platforms Soon
As much of a can of worms the game-key cards are on Switch 2, keep in mind that the brands part of the Xbox fold have been guilty of scummier practices. Nintendo packaging for game-key cards, codes-in-boxes, and even "partial physicals" are more often than not upfront about their nature (as in, you know what corners have been cut just by looking at the package); Microsoft's been known to put out a few "game-key discs" on both their own platform as well as PS5 and not being upfront about it on the packaging (keep in mind they're using a medium capable of storing as much as 100 GB and putting on enough data that would leave quite a bit of space to spare on a mini-CD)--a "partial physical" (as in, enough data to fit most of a single-layer non-4K Blu-ray disc) is a godsend in comparison. Let's just say if Switch 2's game-key cards have gone down like a lead balloon, those "game-key discs" have gone down like a balloon made/filled with something even denser and heavier.
And keep in mind quite a few of these games are so hoggy that even a "proper" Switch 2 physical wouldn't exactly be practical in most cases (as in, a proper physical would probably take up at least two or three whole 64 GB cards, and another beyond that if they went for the approach of being able to directly play off any of the cards rather than the installation card approach, and even those figures probably wouldn't be sufficient for something like Call of Duty)...
Re: Nintendo Music Update Adds 26 "Old-School" NES And Famicom Game Albums
@KingMike Popeye and Spartan-X at least have valid excuses for not showing up--they're external licenses (Popeye to his comic strip origin with music originating from earlier adaptations, Spartan-X to the film "Wheels on Meals"), meaning Nintendo doesn't own the music that originated from their respective source materials and earlier adaptations. Odds are if either one of them were to show up with a playlist, it'd be a stripped-down playlist of music that Nintendo does own--and there's no guarantee that there's any game-original tunes in those games, and no guarantee that Nintendo would actually own such game-original tunes if there were.
Any other external license Nintendo took out is also unlikely to ever show up on Nintendo Music for similar reasons; don't expect to see Hamtaro or Eyeshield 21 game soundtracks on Nintendo Music anytime soon, and if there were to be a PlayStation counterpart to this service, we wouldn't expect their Bleach stuff to show up there...
Re: Another Mario Kart Album Races Onto Nintendo Music, Here's Every Song Included
70 minutes, huh? Given the 1st-4th place results screen takes 53 minutes or so (64 loops of the first set of beats) to even get to its second set of beats, that either leaves just less than 17 minutes for the rest of the stuff or they somehow truncated the 1st-4th place results screen track to take less time to cover all of its distinct beats (probably the latter, 64 loops is quite excessive)...
Re: Nintendo Will Discontinue Switch Game Vouchers Entirely In 2026
@Mariotag Prime 4's not up for preorder yet, unlike Legends Z-A. I have a feeling Prime 4'll get added to the scheme once the preorders do open up (assuming the current release window holds)...
Re: Video: Switch 2 And Steam Deck Face Off In Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmark Test
@Jumwa Exactly--straight up comparing every specification at once isn't going to be one-to-one. We could be looking at "only slightly better than base PS4" in one spec, "comparable to PS4 Pro" in another, and "just short of Xbox Series S" in a third. (Quite easy for people to forget that PS4 Pro, and Xbox One X for that matter, is even a thing these days; don't really remember mentions of those particular models being thrown around that much since the initial Cyberpunk 2077 debacles--let's just say that game might not have gotten as much initial flak had they been allowed to cut the base PS4 and base Xbox One out of the loop and require the PS4 Pro/Xbox One X at minimum...)
Re: NBA 2K26 Shoots Some Hoops On Switch 2 In September
@Grumblevolcano Not surprised...I'm as much of a non-fan of these game-key card things as anybody else, but given just how hoggy these kind of games are on the first Switch (let's just say they would've needed a 64 GB option there to even have the possibility of not requiring a download--keep in mind publishers were skittish on the option half that size as it was), it was already clear a straight-up full physical version wasn't on the cards...
@XenoShaun "NBA 2K26 Superstar Edition and Leave No Doubt Edition not available in Belgium and South Korea." I wonder why...
Re: Blurred Art In Nintendo's N64 Switch Online Trailer Suggests Exciting Upcoming Additions
@ROOCIS That'd be moreso the "technical issues" than "requiring the Expansion Pak". The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask also requires the Expansion Pak, and that's already in the regular collection; Perfect Dark's functionality is extremely limited without the Expansion Pak, and that's already in the mature collection.
Re: Street Fighter 6's First Season 3 Character Arrives This August
@Medic_alert For me, I'm reminded of a developer that put out wrestling games before they rebranded and started doing fashion games...
Re: Reminder: You Can Use Non-Nintendo USB Cameras With Switch 2
Wonder if anybody's tried the Xbox Live Vision camera? (Doubt a Kinect would work even with adapters...)
Re: Sounds Like The 'DK Rap' Is In Donkey Kong Bananza
Question is, are we in for a "hell" or a "heck"?
Re: Yes, Call Of Duty Is Still On The Way To Nintendo Hardware
Gotta wonder...if we were to make use of 64 GB game cards for something along the lines of Black Ops 7 proper (not factoring Warzone), how many would they need? Doubt two (one for the campaign, one for its own dedicated multiplayer) would be enough given just how hoggy Call of Duty is these days even in comparison to other hoggy games.
Hate to say it, but something super-hoggy like Call of Duty might justify the game key card format for some people; to be fair, for one, we can assume multi-launcher is possible to allow separate downloads of campaign and multiplayer (and also save a trip to the eShop when it comes to Warzone, that of which we wouldn't anticipate a proper physical in any event), and for two, Microsoft these days have been known to be even scummier when it comes to physical discs on the rival platforms...
Re: Limited Run Games Says It's Found The Cause Of Switch 2's Carbon Engine Issues
Wouldn't be the first time Tomba's had problems with a successive-generation system...at least this time the problems can be fixed, unlike the problems that cropped up when playing the first game on a PS2...
Re: Video: Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S Shows Off Nintendo Switch 2 Camera Support
@SillyG ...A less-than-1GB game getting a full-on cartridge release? Now, I'm as much of a non-fan of these game-key cards as the next guy, but a super-small full-cartridge release has me wondering just what the size of the memory map of the model of card intended to be the "game-key" model actually is--not sure I've seen any exact numbers for that floating around, but I could see some form of loophole abuse if there's enough extra room on the memory map...
Re: Final Fantasy VII 'Creator's Voice' Implies Rebirth May Also Come To Switch 2
Gotta wonder, if they were to attempt a true-physical Switch 2 version of Rebirth (as in, not a game-key card--knowing the trends, that's what it'd probably be)...how many 64 GB cards would they need, assuming they don't come out with a 128 GB card in the interim? I'm not even sure two would be enough, especially if you'd be able to play directly off any of them (keep in mind, the PS5 version ran two Ultra-HD Blu-ray discs--I'm not sure that could even drop it even close to one 64 GB Switch 2 card even with the best compression techniques, and we might be cutting it close even with a hypothetical 128 GB card)...
Re: Gallery: Harvest Moon's New "Cozy" Switch Bundle Shares First Screenshots Ahead Of June Launch
@Kiyata Those two are pre-schism, so any re-release would involve the "other owners".
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's Game Boy Library With Two More Titles
Gotta wonder, given the version numbering went from 1.13 to 2.0, did they transition the server code from NEX to NPLN with this update? Given both the Genesis and NES collections made similar version jumps when they went NPLN...
Re: Nintendo Download: 6th March (North America)
@KingMike Different game.
The game that hit the eShop today is a 1984 release from Micro Cabin.
The game that launched the parent series of the Trails games was first released in 1989. That game has already seen a Switch release; the title you're looking for is "Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes" ("Dragon Slayer" being The Legend of Heroes's own parent series).
Re: Nintendo Switch Online Announces Removal Of Super Famicom Title
https://www.nintendo.com/kr/hardware/switch/onlineservice/fc/
Same announcement's come out of South Korea. South Korea gets the international set of these game collections (as opposed to the separate Japanese set, seen nowhere else but Hong Kong). Based on this, something tells me western announcements are going to be whens, not ifs.
If I've calculated right, the target time of the delisting'll be noon same date in Sydney, 2 PM same date in Auckland, 1 AM same date in London, 9 PM previous date in New York City, 6 PM previous date in Los Angeles, and 3 PM previous date in Honolulu (note: DST will have begun in most of North America but not any of Europe, and will still be ongoing in Australia and New Zealand, on those dates; Honolulu does not observe DST).
Re: Sony Does What Nintendon't By Removing A Bunch Of 'eSlop' Titles
@ButterySmooth30FPS Eh, I doubt that even Nintendo at its most permissive would've let something like that through. A title like that is basically screaming AO from the ESRB, and that's a line Nintendo ain't letting anyone cross on their hardware (for the record, Sony and Microsoft also keep that line in place)...