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)...
@IceClimbersMain Last I checked, MLB The Show 25 isn't getting a PS4 version, nor on Xbox One. To be fair to what you'd said, though, only just now is that series ditching PS4 and Xbox One, the 24 version of the game was on those systems...
Gotta wonder, given the version numbering went from 3.10 to 4.0, 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...
Typical...Completely forgetting about Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, the second half of the Persona 2 duology, the half of which had a female lead--and only a female lead...Though I suppose that's par for the course these days, given anything prior to Persona 3 is rarely recognized these days...
@KingMike More like the Nintendo DS, actually. That device's release date pretty much explains why Europe got Minish Cap before America, actually--the DS was pushed to carry the 2004 holidays in America, but wouldn't be available in Europe until 2005 hence why Zelda was given the task there...
@batmanbud2 Last I checked, Bungie wasn't heavily involved in the game that went down faster than the Costa Concordia...
@Alpha008 At absolute worst, you'll still be able to play Brothership after two weeks have passed. And given the Mario name power, there's probably more pre-orders for Brothership at the outlets allowed to offer them than Concord ever had players...
@SillyG There've been updates to operating systems that removed features before. Remember the version 3.21 update for the PS3's system software? That removed the "OtherOS" feature, a feature that was initially highly touted in pre-launch marketing--naturally, that update proved quite controversial...
@Martijn87 The TCG, actually, going by original Japanese release dates--October 20, 1996 vs. the anime's April 1, 1997.
Most of the world, on the other hand, tended to get the anime before the TCG--for example, America first saw the anime's first episode on September 8, 1998, but the TCG didn't arrive until January 9, 1999...
@Zeebor15 Taking a look at an archived copy, the game had been shown with an E rating and Fantasy Violence descriptor. The Playstation and Xbox versions still have their marketplace web pages for the game up and those are currently showing T ratings with Fantasy Violence and Suggestive Themes descriptors; odds are that what the Playstation and Xbox versions currently show is what the Switch version will also have when it resurfaces.
Well, at least Europe got spared the then-usual British "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" treatment this time around, even though it was due to lack of a release at all...
@Don: The first game released in Japan under a title that translates as "Legend of the Radical Ninja Turtles"; the full TMNT license wasn't applied in Japan until the second game was released there.
Game's still up on the North American eShop as of this post's writing. To be fair, though, the game's listed ESRB rating is T, with a Use of Alcohol descriptor...
Sonic may have tried isometric platforming with Sonic 3D Blast, but Mario waited a few more years before it tried taking this unique perspective — and it lends itself to the game's charm.
Except Super Mario RPG actually came first between the two. Super Mario RPG's first release was its Japanese March 9, 1996 date, and it had reached North America about two months afterward; Sonic 3D Blast's first release wasn't until November of that year, and even then we're still not sure whether the first release was a November 5 release in Europe or a November 7 or 9 release in North America (the European release has also been reported as November 14), but either way that puts it firmly after Super Mario RPG's release date.
(Also, if anybody thinks of bringing up Sonic Labyrith on the Game Gear, which does in fact predate Super Mario RPG...remember Sonic couldn't actually jump in that game...)
Comments 86
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)...
Re: Poll: With No Switch 2 News Until April, Is A February Nintendo Direct On The Cards?
@IceClimbersMain Last I checked, MLB The Show 25 isn't getting a PS4 version, nor on Xbox One. To be fair to what you'd said, though, only just now is that series ditching PS4 and Xbox One, the 24 version of the game was on those systems...
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's SNES Library With Three More Titles
Gotta wonder, given the version numbering went from 3.10 to 4.0, 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: Tech Fans Have Gone Full 'Layton' In Analysing The 'Switch 2' Motherboard
Black Myth: Wukong confirmed, perhaps? ...If only it were THAT easy...
Re: Atlus Lead Explains Why Persona Protagonists Are High School Males
Typical...Completely forgetting about Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, the second half of the Persona 2 duology, the half of which had a female lead--and only a female lead...Though I suppose that's par for the course these days, given anything prior to Persona 3 is rarely recognized these days...
Re: Random: Now Pokémon Is Getting Its Own 'TCG' Rip-Off On The Switch eShop
@rta I believe there's already a Powerwash riffer, keyword-bingo title and all:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/wash-simulator-clean-garage-house-cars-business-tycoons-switch/
Re: The Original 'Cotton' Shoot 'Em Up Joins Hamster's Arcade Archives Library Today
@Serpenterror That looks like the New Zealand interface to me...
Re: Final Fantasy VII Switch Update Removes "Restrictions For Sharing Features"
@LadyCharlie Or that Princess Peach is in another castle?
Re: Anniversary: The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap Turns 20 Today
@KingMike More like the Nintendo DS, actually. That device's release date pretty much explains why Europe got Minish Cap before America, actually--the DS was pushed to carry the 2004 holidays in America, but wouldn't be available in Europe until 2005 hence why Zelda was given the task there...
Re: Mario & Luigi: Brothership Trailer Welcomes You To Concordia
@batmanbud2 Last I checked, Bungie wasn't heavily involved in the game that went down faster than the Costa Concordia...
@Alpha008 At absolute worst, you'll still be able to play Brothership after two weeks have passed. And given the Mario name power, there's probably more pre-orders for Brothership at the outlets allowed to offer them than Concord ever had players...
Re: Random: Stop-Motion Animation Shows Sephiroth Playing Basketball With Kirby
Reminds me of that one episode of the Kirby anime where they did a Quidditch parody, and they had Kirby be the ball there...
Re: Nintendo Switch System Update 18.1.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@SillyG There've been updates to operating systems that removed features before. Remember the version 3.21 update for the PS3's system software? That removed the "OtherOS" feature, a feature that was initially highly touted in pre-launch marketing--naturally, that update proved quite controversial...
Re: LEGO Horizon Adventures Is Coming To Switch, Confirmed For Holiday 2024
OK, now cue the inevitable "Aloy for Smash 6!" clamoring...Intensify it if such clamoring somehow already existed...
Re: Random: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket Fixes Longtime Card Back Error
@Martijn87 The TCG, actually, going by original Japanese release dates--October 20, 1996 vs. the anime's April 1, 1997.
Most of the world, on the other hand, tended to get the anime before the TCG--for example, America first saw the anime's first episode on September 8, 1998, but the TCG didn't arrive until January 9, 1999...
Re: Inti Creates' Gunvolt Records: Cychronicle Temporarily Removed From Switch eShop (US)
@Zeebor15 Taking a look at an archived copy, the game had been shown with an E rating and Fantasy Violence descriptor. The Playstation and Xbox versions still have their marketplace web pages for the game up and those are currently showing T ratings with Fantasy Violence and Suggestive Themes descriptors; odds are that what the Playstation and Xbox versions currently show is what the Switch version will also have when it resurfaces.
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl: Duel - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
Well, at least Europe got spared the then-usual British "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" treatment this time around, even though it was due to lack of a release at all...
@Don: The first game released in Japan under a title that translates as "Legend of the Radical Ninja Turtles"; the full TMNT license wasn't applied in Japan until the second game was released there.
Re: Random: Nintendo Pulls Drink Driving Game From Switch eShop
Game's still up on the North American eShop as of this post's writing. To be fair, though, the game's listed ESRB rating is T, with a Use of Alcohol descriptor...
Re: Feature: 17 Reasons To Be Excited About The Super Mario RPG Remake
Except Super Mario RPG actually came first between the two. Super Mario RPG's first release was its Japanese March 9, 1996 date, and it had reached North America about two months afterward; Sonic 3D Blast's first release wasn't until November of that year, and even then we're still not sure whether the first release was a November 5 release in Europe or a November 7 or 9 release in North America (the European release has also been reported as November 14), but either way that puts it firmly after Super Mario RPG's release date.
(Also, if anybody thinks of bringing up Sonic Labyrith on the Game Gear, which does in fact predate Super Mario RPG...remember Sonic couldn't actually jump in that game...)