A community for everything Nintendo. Games, news, discussions, stories etc.
Game | Date
|
Mario Kart World [S2] | Jun 05 Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour [S2] | Jun 05 Donkey Kong Bananza [S2] | Jul 17 Drag x Drive [S2] | 2025 Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment [S2] | 2025 Kirby Air Riders [S2] | 2025 Metroid Prime 4 | 2025 Pokémon Z-A | 2025 The Duskbloods [S2] | 2026 Rhythm Heaven: Groove | 2026 Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream | 2026
[S2] means Switch 2 only.
The opposite can also be said. People have always been complaining you can't trade digital games.
Now you can. It's a digital game that's not attached to your account, but to the physical card, it can easily be sold again.
While certainly not as good as a true physical game, it's way better than the alternative: a full digital catalogue tied to your account.
Is it really that much worse? Think about it long and hard.
Ewaste is a bigger problem than the inability to resell or trade digital games (in my opinion, at least). One can be solved fully digitally, while the other cannot.
Besides, Steam did it properly with Family Sharing when it was a thing.
This to me feels like Nintendo wants a stronger grip on digital key redistributions by adding a physical element into it to screw over key and account resellers. People are much less likely to sell a physical item when compared to a fully digital one.
Sending something physical is more time consuming and just more costly in general. I could always share a code via a message or an image to a friend, whereas with game cards I'd have to mail it over.
Now, only time will tell if game key cards will affect digital key sales (and their overall existence), but knowing Nintendo, it probably will.
And also - the whole point of "having a game catalog tied to your account fully digitally" is moot anyways if the game itself has to be downloaded anyway.
This to me feels like Nintendo wants a stronger grip on digital key redistributions by adding a physical element into it to screw over key and account resellers. People are much less likely to sell a physical item when compared to a fully digital one.
From what I have heard, every first party Nintendo game is coming out with a game-on-cartridge release while most third party games are key carts.
My take on the situation is that publishers complained about the cost of large capacity Switch 2 cartridges, so Nintendo created Game Key carts for them to use. Once they existed for large size games, why would a publisher not use them for all games? Complaints from a vocal minority that buys the game anyways?
Besides, Steam did it properly with Family Sharing when it was a thing.
It still is? My wife and I have our shared libraries merged, works beautifully
It was replaced by Steam Families tho. Basically same thing with more parental control and different game sharing principle
It is, but in a sense that it's more strict to make new setups. Existing ones are going to contine to work as usual, but the new "Steam Families" is a thing now that replaces it and it has stricter conditions. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
So you can't have a "family" in another continent like you used to or whatever like that.
"Oh noooo I can't downgrade from an update, which all modern games need 'cause they all come out broken and unfinished".
Game key cards are a fix for the previous problem, which was one time game codes that get account locked after one use.
Yeah it sucks you have to download the game, but you can SELL your old game key cards and buy them second hand. This is the closest we're getting to selling digital games, get used to it.
Over my twice dead body. This is effectively just waste for the sake of producing waste, as the article pointed out. It’s the worst of two worlds, you no longer own your game and you have to find a little nubbin to play it. Piracy should not produce a superior product.
Are you dead yet? These carts existed for Switch 1.
How do you think I died the first time? Gabe Newell himself gave me mouth to mouth and as I coughed out my thanks, he leaned in close to whisper “game trading is available through European accounts” before leaving through the office window.
I think you need to reciprocate a little. I always give him a lil kiss.When he visits me I always find steam cards and discounts under my pillow after he leaves.
And when they disable the download because "game is old" or "we want to remake it" or "servers are too expensive" then what?
You don't own the game and you don't sell the game. You own a temporary license to play the game and sell that license.
Just like on Steam or any digital store front.
Sure the advantage is that you can resell your license, but let's see if those cards still do anything in thirty years, like games from thirty years ago do now.
They made a really shitty situation (not owning your games) a little less shitty.
p.s.
Obviously we are also in this mess because convenience trumps ownership, that's why Steam and business models like these grew so popular.
The fact that Nintendo can pull the game, change the game, or disable a game key card is why I will never purchase a used one; there is no way to know what you are really getting from a used game key card until it's too late.
Then I will download it from other sources and continue playing it.
I won't say "pirate it" because I still own it.
They made a really shitty situation (not owning your games) a little less shitty.
Did they? Sounds to me like they just added extra steps and a physical item that locks you out of your game when you lose it.
To be fair I was talking about degrading from bad updates not just any update. Also, what I think is the most notable detail is that these physical key carts are treated as if you bought a game on the eshop, and downloads the game on your Switch. Not even onto the cart itself.
Do these key carts even have any internal storage on it at all? Probably does, for confirmation purposes.
It really is just e-waste. Because look at what Nintendo has degraded physical media into. Might as well just buy it on the eshop just so you can play the game without worrying abut having the cart in the console. Since the key cart is literally not much different from the digital.
If they don't restrict the key cart to one switch via a license, you might be right about selling digital games. Tbh I would prefer to sell a physical game, on the cart knowing that the game would always be available.
Also your games a literally gone, even your "physical" ones if they decide you did something they don't like and banned your device from Nintendo networks.
Only if you live in US 😛
Nearly 90% of physical games can be completed without a download of any kind. I can't say how Switch 2 cards will end up, but I would hope it's not as dire as everyone seems to think it'll be. If it is, I guess I won't buy Switch 2 games.
from what I understand, there are three legally supported ways to play Switch games on the Switch 2 I might be wrong.
There are game cards, then there are game key carts, then direct download from eShop. The key carts, are probably going to always require a download of the whole game. Maybe Nintendo might prove some of us wrong on this.
I don't sell my games, so I see zero point in game key carts anyway. All I want is those to be identified so I know that if I want these particular games I don't buy the useless cart version.
Incidentally I absolutely never had to return to the base unpatched version of a game on Switch, and I have quite a few of them.
It's a speed runner issue more than anything (the update thing)
Yeah, I guess for those wanting an exploit that was patched out it could be useful. That's not the use case I expect from the term "bad update" though.
And most people with a purpose for those exploits, like speedrunners, will find a way to get a hacked console where these limitations on downgrading don't exist.
This was already true of a number of Switch 1 games, where the partial data in the cart did not include access to the full game. Some gave you access to only a demo (in the line of the "play before the download is finished" feature in home consoles), others not even that. And of course it was true of the "code-in-a-box" products they were selling on retail that you couldn't even resell or return.
The real issue isn't how the key carts work, which is an improvement on those.
The issue is that the cost of carts with actual storage has gone up. Nintendo's change of memory spec means they've given up on the low-storage carts, which used to come in a bunch of sizes, some of which were relatively cheap. They've gone for a single 64GB SKU, which means the type of game that can afford the physical storage will be significantly restricted.
This may well make technical sense (the new storage standard is based on a SD card update that may not even exist at lower sizes by default), but the practical effect may be that the cost of physical carts makes no sense to anybody but the largest games/publishers, which is a travesty. Nintendo should have found a way around this, even if it is to subsidize the cart cost with their cut of the game's price to some extent. I get why that's not the case, since it'd effectively mean giving their cut of each game straight to Amazon and other retailers, but man, does it suck as it is.
I think what we'll end up seeing is a lot more Limited Run-style expensive collector's editions being the only physical media releases of many games. And even that only if people do get used to paying extra to subsidize the card out of their own pocket. If I was Nintendo I would have considered making it a standard to have every physical game in both formats as a rule and have people pay an extra tenner for the full storage version. Instead, they chose to try to push the top end of the price range anyway with no guarantee that the cost of media is part of the increase. They've been indecisive and the outcome is going to suck.
Of course people would be complaining just as hard if they had done that, which is one of the examples where gamers' default position being antagonism can yield worse results.
Do you have a source for Nintendo only having one cart size? I have heard people saying that Nintendo does offer multiple cart sizes, but they are all (relatively) expensive.
Yep. It got reported a while ago and ater leaks suggest that the "smaller size" that was initially reported is the key cart itself, so that'd leave the 64GB as the sole option to store game data.
Nintendo DID offer multiple sizes of Switch 1 carts, and they were all relatively expensive, ranging from 1 to 16GB (and higher options were technically possible but very rarely used, as in once or twice in the system's lifespan).
I get it, if you have to sell people a full-on high-end SD card on top of the cost of the game things get weird fast. Storage stopped getting cheaper a long time ago. It still sucks, though.
Everything has pros and cons. Currently there are physical collector editions, that don't actually have a game on disc, just a download code. Similarly, some collections are sold with one game on disk, rest a downloadable code. These codes are one-use only and can't be sold again.
Game key carts solve that problem. Instead of just putting a one-time code, they can use game-key cart, which people can use multiple times.
As for games installing on internal memory instead of the cart, yes, it works like all other downloads. The game that have partial data on disc, or any update that's downloaded. Or every single PS / Xbox game because they can't run directly from optical drive, so you have to copy the full data, download the updates, and still can't play without the disc.
You shouldn't think of a "digital" game. Those who want digital will just download digital. You should think of it as a physical game that has very little data on cart and rest is all a download (like Doom: Dark Ages shared below, just 85MB on disk, rest is a download)
The biggest con IMO is that some companies who were willing to release a cart with full or partial data may decide to go for the game-key cart since it's a official thing now, and average people buying it may not see any difference. So, I hope the collectors vote with wallet and ask the publishers to release full game on disk instead of using game-key carts.
You shouldn't think of a "digital" game. ... You should think of it as a physical game that has very little data on cart and rest is all a download
So it's a digital game with a physical lockout? All the problems of digital AND The problems of physical, with no true upside from either, how great!
That's not all I wrote, but yeah, I just shared my opinion and you don't have to agree with any of it. If you don't like it, you don't like it.
That's not all I wrote,
It's the important bit. You're trying to make these sound good when they're literally the worst of both worlds, you weird Nintendo fanboy
How are they worst of the digital world? No one who wants a digital will buy game-key cart, they will just go to e-shop and buy / download the game. This will effect the ones who buy physical though, and I did mention that.
Anyways, I don't mind discussing my point of view, as I said, it's my opinion, you can agree or disagree, and maybe my logic is flawed, but if you just want to ignore that and run away with one sentence, that's also your right, and I can't do anything about it. 🙂
The point is that you can still treat it like a physical game. So there are upsides in that you can borrow it to your friends or resell it.
If it is a game that gets updated often or requires updates to even play it (multiplayer games) then having the game data on the card is next to worthless anyways and just makes publishing the game more difficult because they can't start manufacturing the cards until the game is 100% ready.
Nintendo's audience goes for physical much more than the other consoles, much easier swapping cards than dealing with family sharing, a lot of their adult users collect games, and generally Nintendo games hold their value much more so being able to resell is important. So this is a compromise between what their users want and what they need for modern game development.
Slippery slope for sure if they start doing the same with single player games but there are valid reasons for them to do this, and the alternative is they just start forcing everyone to download all of their games which is even worse. MIG switch would never have been an issue for them if there just weren't game card slots to begin with.
Of course end users should assume the store is going to get shutdown someday and their games will be inaccessible at that time. Nintendo needs to shutdown those stores so that a couple of generations later they can sell everyone the same games for the second/third/fourth time.
The (only) advantage of Game Carts over digital is that you can resell them and lend them to people outside of your (digital) family.
I can still plug my 3ds cartridges into my 3ds and play my 3ds games
Wouldn't be able to do that if it was digital only
Yes, I also think physical releases are best (at least for how I play games).
That has nothing to do with anything. I am specifically talking about digital copies. Last I checked, I could not take a digital 3DS purchase I made and give it to a friend to play on their system.
Currently there are physical collector editions, that don't actually have a game on disc, just a download code.
I bought the BG3 deluxe edition, which promises game on disk, soundtrack, etc.
They delivered on everything except...the game disk is 26mb. It's a branded steam installer for you to install so you can use the steam key they provided in the box. I have never before been so disappointed in a 'physical' game purchase.
I haven't bought physical in a while, but hearing about such stories more and more. It sounds specially annoying when they do that with collectors edition. These are their hard-core fans / customers, at least don't short-change them.
Haven't we kinda dealt with this issue already on discs?
I can't think of a physical disc I have bought for my PS5 that does nothing more than download the game to the system once I put it in - with whatever current updated version it is. And I still have to put the disc in to verify I have the physical media - even though it never checks the disc after that point.
And you might say, "Well some of the discs have the whole game on them!" OK, sure. But they immediately download the latest updates once you install the game. And unless I have never seen it, I don't think there's a "roll back to X version" option anywhere.
Sir, this is a ~~Wendy's~~ Nintendo pile-on session.
Doesn't matter. This sub will still be hype as fuck for bing bang wahoo Mario and the next Legend of Lonk in a few years and it won't come up again.
Oh no, I'll just wait 6 months and play the games for free. Like I've done since N64.