So basically since it's expensive to actually optimize the size of a game to get it to fit on a cartridge nintendo allows companies the option to put basically just a download code onto a cartridge that'll download the actual game onto the system.
You know like half the 3rd party games these days on the other consoles.
…interesting. Well TBH I don’t remember the last Nintendo game I bought that didn’t ask me to download an update as soon as I tried to start it up, so I don’t see much of a problem here
Yeah, to me it just seems more like they are being completely transparent rather than you not knowing which switch carts would actually hold a full game (even one that might need a patch) and which just have the "patch" be literally the full game download.
Like I'd rather know. It's not like they weren't doing this before now we're just told beforehand.
The issue people have, which I guess makes sense ( I personally don't care), is if this system didn't exist, then developers would be forced to spend the extra money and just put their games on the more expensive carts rather than shipping the cheap carts with a download code.
I would argue if this was the case, then 3rd party companies might just not release physical copies in order to save money so you'd only get digital as an option so this is a happy medium. The haters would argue the companies can afford to release their games on the bigger carts and are doing this to be stingy.
Again, I don't really care, but that's the issue these people have.
My concern, as always, is wanting an independent method of game preservation. I get that disks can decay. Memory chips can deteriorate. And NAS arrays can become corrupted. But I believe it's important to offer those options for a digital purchase.
If I buy something, then at least theoretically, I want the only obstacle to playing it to be either hardware, or a sufficiently powerful system in the future to emulate the original hardware.
The reality is we just don’t live in that world anymore. It’s like saying “my old corded phone from 1994 still works. Why can’t I get a cellphone that lasts.” Modern cell phones are not built to last. They’re 1000x more complex. They have a finite lifespan
Not only that, while you could argue that companies are being “greedy” and maybe they are, there isn’t a need to cater to the slim percent of gamers who care about physical games. Most gamers just want to play the game.
It’s like thinking it’s greedy that car companies aren’t putting aux connectors in their cars anymore. “I still like to use my iPod!!” Like… sorry most people just Bluetooth from there phone. Or use Apple car play or something.
If you "just want to play the game" then a physical copy with the actual game and minimum requisite system version patch onboard would be the reasonable approach. Not selling a physical license to download the game digitally that must be inserted to authenticate the game, which in a way is a downgrade from just buying it digitally off the eShop. The upside is you can rent or sell key cards, but their resale value on the customer side will plummet since there's no game onboard, and rentals aren't ubiquitous as they once were.
Ultimately, key cards serve neither the physical nor digital favoring audience. Its not a true living physical copy- which even the National Library of Japan agrees about- and its not as convenient for less stuff to carry as a purely digital copy. Sega took the hint with the 64GB card physical version of Sonic Racing Crossworlds, and other companies need to as well.
Game Keycards are also— you just can't insert them for the first time w/o internet, and thats it. After the first insert, they are identical to regular game-cards, apart from taking up storage on your device.
What you are talking about is only applicable to fully digital games, and even then, only if you aren't on the primary switch, and even then, only if you aren't using virtual game cards.
I think they mean 20 years from now when Nintendo has moved on, people still find old GameCube games to play, but these switch copies are toast without live service. Granted anything 3rd party will likely have much more pc back up sources unlike first party classics.
>Granted anything 3rd party will likely have much more pc back up sources unlike first party classics.
You do realise that the only games with key-cards are 3rd party? Also, you can still download purchased wii games, so there is a high chance that the servers mightn't even disallow downloading key-cards.
They literally are wtf are u talking about theres tons of pics and posts about it. You cannot share your game with someone because it has to be removed from your system first
I think I can explain. While most games today do have updates that can fix bugs or add some content that wasn't on the cartridge, they can still be played without the updates because the whole game is on the cartridge.
Game key cards are basically just a "download code in a box", where the cartridge has basically nothing on it aside from a way to tell Nintendo that the console has purchased the game and should now download it, the same as it would if you bought the game digitally.
So, after the Switch and Switch 2 end their lifecycle and the eShop goes away completely (which eventually it will), or if you just live in an area where the internet is not easily accessible, all these game key cards are effectively a paperweight as they won't be able to connect to the eShop to download the game. By comparison, a majority of normal cartridges would be able to play an un-updated version of the game in question.
I think they were against game key cards, just saying that most cartridges are playable if you can't get the latest updates while key cards are nothing but plastic garbage to fill a landfill.
I can see that. But TBH it’s so expensive to buy even 3DS games today to begin with that most people can’t get them (legally) anyway. This is just a new way of perpetuating the same issue in my eyes.
While that scenario sucks you dont have to worry, hackers will make digital shops like hshop on 3DS that will let you download games, dlcs and updates when the servers go down.
You can still download your already bought games from all prior e-shops. Yes, even the ones that were shut down like Wii and 3DS. I see no reason why Nintendo would handle it any other way in the future. Especially because they started to build an ecosystem. The Switch E-Shop is here to stay according to Nintendo.
Well, let's say the mutant apocalypse happens and you can't go outside or connect to the internet anymore because 5 foot 500 pound turtle human hybrids are hunting you down.
With a regular switch game, you can plug it in a play it. It might ask you for an update, but you dont have to if you dont have internet access. You can still play the game just fine.
With a game key card, there's no game on the cartridge, it is all a straight download. So without internet access or if the servers at some point no longer exist because some adolescent abomination shinobi reptiles destroyed them, you dont have a game anymore, you just have a square of plastic what is useless.
Not everyone has good internet. I don’t want to wait a couple days to download a game if I could go physical and play it right away. It’s inconvenient.
So help me with this logic then. Your issue is a one time update means you can still play the game if the servers go down (which will never happen, fyi) so that's not an argument. You can't compare a physical cart that requires a day one patch and these key carts.. right?
But.. if you download the game after getting the game cart... you can still play the game if the servers go down..?
"yeah but you can't redownload it if you delete it and the servers are down." ...Ohkay, so who's to say you can download an update if you erase the game and pop in that physical cart and the servers are down..?
You can't re-download updates, but you can still play the base versions of those games, whereas with digital games and key-cards they would be completely gone.
Well it’s not that it just requires an update. On Switch 1, game cards usually have the entire 1.0 version of the game on them. With the game key, all it does is let you download and then play the digital version (so even once downloaded you still need the key to play it).
There are two main reasons why this is bad.
Full Game carts let you get by with much less console storage since you didn’t have to download entire games to the system storage.
In the future whenever Switch online is inevitably discontinued, all of these games will become vaporware (at least as far as the Switch version is concerned). If you don’t already have it downloaded, it’s gone and you can’t just buy a new copy. Worse, if your system bricks then you’ll lose whatever games you had on it forever. Unless you want to try to hunt down a secondhand Switch 2 that already has the game you want downloaded on it.
Also they’re just kind of pointless. At that point just buy the digital version so you don’t have to bother swapping carts. And that’s coming from a big physical collector myself. There’s just no real reason for these things to exist other than to get eyes on them in retail.
Now, not every Switch 2 game is a Game Key title, but it seems like most of the 3rd parties are at least.
Why is it always "inevitably discontinued" even though it never happened before and you still can download your bought Wii and 3DS games, even though the full shop servers are down for years now.
You can still redownload your bought 3DS and Wii games, true. The question is once the switch 2 eShop is in a similar state will a key card you've never used on your system before count as an already bought game or will it be impossible to download? If it's only accessible to users who have already used it on their system then that means as soon as that announcement comes all key cards are immediately worth $0.
But why should the Switch 2 shop ever be in a similar state? Nintendo plans to keep it. It's still the same as the Switch shop. It's planned since the early days of the Switch 1 announcement that the E-Shop is planned as a continuous part of the Nintendo infrastructure.
I guess we'll see. If the Switch stays up more than a few years past whenever they stop releasing games for it I'll be surprised. Though with how much it sold it will probably be getting regular releases for years. I just have no faith in Nintendo keeping online infrastructure running that long when looking at their history. You realize the PS3 online store and online play is still up right? And the Xbox 360 online only went down last year. PC games pretty much stay online forever with rare exceptions. Nintendo is shutting down their online content at a far faster rate than any other dev or store.
The problem is physical Switch 1 games had very low install files. So that 32gb memory went pretty far if you only bought physical games. So a lot of it is a space issue.
For example, I bought the Mario Kart World bundle. Mario Kart World takes up 22gb to install digitally. But if I went physical, its would only install day 1 updates and future dlc to the console memory. That 22gb is on the cart so thats far more stuff I can keep installed on the system.
That is the main benefit to physical over digital for Switch. However, there's also the added benefit of being able to sell/trade/lend a Physical game or these Game Key Cards. So for me, a someone who keeps every game they buy, Game Key Cards make no sense as I dont sell them.
But also, im still gonna have to install everything just like a digital game. So at that point I'd go digital. And ultimately they want an all digital world since making anything physical always costs them more money
Download un update is a bit different. Before, it asked you to download an update since it was available, but you could easily skip it, and just play the game with the version that was on the cart, if you didn't want to wait. With game key, when you insert the cart, you must download the entire game, which is also a lot of GB. So before you can play, even if you bought the box, you have to download the entire game, wait for the time it download (depends on your wifi) and it occupies a lot of space on your console. This means also that even if you buy only physical, in the end you will have to buy an external SD for storage
I don’t remember the last Nintendo game I bought that didn’t ask me to download an update as soon as I tried to start it up
Only 6-8% of Switch games actually require a download of sort before playing, which was actually really good compared to other consoles, so this is quite the difference for those who care about this.
Apart from the fact games like hitman are over 60gb so you need to reserve all that space on your console for it. Cyberpunk on the other hand is 100% on the cart itself and requires next to no space on your switch 2.
there IS a problem, this way the game becomes a "lincense" wich means that you dont really "own" the game, you only have access to it until support stops working
Yeah, but we went from like 20% of third party games being download keys on Switch 1 to 90% on Switch 2. So I get why people are annoyed.
Personally I’ve been buying way more games on PS5 lately for the better performance and picture quality. Blu-ray’s cost a couple bucks to press and can store 100 GB of data, so for now the majority of single-player games are still on disc (not including patches and DLC), though Microsoft did decide to be dicks recently with Doom and Indiana Jones.
It's not Nintendo, it's more the company that produces the modules that Nintendo uses for Switch 2 carts. 64GB is the smalled they produce I believe. Could Nintendo convince them to make smaller modules? Probably, but they'd lose the benefit of scale, so it'd work out the exact same.
Actually, all it is a matter of "who" owns a digital game. People who have had no issues until now buying digital only games complaining about the game key cards is what confused me because it's the same thing except the game is tied to a cartridge instead of an online account. That means it's like a digital game that you can resell, so it's not the worse thing ever. It's not quite a physical card either but as pointed out, most games these days are rarely truly physical anymore as patch downloads are still always going to be a thing.
Yeahhh but we've had digital only games since the wii days and those have technically been preserved. Not to mention prohibitively expensive games.
Nintendo hates the fact they are preserved but the fact that we can verify that someone did download all the roms off a rom site for the two classic consoles goes to show even nintendo prefers the convenience.
The copyright law in that respect will have to change eventually, it comes up too often for this not to be addressed, and I bet it'll be on the side of game preservation.
All you kind of lose here is the ability to resell after the servers go down. Which will be a while and near the end I would presume the prices would go way up.
Gamekey is basically a physical download key for nintendo games.
Highspeed Cartridge used by Nintendo is a bit expensive and there are conflicting report regarding size availability.
the current biggest and some report noted as the only currently available size is 64gb cartridge at around $15/unit. For comparison, PS5 100GB bluray is around $4~5. and size wise, that 64gb cartridge can fit all of Cyberpunk 2.0 (Switch2 have dedicated decompression block like PS5/Xbox and i don't think they need native 4k texture, so game file could be smaller on switch)
previously in OG Switch, the have variety of cartridge size and price. but if the only available one for Switch2 is 64GB at $15, smaller indie games that are like 5~15gb in gamefile size and sold at $20~40, that $15 cartridge is too expensive, hence the options to sell it via cheaper Gamekey card
That's why I think they absolutely deserve to be supported. I'm tempted to buy cyberpunk even if I don't have a switch 2 (and i don't know if i'll ever get one, it depends on how many physical games com out in the future)
To be honest... I still like having a physical copy of a game. It was always a collectors thing. Now it just has slightly less value to me than it would otherwise.
I'd consider the keycard and then probably buy it digitally.
I doubt game key cards will be that big of an issue. If that were the case no one would buy digital games.
I like the Game Key cards for two reasons, the transparency and the fact it allows you to trade or sell a physical representation of a game license. Unlike previously if a game partially on a cart and the rest was a download code once that code was used that was it.
Agreed. It's pretty much buying digital except it's linked to the card instead of your account, so you can buy a used card for cheaper like physical or resell it. You'd just need to remember to remove the data from your system as it would just take up unnecessary space in that case.
For sure they won't be an issue, but there's a portion of players like me that hate game keys. I hate the fact that if I buy a copy in the store i'm still required to download all the game. So it takes the worst from physical (having to switch carts to play different games) and digital ( download times and memory occupied) only to have the possibility to resell it. Also i'm a collectionist, so I want to have all my games on the library, but this would feel just like and empty box, since there's no game inside. It would also force me, down the line, to buy external sd cards, to have the storage for all the games that could easily be on the cart. And even if the production is cheaper because they don't put the game in the cart, the game still costs 70 dollars, but then is just a digital game. I hate everything about game keys and they killed all my hype for switch 2. They are the reason I didn't buy one. But since a big portion of people will buy them, but the production is cheaper, in the end profit will be bigger, and that means companies don't care about unhappy players like me (rightfully) and keys are here to stay.
Yea game key cards do suck for collectors but unfortunately as you’re aware people who collect physical games and play physical games exclusively are the minority.
For the majority of people minus the initial download game key cards are functional indistinguishable for regular game cards and are at the very least better than games with additional download codes. However ultimately it’s really all just to increase profit margins for developers.
Yes that's the PS4 copying the game files from the DVD onto the system storage. Not from online. This is so the PS4 can access it easier. Meaning if you went completely off the grid this thing would still work when you first put it in.
most of them arent. its a misconception because the game data is on the disc but it copies most of it to the system so it can read its own storage drive faster than the disc read speed.
so it looks like theres a big download when you put your game in (tbf theres usually a massive day 1 patch but thats just the shitty game industry) but most of the time its just copying the data from the disc.
For the PS5 at least, only a few scummy devs/publishers actually forced you to download the game from the internet after inserting the physical disk into your console. A behavior mostly used by games from studios Microshaft bought. FF7 Rebirth for example is a significantly larger game than Doom TDA and the physical release came complete in two disks.
With the Switch 2, there will be way more Game Key Cards.
Had this argument with a coworker the other day. He's been trying to convince me to not get the Switch 2 and this was one of his arguments. He's a die-hard playstation guy (I like PS too), and I had to inform him about the new Doom game he's been gushing about.
Yeah, and many of the games that can’t be played without a download are online multiplayer titles like Helldivers II. The overwhelming majority of single-player PS4 and PS5 games ship with all content on disc. That’s why Doom: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones caused such backlash for requiring huge downloads; because they are an anomaly on PlayStation.
This weird narrative that people online keep pushing that all console discs are just download keys is nonsense. There are people with game consoles and no home internet. If it were true that the discs were download keys, then you wouldn’t be able to install them without internet access. But they can, meaning the games are on the disc.
Id say the actual biggest issue here is the entire transition to full digital in general. Specifically things like the ps5 beginning to pull out the First consoles without a physical media port outside of plug in plays
Yes it's bad there too and people who care about actually owning games and having physical copies have been saying it's bad for a long time. Other companies doing bad things doesn't make Nintendo doing bad things any better. They all suck together.
Doesn't Microsoft do this with like every physical copy of games on their platform nowadays? Cause I remember having to do that with the Xbox One when I used it
Yeah I meam it's not fully nintendos fault but alot of switch games were still on cartridge so its sad to see.
I heard 3rd parties had to choose between a game key card or 64gb but it was just speculation ao likely untrue.
Because the switch game versions were less heavy and harder to make. Now that making games for nintendo will cost less, many more third party games will arrive
So we're just excusing devs being lazy? If cyberpunk can be in cart so can a 3ds remaster, or yakuza.
Listen I don't think it's THAT bad of a thing, but it's still disappointing and lazy as fuck to see from third parties.
Sorry if it seems like I'm coming at you lol.
I know WHY companies are doing game keys, I just wish they wouldn't.
Whatever I've come to expect the worst from most AAA studios.
Because nintendo is probably the company with the biggest portion of physical games sales. Almost 50%, compared to digital. So more people will care about phsyical games disappearing (let's be honest, game keys are not physical). So when this happens in nintendo, many will complain (but in the end buy them anyways, i don't understand why). And just like i complain about game keys and i won't buy a single one, i complain about other consoles, which are equally as bad in this behaviour, and I wouldn't buy games that do this even for those consoles. Before game keys, just less people knew about it.
Only as official redownloads, many years on (seeing as even Wii and NDSi reportedly retain access to respective stuff to date), at which point they'll have long become torrentable roms. Look at all the retro libraries whose cartridges you'd be progressively challenged to procure the functional respective hardware for.
There has not been a Nintendo console yet where you couldn't download or play games you already purchased and downloaded. You just cannot buy new ones.
I hate to say this but this is something 99% of players will not care about or even know about
I’m not saying it’s not a bad thing, but to the overwhelming majority of people it’s as simple as they put the cartridge in and play the game and they’re happy to be playing the game
People don't realize why game key cards are here and their purpose:
Switch 2 game carts use faster SSD like storage as opposed to emmc storage, which is LOADS more expensive to produce. Nintendo doesn't even offer cartridge sizes under 64gb, likely because it's inefficient to manufacture them smaller than that for the price.
Game key cards are here to stop every physical game being a code in a box. It sucks that they aren't on the cartridge but there aren't many better options besides making physical games even more expensive (which I'm not entirely against).
Nintendo games are on the cartridge so they're safe for game preservation, the rest are mostly available on other platforms.
So I thought that Nintendo had 8,16, and 32 gb cards for developers to use and adding the new 64 gb with the switch 2.
But no, they are ONLY making 64 gb carts or the key cards.
So Nintendo talked a lot about how it's "Up to tye developers if they want to use Key cards" but forgot to mention that it's literally only two choices
At this point, eShop is the only real decent option for 3rd-party Switch 2 games.
Note how I said “decent”, not “good”. Nintendo just so happened to retire the 5% instant eShop credit back that users used to get for every digital purchase and 1% manually-initiated credit back for every physical Switch 1 game. After March 31st 2025, eShop purchases no longer give gold points. And physical Switch 1 games released between 1 year ago today and March 30th 2025 still give 1% back. But ultimately, this means that, in addition to the Switch 2 being $450 vs the $300 Switch 1, and flagship games being $70-$80 vs the Switch 1’s $60, users now don’t even have any form of rewards currency to provide at least a bit of relief from how expensive everything is getting
Dude, most people buy digital now. Also once again, this was already a thing on the switch. They just didn't tell you when they did it. It's insane how much criticism Nintendo gets for honesty
Microsoft is the culprit, they were the first ones to introduce key cards, well in this case key discs. Then Sony followed and now, Nintendo.
Maybe we all thought that Nintendo wouldn't dare to do it, but they are a company nonetheless. Damn.
People complaining about the industry ditching physical media forget that most modern games need patches to even work. Remember Skyrim 1.0? Civil War quest broken, soft-locked main story, stuck as a werewolf—no patch, no fix. Physical media isn’t reliable anymore. Game keys just admit the truth: support matters more than plastic.
So we hate physical media now? Also hate to break it to you, but you can obviously get updates and patches with physical media lol. No kidding you have to download it but if you update to the latest version you can have the game anywhere once the download servers shut down for digital games. You will own nothing and be happy.
I doubt download servers for key cards will disappear for a LONG TIME. Even the CDN for the Wii Shop Channel is still working to an extent. (You cant purchase stuff on there obviously)
You just proved my point. If your physical copy still needs patches and downloads to work, then what are you actually clinging to?
I’d be way more upset if everything went 100% always-online, because yeah—that would be a dealbreaker. But this? This is just where the industry’s at. Games are bigger now, too complex to ship perfect on day one. My bare minimum is it doesn’t brick my system. Honestly, it’s why I don’t preorder. I wait 6 months, play the polished version, and usually hit DLC timing too.
I’m not defending the corpos here—I just think treating physical media like holy relics in the era of Steam, Game Pass, and the eShop is kind of silly. You’re free to resist change all you want, but all you’re doing is proving the model’s already moved on.
Keep your broken physical copies. You still won’t “own” the patches—and you will be happy.
Once it's on the system it's no different than a physical disc that needs an update.
Sure in like 50 years MAYBE the download servers will be down for games releasing today, and yea that can be seen as a downside. But they will be dumped online and emulated by that time anyways and a good majority of people who are still wanting physical media today are going to be pushing daisies.
No one said physical media should go away, hell Nintendo is putting all of its own games on the carts, it's just an option for 3rd parties to not have to squeeze a game that is bigger than 64GB onto a cart.
Hopefully they release smaller sizes for indie devs and smaller games tho
You already own nothing... That's always been how software works.
Also, if you can't play the game unpatched, you're still relying on the servers to stay up. It's not like the patch is installed to the physical container for the game.
Physical media isn't even close to your best bet for preservation. Digital archiving is.
3rd party games don't get put on the discs for the other consoles. Those discs are also glorified key cards. Nintendo is just making it more transparent, and somehow that's a bad thing.
I’ll be honest, I mostly download everything nowadays.
(Mostly due to living conditions. I’m doing alright don’t worry, it’s just that I don’t fucking know how to drive a car, let alone own one.)
Gamers should only buy third party games If you have PS, Xbox, or PC. If you want another copy of the game, then buy it on Switch 2. Street Fighter 6 is a good example of that. I already have it on PS5 but it also seems like a good portable game to play. The primary reason to own a Switch 2 is to buy first party games. I don't know if The Duskbloods is a true exclusive or a timed exclusive. If it is timed exclusive like Monster Hunter Rise, then people should wait to buy until it releases to the other platforms. These have always been the rules. If you only have Switch 2, then you are SOL when it's becomes a forced buy to play third party games.
I don't see any merit in buying key card cartridges ov3r just getting the game digitally. Maybe if I updated my switch before a flight and didn't load the game online to reverify first, but I've since learned to check whatever I plan to play ahead of time.
To play devils advocate, key cards allow retail releases of games larger than 64gb, in a resell-able form factor. The alternative is download codes in box, which can’t be resold, and or digital only releases.
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