Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Card Overview
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Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.
Pay a premium for a physical copy of your game, and the cartridge may not contain the actual game. Only on Nintendo Switch 2.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byIt's actually not "only on the Switch 2". There were a bunch of Switch one games that only came with a partial set of assets and required a mandatory download to be played.
It sucks, and it's what you get when your physical storage is too expensive and too small, unfortunately.
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Seems so. Notably, Switch 1 already has games with a similar warning on the box.
They're just giving a name to it.
On one hand, I'm glad they're up front about it (and I'd rather see an even uglier, larger warning on the cover for game key cards). On the other, I hope this isn't a sign that they're legitimizing it or that it'll be more common.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byYep. The slight difference is that those Switch games typically included a chunk of the game in the cart and sometimes were partially playable. Short of requiring a smaller download, though, it was the same practical function.
I still don't like it, but those carts get prohibitively expensive at high sizes.
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So they essentially stuffed a download code into a physical cartridge to make people feel like they are getting something?
Isn't that needless and wasteful? Isn't it also going to trick unsuspecting people into buying something they think is a physical version of a game but isn't?
wrote 6 days ago last edited byNintendo's site says the cartridge must always be inserted in order to play the game, and so it is the cartridge that controls the game license.
On that basis it seems likely you could sell/give the cartridge to someone else, after which they can play it and you no longer can - they'd just also have to download it first.
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Nintendo's site says the cartridge must always be inserted in order to play the game, and so it is the cartridge that controls the game license.
On that basis it seems likely you could sell/give the cartridge to someone else, after which they can play it and you no longer can - they'd just also have to download it first.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byThank you for the clarification!
I still don't like it.
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Yep. The slight difference is that those Switch games typically included a chunk of the game in the cart and sometimes were partially playable. Short of requiring a smaller download, though, it was the same practical function.
I still don't like it, but those carts get prohibitively expensive at high sizes.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byAs someone with two kids who play games on the switch, physical carts keep me from having to buy every game two or three times.
So losing the ability to buy a game and share it between three switches will severely increase the costs of games for me.
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So they essentially stuffed a download code into a physical cartridge to make people feel like they are getting something?
Isn't that needless and wasteful? Isn't it also going to trick unsuspecting people into buying something they think is a physical version of a game but isn't?
wrote 6 days ago last edited byThey've been doing that for decades now. Lots of PC games had a box and CD, but the only thing on it was a stub installer to run Steam. Or even if it had the full game, you'd have to download a giant day-one patch to fix all the bugs fixed between the image going gold and the actual release day.
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As someone with two kids who play games on the switch, physical carts keep me from having to buy every game two or three times.
So losing the ability to buy a game and share it between three switches will severely increase the costs of games for me.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byNintendo made a huge deal about virtual game cards, saving us from exactly what you're afraid of.
Not as good as what Sony and Microsoft do, where we can essentially install our whole library on every console we have, but it's about as good as what Steam does.
Plus they're bringing back a "game share" like feature, so some multiplayer games should be playable in a local family with only one purchase.
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As someone with two kids who play games on the switch, physical carts keep me from having to buy every game two or three times.
So losing the ability to buy a game and share it between three switches will severely increase the costs of games for me.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byIt's the other way around. You can download the same game in all of your consoles and actually play them at the same time. Something you can't do with cartridges, because you can only play the game in the console where the cartridge is inserted. You'd need one cartridge per console to play the same game simultaneously. So digital games are objectively better for your scenario.
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Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.
Pay a premium for a physical copy of your game, and the cartridge may not contain the actual game. Only on Nintendo Switch 2.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byI don't like the idea of a game that can't be played long after the servers have gone down.
But I'm glad that it can still be traded or sold after purchase unlike what Xbox tried to do.
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As someone with two kids who play games on the switch, physical carts keep me from having to buy every game two or three times.
So losing the ability to buy a game and share it between three switches will severely increase the costs of games for me.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byYeah, it definitely puts their overhaul of digital game sharing in perspective. They are ABSOLUTELY shifting to digital. I wouldn't be surprised if the Switch 2 Lite had no cartridge slot at all.
That said, their idea here seems to be that you have a physical cart with a game license in it so you can download the game on multiple consoles and then just swap the key around. That is not a new idea, but it goes to show how frustrated by the limitations of having to ship flash memory with every game they are.
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It's actually not "only on the Switch 2". There were a bunch of Switch one games that only came with a partial set of assets and required a mandatory download to be played.
It sucks, and it's what you get when your physical storage is too expensive and too small, unfortunately.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byNow you've got me curious what capacity a UMD form factor could achieve with a UHD Blu-ray laser.
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Now you've got me curious what capacity a UMD form factor could achieve with a UHD Blu-ray laser.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byGood question. What was the UMD, 1GB? From the DVD default, which was 4GB single layer and 8 dual layer? Blurays are 25GB single layer,so 25% of that is like 7gigs, which is still smaller than the 16gigs the larger Switch carts were. But hey, a lot of games on Switch were smaller, dual layer discs would get you almost to the same size and be a fraction of the cost.
Well, the discs would be. I have no idea how much the weird plastic caddy on UMDs pushed the price up.
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So these physical copies will only cost $5, right? Lol.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byActually from the prices I’ve seen online they are about 5 /10 dollars more than digital versions.
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Good question. What was the UMD, 1GB? From the DVD default, which was 4GB single layer and 8 dual layer? Blurays are 25GB single layer,so 25% of that is like 7gigs, which is still smaller than the 16gigs the larger Switch carts were. But hey, a lot of games on Switch were smaller, dual layer discs would get you almost to the same size and be a fraction of the cost.
Well, the discs would be. I have no idea how much the weird plastic caddy on UMDs pushed the price up.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byI always thought UHD used a different laser than standard blu-ray, but only just found out it was a trick of h265 encoding and triple layer discs.
Based on the mini-BD format, assuming triple layer, the upper limit would have been around 24GB.
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Thank you for the clarification!
I still don't like it.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byMe neither. The age of genuine physical game ownership is toast.
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Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.
Pay a premium for a physical copy of your game, and the cartridge may not contain the actual game. Only on Nintendo Switch 2.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byMany Ubisoft games and Activision games on the Switch 1 were sold like this.
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Nintendo's site says the cartridge must always be inserted in order to play the game, and so it is the cartridge that controls the game license.
On that basis it seems likely you could sell/give the cartridge to someone else, after which they can play it and you no longer can - they'd just also have to download it first.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byUntil the download servers go down and you have a cartridge that's just ewaste
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wrote 6 days ago last edited by
Yes, which is a big part of why it sucks.
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So they essentially stuffed a download code into a physical cartridge to make people feel like they are getting something?
Isn't that needless and wasteful? Isn't it also going to trick unsuspecting people into buying something they think is a physical version of a game but isn't?
wrote 6 days ago last edited byOne thing I don't see people mentioning is that Nintendo Switch 1 game cartridges had 32gb of storage. We don't know about regular Switch 2 cartridge storages, but they've already announced games like Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy that are much bigger than that.
Add in the fact that Switch 2 promises games in 4k (when docked) and there's a very decent chance that these game-key cartridges exist because some games wouldn't fit in cartridges and would otherwise have to be digital-only or not be on this console at all. -
Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.
Pay a premium for a physical copy of your game, and the cartridge may not contain the actual game. Only on Nintendo Switch 2.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byFuck you Nintendo. Because if you lose or damaged the game card, making it unreadable by the card slot, you won't be able to play the game. Due to the game card having the license that allows you to play the game. You'll own nothing and you'll like it, gamer.