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Slownenberg on 01 May 2025
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JRPGfan said:

I heard a rumor on the internet, that supposedly Nintendo make 8gb and 64gb cartridges.
And the 64gb ones are like ~8$.

So instead of spending like ~8$ on a cartridge that can hold the games, they give you a tiny gamekey code instead, to save like 8 bucks.
Just raise the price of the games by the cost of the cartridge, and give full games on physical buy. I think most would prefer that.

OR  if you want to sell the Switch 2 versions, at the same price as say xbox/playstation ones that use cheaper discs, then just eat the price difference. Surely that would be a better move, like.... how profit driven are these people, to not see that this will likely drastically effect sales of their games (physical buys).

Yep greedy profit to skimp on the consumer and save that ~$8.

It's clear that Nintendo went to third parties to ask what they needed to do to bring back AAA third party support, which resulted in them making the Switch 2 more high-end spec focused than they've done since GC...I wonder if key cards was another concession to third parties, allowing third parties skimp/save a few bucks on physical cards and therefore have a console-like strategy where games require huge downloads even when you buy physical (or in this case they just require downloading the entire game even when a regular game card could easily fit the game).

Game key cards are the worst parts of both physical games and digital games. So ridiculous. You have to download the entire game but can't play the game without the card in the system. That's a lose-lose. They literally serve no point except saving companies a few bucks per game by forcing this awful option on people who want to buy physical.

I guess the big 3 are really pushing gamers to go fully digital these days, with the giant downloads required for many console games even when you buy the disc, Xbox's Game Pass focus, Nintendo's $10 price difference for first party games between digital and physical, and with key cards seemingly gonna be the main option for third parties to save a few bucks and making physical games nearly pointless as they still require the game to be downloaded.