Poke'mon Pokopia Will Be Game-Key-Card Only

[Soundwave]

Vodacixi said:

Soundwave said:

It's inevitable. There is no future for cartridges and the AI spending boom is likely driving the cost of these kinds of storage (cartridge based) through the roof. They cost $16/cartridge just for 64GB, wouldn't be surprised if that price is actually going up even for Nintendo because the price of most high speed storage these days is increasing (again AI spend is driving prices of RAM, storage, etc. up). 

Nintendo should have just ripped the band-aid off and just made Switch 2 a digital only platform like every other portable electronic device is these days (and the Portable PS6 will be also) but they wanted a weird compromise and it just ends up with no one being happy.

I play games, not formats, so for me personally I've never  been attached to cartridges. As far as I'm concerned they've been a curse on Nintendo anyway, they cost Nintendo the entire traditional console market because of the stupid N64 cartridges which were terrible and crippled the system while simultaneously handing the market to Sony. I wish we had digital only back in the mid-90s with high speed internet, it would have allowed games like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy to be possible on the N64 without needing something stupid like a $150 cartridge. 

Soundwave, sweetheart. Can you stop making the same almost copy-paste comment on every negative news on GKC? It's getting very old. Specially because people have already debunked your entire rethoric multiple times. Thanks.

None of those points have been debunked and what I'm saying is actually coming more and more to fruition. If Nintendo even themselves is starting to use GKCs for some of their own titles... the writing here is pretty clearly on the wall. 

To be honest this is *worse* than even I predicted, I thought at least Nintendo themselves would stay steadfast on releasing all their own games on physical cartridge for at least this generation before ditching them for Switch 3, the Switch 2 is not even half a year old and they're already moving some of their own franchise games to GKC only. 

That doesn't bode well for physical at all. Costs of higher speed storage (SSDs) have skyrocketed the last year or so, wouldn't surprise me if Nintendo is looking at even higher costs for their cartridge manufacturing. Companies like Western Digital have seen their stock price go through the roof because storage is critical to AI infrastructure, but that means the price of those components goes up across the board. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 12 November 2025