BOLD PREDICTION: By the end of NS2 life, all Nintendo games will be GKC

[Legendary_W]

I agree with this theory. Truth to be told even though I went full digital after a year or so on the Switch I'd rather have the choice to have the full game on the cartridge if I wanted to. Then again, you need to install the game and download a multi-gigabyte patch for almost every game on other consoles. Physical is essentially non-existent on PC. I see it as Nintendo losing an edge it had over its competitors ("literally put the cartridge in and you're good to go") rather than having a unique issue.

I am disappointed they're "abusing" it, however, when it was announced I had no quarrels with it because I thought most first party games would be on a normal cartridge and game-key cards would be just a thing for those games that were large enough that they needed that ugly "REMEMBER THE FULL GAME ISN'T ON THE CARTRIDGE" banner. But I kinda get it, with the uncertainty of memory prices from a business standpoint it may seem silly to absorb the cost on physical format instead of just doing what everyone else does anyway (installing, or rather downloading here, the full game on the console) and solving the issue with a small piece of plastic that guarantees you won't lose money over no real benefit (from the PoV of the business of course).

The only real issue that bothers me is the possibility of games not being officially available in any way as time goes on. We don't have a real guarantee that in, let's say, 10 years from now games available for download today will be available to download via GKC then, if you had the full game on the cartridge that wouldn't be a worry at all.