And the logic here is what? Hoping maybe to ride the holiday rush wave that Switch will likely experience? I mean, it's a good idea on paper but you can count the number of times it has worked on one hand.

2k isn't too demanding. I'm willing to not see sweat details or anything unnecessary to get a true basketball game on the go. I hope Madden comes as well

Strange. Maybe some mix-up in ordering batches of NS cards...

Looks like the cartridges might have to do with the delay.

From seeing my cousin download these games year after year, they're massive.  Dev's do little to no compressing, there's no reason a fucking basketball game should be nearly 90GBs but it always is.

If I had to guess, it's cartridge compression issues.

2k16 was actually my first basketball game since the OG xbox. Afterwords I just stuck to nba jam.

Seeing it take up 65gb of my 500gb hard drive just got me irritated. 2k17 was somehow even bigger. There is no reason why a game like xenoblade x is 32gb while a basketball game continues to bloat up to ridiculous levels. 

Was any reason given for the delay of Minecraft's physical release?

It really is a shameful display.  It's literally a "because we can get away with it" thing.  Basically, they figure that since mandatory installs are a thing on PS4 and Xbone, they are free of any obligation to optimize file sizes.  And if it results in frustration and problems for users, oh well, not their problem.

planning to buy NBA 2k18 but I wanted see gameplay first and how the Switch version is doing against the other plats.

Mandatory installs has turned into a grudge for me. It's irritating how they're installed, and yet you still need the disc whenever you want to play. i'd rather just get my Switch and not worry about any of this. At least Nintendo actually compresses their games