It's not the 3rd parties that are to be blamed here. NS cartridges are a proprietary media storage format owned by Nintendo, 3rd parties basically buy/license them from nintendo.

Nintendo is charging them outrageous prices and they are basically getting their money back from the consumers.

Yeah, I get it now. However I doubt the game exceeds the smallest available Switch card size, 1GB. It's only 610 MB on the eShop. So perhaps at that size the difference between card and blu-ray is small enough to eat the extra costs of the card, hence same priced PS4 and Switch version.
LA Noire needs 32x the capacity, more expensive card, most likely a much bigger difference than between single and dual layer blu-ray disks. It might still fit on a single layer blu-ray as well, first game stayed just under 25GB to save on the disc price. 360 version came on 3 DVDs. Although if it includes the DLC I guess it will have to be a dual layer disc.

Ofcourse it's up to the publisher to either eat the extra cost, or raise the price and risk fewer sales. Which will generate more profit over all.

And to reference the ground level logic used by someone else towards me:  proof?  Cause I don't see any other than these price hikes which again aren't happening on every game.  Sonic Forces, another $40, is not afflicted.  What $60 releases coming are not afflicted.  If Nintendo has set a high price on their cards, the price discrepancy should be universal and fairly even.  See the N64 situation where actual high prices were real and known as a fact beyond just looking at game prices.  And trust me, a price THAT high would have got out very early.  

I'm with you. Nintendolife says the "standard" 8GB cart is the same cost as releasing a game for Xbox or Playstation (they don't know for sure, though). Quote:

"In industry circles, it is said that these cards [32GB] actually cost more than $20 per cart to the publisher".

The article doesn't mention what a Blu-Ray from MS or SONY costs but 20$ seems very high and should justify the price hike. It also looks like this only affects 32GB carts, which explains why a lot of Switch games retail for normal price. My personal skepticism was fueled by past experiences and "test games" for Nintendo systems. Here's hope the costs for these high capacity carts will come down quickly. Personally, I'm willing to pay more for carts now that I know this because they simply feel higher value to me and the publisher doesn't seem to be at fault. Of course, I don't know if the information provided in that article is accurate. 

Ok that price is BS, I am saying that as a fact.  Flip back a few pages and look at the way costs break down.  If these carts cost $20, LA Noire would be selling at a loss at $50.  And the price hike has hit games like PuyoPuyo Tetris and Rime which clock in at well under that 32 GB card.  No source cited and looking at the wider memory industry, $20 is a bad joke.  A really, really bad joke.

A very cool game. If you guys haven´t tried, it is awesome. Totally recommend it.
By the way, it has nothing to do with GTA, do not expect GTA

In fact, looking at what I can find, their "industries circles" references THEIR old Rime article where they just made the assumption.  

Not saying it isn't a higher price, it is, but $20 is absolutely, positively, without question ludicrous.

Here we go, an expert source:

Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmed went into more detail about this on Twitter yesterday:

“If a publisher wants to put a game on a 32GB cart on Switch it costs 60% more for them then it would for a 50GB Blu-Ray on PS4/XB1. Your game needs to be less than 8GB (because 8GB carts are cheaper) if you want to make the same margin as PS4/XB1 Blu-Ray disc.”

Doesn't this go against your points in this thread?

A blue ray costs something like a buck fifty to two dollars to stamp.  That puts a Switch cart in the range I guessed.  Big percentage jump, small dollar jump.