I rambled on a bit longer than I planned, but I got a new video discussing the crazy good sales of the Switch 2. I'm also a bit over 300 subs away from 10,000 ;)

You'll get there and more.  Well deserved!  

Switch 2 cartridges cost money ... 3rd parties are not going to subsidize the cost, not in this economy with tarrifs and inflation already being a problem.

Consumers will just have to learn to accept Game Key cards. People who just casually demand every game be on a physical cartridge then start crying when they find out they have to pay for the cartridge cost. The publisher is not going to eat that cost and they're already complaining about games being too expensive as is. You can't win with these people, they want everything and they don't want to pay for anything beyond pricing staying forever the same.

Mario Kart is to Nintendo platforms what GTA is PS/XBox ... it sucks the air out of the room, this is the first new Mario Kart in a decade+. Mario Kart is THE go to Mario franchise now (not even the platformer games come close in sales). 

The Switch 2 system is also pricier and even things like the Switch 2 Pro Controller have a sticker shock price tag. Third party sales will be fine as time goes on, the userbase gets bigger, and people get their fill of Mario Kart. After getting the Mario Kart bundle + Pro Controller 2 + new Memory card, a lot of people are already out of pocket like $700+. No shit they're probably going to hold off on buying 3-4 additional games straight away. Most people can't drop $1000 on a console launch day 1. They need to pay off their credit card bill for the system as is.

Correct, game cards cost money. But that's the only thing you got right.

Switch 2 game prices have been increased by $10 which in turn covers the higher costs for the production of game cards, so there's no subsidy necessary in the first place. You should be ashamed of yourself for serving as a corporate shill by instantly putting the blame on consumers when the actual guilty party can be so easily identified. It's the third parties who choose game-key cards instead of game cards.

Your argument that Mario Kart World causes a decrease in third party sales is wrong as well. MKW sells the hardware, so its existence is beneficial for all games.

The disposable income argument is flawed too. We won't see any Nintendo game suffer because a large amount of people has supposedly not enough money to afford video games. That's because physical copies have a higher value than digital games.

After Nintendo made a survey about game-key cards in Japan, they issued another one for America. It's evident that game-key card games have underperformed. Deservedly so, because it's third parties who'll have to learn the hard way that people want physical games. Your earlier hypothesis that the absence of a physical copy will translate to a digital sale has been quickly proven to be the bullshit it was and is.

So there are 190k Switch 2 owners who do not have Mario Kart World.

Also, third party software moved 3.04 million all up, if you subtract MKW (5.63m) from the total software sold. (8.67m)

Welcome Tour I don't think is counted as a digital release, though if it is, then it still apparently sold under 1m, which would still leave 2m plus third party sales.

Didnt Nintendo have Scarlet and Violet above Sword and Shield? 

Grok:

3rd party games are cheaper than Nintendo's physical copy games in many respects, I paid significantly less for Street Fighter VI than I did for Donkey Kong Bananza, if the game had to come physical on cartridge as part of a dumb mandate, that may not have been the case. 

3rd parties are not going to subsidize the $10 extra cost, they need that extra margin as is because development costs have skyrocketed. The extra cost for the cartridge will be ON TOP of that additional $10 that goes to cover game development (and will be standard on Playstation and XBox as well). 

Again these are valid realities, these are not just made up shit. 

The higher speed cartridges push the cost of cartridges higher, then you have tariff bullshit on top of that. 

Then not only that, 64GB is not enough space for a lot 3rd party games to begin with. I don't want a fucking compromised experience because some 40-year-old game collector needs to live in 1996 forever for the sake of "tradition". Key Cards lets developers just set their game size to whatever they need without a fuss. 128GB cartridges are likely not happening any time soon and if they ever do it will likely be in very limited quantities. 

EDIT: "$10 extra" also may be generous, there are reports floating around that 64GB Switch 2 cartridges cost $16 for the cartridge only. 

https://www.tomsguide.com/gaming/nintendo/new-nintendo-switch-2-leak-suggests-game-key-cartridges-might-be-preferred-by-publishers

That's a substantial cost. If people want this option so bad, then pay the extra $16 per game for it, why should a developer who's already operating on thin margins eat a $16 surcharge per copy on Switch 2 versus other platforms.