Final Fantasy VII Remake being GKC and 90 GB in size made me realize that there's no option for modern-looking physical games without some serious compromises in asset quality

The media is extremely expensive. A simple solution would be to use cheaper storage card, ones that don't cost over 10 USD, just to hold the data and then install the full game onto the console

Of course, this would require more storage, but GKC already requires extra storage anyway. This is similar to how the PS5 handles games while still keeping loading times short. Games that are too large could come on two discs, but the entire game would still be present in the physical media

Smaller games could use smaller card sizes (4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB), so you wouldn't need to rely on an unnecessarily expensive 64 GB card

This would significantly cut the costs with physical media and we would bd seen more true physical games instead of so many code-in-boxes 

Edit, for the record this is a website to list how many games are playable without downloads: https://www.doesitplay.org/

It states 68% of PS5 games requires no major patches, while 17% require patches for either bug fixes, improved performance or minor content. 4% needs major patches for being playable or will have huge amounts of content cut. And 11% will need mandatory downloads to play

This matches with my experience, very few of my PS5 physical games require mandatory downloads, the games are fully on discs


For Switch 1 stats are 92% of the games fully playable without downloads

My understanding — as somebody who is not even slightly informed on gaming tech info lol — is that the reason why PS5 doesn’t need a Game-Key Disc option is because discs cost significantly less than cartridges. So… I guess I’m not fully seeing how you have “solved” the issue? Simply saying “well they should’ve chosen a cheaper option” leaves open the question of “Okay,…well then what is this cheaper option you speak of?”

That being said, do you know of a cheaper cartridge? Or of a cheaper option in general? Ideally, I’d rather not risk my game cartridge being more susceptible to corruption nor have longer load times due to cost-cutting measures.

Nintendo uses a expensive media because it needs to be fast enough to be read and processed in console. It also only comes in 64 GB

There are unexpensive micro SD storage solutions. I can buy a 64GB one for 4 USD, and this is already factoring things like retailers getting their profit margins. Smaller SSD cards of 8GB or 16 GB would probably have only marginal costs 

Considering how small Switch 2's internal storage is, I think to many Nintendo players, not playing a game straight from the cartridge is as much a deal breaker as an empty card. But at least your suggested solution reduces the number of problems to one, vs GKC's two.

Lack of storage is solvable with more storage. Switch 2 standard model should come with 512 GB, with an option for a 1TB model

This would either reduce Nintendo's profit margins or lead to a price increase. Not ideal scenarios for Nintendo.

As Kyuu already covered, I expect this would still be viewed unfavourably due to both not being able to play games from the card and taking up storage, and given that some already criticised Switch 2 for costing $450, expanding its internal storage would likely drive that even higher and price out a portion of their userbase.

This also doesn't solve the issue that many modern games require a lot of space, so for something like FF7 you'd need a 128GB card or even bigger, at which point costs would mount. Either that or you'd end up with only half the game on the card and the rest as a download, in which case it may as well be a GKC in practical terms.

There is no technical reason why Nintendo cannot allow the use of cheaper Switch 1 carts for Switch 2 media.

Developers can then use the media to install to internal storage if speed is an issue.

It all comes down to Nintendo's policies.

Even Switch 1 carts weren't cheap though; throughout the system's life, the 32GB card was only used a handful of times cos of cost, with devs opting instead to use 16GB cards or smaller with mandatory installs.