There's been plenty of talk around the Internet about why publishers are option for game key cards for most Switch 2 retail releases instead of putting the game on the cart, and one prevailing reason was the rumor (fact?) that Nintendo has only made Switch 2 cards available in one capacity, 64GB. That size, along with high production cost of game cards in general, has been a deterrent for many publishers to release full physical games.

It seems like Nintendo is acknowledging this issue and has begun making smaller capacity game cards available to third parties:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2025/12/nintendo-has-a-game-key-card-alternative-in-the-works-with-smaller-switch-2-carts

This article references a blog post from the publisher ININ Games: In a new blog post, the studio stated that "Two days ago Nintendo announced two new smaller cartridge sizes for Nintendo Switch 2", so a full physical release is back on the menu.

However, by the time I visited the blog and read the post, the wording seems to have been updated to remove any reference to Nintendo officially announcing any smaller Switch 2 cart sizes.

The entire European and US production of R-Type Dimensions III for Nintendo Switch 2 will be released on a full physical cartridge.

A little downside to this positive news: The price for the retail and the special edition of the NSW2 version will increase by €10 due to the still higher productions costs. However, as a small thank-you to our early supporters, All early pre-order customers of the special edition will receive the game on cartridge at the original price they ordered.

Still, hopefully this opens the door for more Switch 2 games releasing on the card with the full game intact.

Good news if true, for those who prefer physical copies. (I'm one of them)

Thank God.

I certainly don't mind paying the extra $10 for a true physical version.

I'm with you guys. I realize that we live in a time where the final form of most games rarely ever exist on a physical medium thanks to patches and DLC, but being able to at least own the base game and know that I have access to it years after servers are down is important to me.

The cost of manufacturing the cartridge is actually tiny (64Gb thumb drive is $5 retail). It's the logistics around shipping it.

The real reason companies don't want physical media is because (1) any money is money they aren't pocketing (2) you can resell physical media when you are done with it (which for a bad game may be pretty soon after it ships to you).

I was pretty stoked to see an RType remake but was disappointed to find it was going to be a gkc.  On the announcement of it going physical, yesterday, I ordered.  $12. for shipping seemed steep, but whatever.  Happy to get the game on physical media.

Should have been available since the launch, but better late than never.

You would have access to the base game years after servers shut down regardless of whether it’s a GKC. Just look at how digital purchases work on 3DS and Wii U (and, well, any console with online servers that no longer operate). In fact, there is speculation that the cartridges which hold Switch 1/2 games will die out quicker on the physical versions, slower on the GKC.

That said, however, I am very pleased to finally see this problem finally starting to be addressed. It’s crazy that 64GB was the only option up until now.

I'm talking about the download/FTP servers, not those for gameplay functions. We thankfully still have access to download our 3DS and Wii U games, but Nintendo could announce tomorrow that those will go down some time next year too, for all we know.

I hear all of this talk about disc rot and cartridges dying out, but I have yet to experience that on any vintage console I own and still want to use. The worst I can say is that the internal batteries on my GB/GBC/GBA games made before Nintendo switched to flash memory don't work anymore, so I can't save progress on them. The Dreamcast, N64, GameCube, Wii and PS3 consoles and games I've booted up in the past few years all seem to be fine, outside of a few third party memory cards crapping out. Not saying their day isn't coming, but I haven't experienced any games or consoles flat out not working.

Those crap thumb drives aren't as fast as Switch 2 cartridges and half of them crap out after like a year of use (would certainly hope Switch 2 carts don't do that). 

Switch 2 cartridges are custom and are going to cost more. 

Looks like it's about $11.70 USD (equivalent to 10 euro) for these smaller sized carts as opposed to $16 that was leaked earlier for the 64GB carts from a 3rd party dev. 

That's a bit better, but still not cheap.