Nintendo has introduced new gaming key cards as a way for digital-only games to acquire physical releases, but the move is considered controversial. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the head of one studio, Biz called the move “disappointing.”
Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick spoke about the concept from a game preservation perspective, and said he hopes Nintendo will take it more seriously. “It’s a bit disappointing to see Nintendo do this,” Kick said. “You hope that a large company with such a storied history will take preservation a little more seriously.”
From a game storage perspective, the game keycard system is vulnerable to determining the line of not wanting to keep a server that allows games to be downloaded online. Nintendo has done so in the past, with consoles like the Wii U and Handheld 3DS no longer making servers live, making it impossible to download digitally purchased games.
“Even if the cartridge contains data about the first day of release, the game often patches, updates and expands through downloads, so carts lose connections to the game very often, acting like a physical copy protection dongle of digital objects.
The director of the International Electronic Game History Center, a powerful museum based in John Paul Dyson, Rochester, New York, believes Nintendo is just the latest console manufacturer with gaming key cards and is focused on the future of all digital. “Nintendo was, in a way, the leading console producer who went there the slowest,” he said.
Saving old games tends to be a challenge, but with Nintendo’s recent move, Kick believes the company has “a step back.” However, he is optimistic about saving the game.
“That’s really good, but should I do this 20 years ago?” Kick jokes, referring to the commitments by Square Enix, Sega, Capcom and Taito to archive the material used to develop the game. “But I can say that to everyone. I think everyone has been putting more effort into backing up their own things these days.
“Hopefully, finding source code and assets to create a collection or something like that is not that struggle.”
As Switch 2 approaches its release on June 5th, buyers began to realize that it is only sold with game key cards. This means that the card itself does not have any of the game data, but instead acts as a key that allows Switch 2 to download and play the game. As part of the system, the game key card must emulate a regular game card and continue to insert the player to play the game.
