Well, that seems to have come to fruition for the worst nightmare of an average Nintendo Switch fan. When Nintendo announced a new “game key card” along with the Switch 2, almost everyone quickly hit a wave of frustration.
The Switch 2 Game Keycard essentially allows publishers to avoid dumping data into the cartridge itself. Instead, the physical cartridges you put in the system act as keys that you need to insert to download and play the game.
This is a somewhat unsatisfactory solution as the new Switch 2 cartridge holds 64 GB of data and can handle most games. Initially, most fans agreed that this is a guaranteed solution for games that takes up too much space with traditional cartridges.
However, fans were totally disappointed after a recent series of announcements revealed what kind of games would be released as game key cards. Games like Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 as key cards? This has to be a joke.
On Reddit, multiple posts share a batch of Nintendo Switch 2 games that have been announced to be released via game key cards rather than traditional storage-based cartridges. These posts have almost unanimously upset both fans and collectors.
Commenter Amandasgameaccount points out, “Isn’t it Puyo/Tetris 2 like 900MB?” Then one reply 0xfleventy5 said, “That’s what it is, apparently (please fix me at your own whilst you have 64GB or key cart options. Not in between.”
Some sources have confirmed this is very likely, with other small games essentially confirming that they put their data into a large 64GB game keycard. This opens up another loophole that we have never thought of before. Why do games that don’t use the entire cartridge spend extra money?
In reality, they don’t. That’s why large AAA titles that exceed 64GB of cartridge storage space, such as Cyberpunk 2077, have a similar reason to use game key cards as small games like Puyo Puyo Tetris 2.
Another commenter points to the feelings many collectors think they have about this fiasco.
Yes, I will continue to expand the original switch collection
As my own collector, I totally agree. Physically purchasing a game doesn’t replace the feeling of owning the game, even if you’re given a cartridge and a case. I feel like I own a cardboard cutout replacement, so I want to buy another game instead.
Why is everyone so frustrated?
Now, before we actually discuss this, we need to make sure that some misconceptions about game key cards are out of the way. Yes, you can exchange cards with friends, resell them, or install key card games on separate systems. Yes, once the game is installed, you can play it completely offline using the card.
Aside from these misconceptions, what we see from a third-party developer now is pretty scary for one big reason. These games would have been fully available in the last generation cartridges, but now they are basically downloadable only.
I’ve compared this so I bought a Blu-ray for the movie, put it on a DVD player, then used TV Open Netflix so I could stream from there instead. I think this is the best way to explain why this whole concept is so outright strange.
More importantly, this means that physical media is directly linked to the provider of downloadable services. Essentially, Nintendo and these third parties are telling us to fully trust us with our ability to distribute this media. They are not always available to distribute. For example, take Crew 2.
As one commenter stated, “No physical buys. They cut off the servers after 10 years and you can’t play them.” This is the biggest concern for anyone interested in getting these physical games on Switch 2.
Unlike PS4 discs, it is often possible to play the first 1.0 release of a game after the server goes offline, but the game keycard cannot do this. This is the biggest reason why collectors who play older titles decades after release are particularly upset by the system.
Nintendo encourages our worst habits
Before you finish this, there is one small point. Nintendo is a company that does its best to fight hackers, modders and everything in between, and literally encourages this behavior through this practice.
Why do fans always hack systems like 3DS and create illegal platforms for downloading these games? Since 3DS E-Shop was closed, preservation activities are the only way to download many third-party games lost on servers.
Once the Switch 2 generation passes, I think there’s a lot of content that nasty hackers will be eager to save when the Switch 2 servers eventually close. I will never fully support this activity, but I can argue that Nintendo is mostly looking for it.
