They still have no real reason to exist though. Theyre a catalyst for ending physical media.
You get the worst part of owning a physical copy (you gotta find the physical game and put it in the console every time you want to.play that game) combined with the worst part about owning a digital copy (you still have to download all the game data).
Unless these versions of the game are cheaper than even the digital versions of the game, then there is no reason anybody would just pick the digital version over these. Any person interested in selling the game when they are done playing will just get normal physical media.
its worse than comparing it to physical media that has all content on media, but better than display boxes that only has a digital code in it.
digital key carts are more replacing the latter (which is better) but there will definitely be a few devs who will opt out of physical media storage costs for the key card
how is it better than display boxes?
Transferable licence.
They can be sold, gifted, inherited, etc.
That inheritance is going to be on a pretty short timespan, since 3DS and Wii U online services and downloads are already gone.
It is still possible to redownloaded previously purchased 3DS and Wii U games, they haven’t taken that down yet. You just can’t buy anything anymore. They haven’t said how long they’ll keep that up for, their FAQ simply says “for the foreseeable future”, but we know it can’t be forever and ever and ever.
Wii downloads went fully offline in 2019, 13 years after the console’s launch, or 7 years after the console’s successor. I wouldn’t try to extrapolate off a single data point though, Switch servers may potentially last longer based on both a longer console life-cycle and a desire to keep backwards compatibility going.
The 3DS and Wii U eShop was available for more than a decade, a full 6 years after the Switch was released. So all in all I’d say it was available pretty long, especially considering that there was no authorization required to download a game, so they were paying for servers to give away games for free
I think an inheritance should probably last longer than a decade. This is still an arbitrary expiration date that’s bad for the customer.
Okay but NES games are still playable and transferrable. Even earlier games for the first gen consoles like the MagnaVox Odyssey are still playable, and those are far older than one decade. And if it suffers physical damage, even to the point of becoming inoperable, as long as you dumped the ROM of your game you can continue to play it (at least in the US).
If a ditigal game shop server goes away, you better hope you downloaded your data, and that the hard drive you downloaded the data to never becomes inoperable. Because once that happens, it is gone forever. Even if you technically legally still have the license still to play it, if you tried to bring a legal case about being unable to access a game you paid for, the game publisher can just invoke their right as granted to them by the EULA of the game license you are forced to agree to to use their software (shrinkwrap license) to “revoke your license at any time, for any reason.”
Much, much harder to do that when someone owns a physical copy of a game, as that would require forcibly removing the physical game from you (AKA theft).
outside of the official service, there is actually one other feature that people forget exists, and would be relevent to the resell of the key.
updating by local user (no not the recently announced game sharing stuff, but the ability to update a game via just being near a device with the update)
edit: of course, this will only work if nintendo okays the transfer of the BASE game instalation as well. time will tell if its possible or not, as its a situation thats functionalyl hard to test.
I mean with this setup you can still sell the game and it keeps a used game market. I don’t like not actually “possessing” the game cause we know everything online shuts down eventually, but it’s much better than the “physical games” that actually just have a download code.
Its effectively a self-destructing game set on a timer.
Not unlike real physical games that succumb to time and damage, except you cannot dump the gamedata to preserve your own physical copy.
Also, physical games deteriorate at a much slower rate than Nintendo shutting down their servers. Sure, you have the right to download your digital Wii games you paid for, but have fun doing that right now on servers that no longer exist. The WiiU and 3DS eShops are next, they already have purchases disabled.
I can still play physical NES games, the only maintenance required is changing the battery, if the cart even has one, and keeping the pins clean.
Oh yeah, real physical games are better, no arguement from me.
Just calling out that it could be even worse.
Nintendo doesnt want to sell them either. They lose so much revenue on wholesaling and manufacturing. Digital gets them that sweet sweet 100% of the consumer price per sale. Holy fuck they’re just counting the days until they can finally convince idiots physical shouldnt exist. Ask Sony and Microsoft what they learned about even trying to suggest they were killing the used market.
They’re trying to kill physical media. Nintendo managed to figure out a way to add all the inconveniences of physical media to digital only games.
I am surprised that they didn’t just do away with it entirely. I don’t think it would have hurt their bottom line. This is somehow worse IMO. They’ll charge you more money for physical media that doesn’t even have the entire game on it. It’s like they want people to know that they’re being slapped in the face.
It is less bad than code-in-a-box. That’s not a high bar, but it is less bad.
There are two main reasons to buy physical:
Ability to share, trade, and resell your games. These key cards still support this, whereas code-in-a-box did not. So, slightly better.
Then there’s the peace of mind that your games will still work in the distant future. I think if you ask most people who primarily buy physical, myself included, we’ll say this is the main appeal of physical games, and the big reason why key cards don’t feel acceptable.
Some day when the servers eventually go offline, these key cards will become bricks. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. We have no idea how long Nintendo will support them for, and they’re not going to hard commit a timetable out loud for us. But we know it can’t be forever.
But even for standard physical games, there is some uncertainty regarding their long-term future that I’m not sure people realize. When those servers eventually go online, your cartridge only has 1.0 on it, you won’t be able to get patches. That’s better than a brick, but for a lot of games that’s probably not the version you want to play.
And then the even darker concern is bit rot. No form of physical media is permanent. Every disc and every cartridge will eventually degrade. Worse yet is that for many forms of media, we don’t even know how long they’re set to last for, we only find out once some of them start to fail. Cartridges are generally better than discs, but beyond that we truly have no idea how long Switch cartridges should be expected to last.
Switch Cartridges fall into two categories-
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Macronix Mask ROM carts
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NAND Flash carts
Carts of the first variety should last as long as any previous generation. Carts of the second variety are a big fat unknown, since NAND can lose charge over time.
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Yay, one good thing in a heaping pile of crap! Will wonders never cease?
Switch 2 game-key cards won’t be account- or console-locked
What? Of course not … that’s why they are in the form of game cards.
I assume people were worried about them pulling an Xbox, especially since they are largely the same concept.
Its the same concept as a stub game disc which requires a full online install (something Xbox used for cross-gen one/series titles).
Its nothing like the account tied physical sales they proposed at the Xbox one announcement.
A more “controlling” company could try to lock down the cartridge or even a disc with the logic that the license is tied to the purchaser. It doesn’t seem like much since that is the status quo, but last generation Microsoft was testing those waters and we’re just happy that these boundaries aren’t being pushed again right now.
How long do we reckon until they figure out the decryption keys and Switch 2 games become piratable on stock hardware?
3 months from now.
That’s kind of what I figured. I mean otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense to offer game key cards when digital versions exist.
Now if they could enable multi device Lan based game transfer like the steam deck has the cards wouldn’t be so bad.
