Comment by _imnothere
7 hours ago
IMO, Nintendo deserves stronger backlash just like Sony. Game keycards keep the appearance of physical ownership without delivering what people expect from a cartridge.
I sure looking forward for more people hopping on the AI hacking trend to bring them down.
They are tradeable and resellable which is a very important property for poorer gamers instead of rich collectors like us.
Edit: Switch 2 is also biggest proponent of SD Express. Any supporter of SD cards coming back to phones and other devices should appreciate the stance taken here. Nintendo could've gone the Google/Apple route and just sold 512GB and 1TB models. Instead this effort, like Sony's Xperia phones, are completely unrecognized.
I wonder if the SD Express will be taken advantage of in the switch 2 homebrew scene which seems inevitable now.
SD Express is PCIe express after all (also a possible attack vector in itself, see DaMAgeCard). With nvidia drivers for Ampere already on board maybe someone will get an RTX 3090 running on a switch 2.
GKCs aren't perfect, but both PS5 and Xbox Series consoles have had games where the disc is near useless too, either with only part of the game on the disc (e.g., Oblivion Remastered) or virtually none of the game on the disc (Indiana Jones). GKCs are at least upfront and clear on the packaging. I wish they had banned the practice of codes in a box. THOSE SUCK.
And just yesterday I had to use my modded 3DS to rescue a physical 3DS cart that wasn't booting. Luckily I was able to but there's no guarantee a physical game will last forever either.
yes at least with GKC I immediately know that game is not playable offline instead of needing to go to https://www.doesitplay.org and hope that someone already documented the game I am looking at, which is the case with PS5
After the initial download, it doesn't need to do any online checks if you have the key card inserted. That's kind of the whole, the card is the key.
Game key cards are cheaper to make because normal cartridges with the full game cost a fortune right now. And guess why? AI data centers buying up all the memory chips.
On the physical games part, Nintendo still puts their own games on full cartridges, so I don't think they're the ones that deserve the backlash here.
options for switch1, ps5, xbox: Disc or code in box.
options for switch 2: Full game on cartridge, switch 2 edition (including switch 1 support), Game Key Card (half physical), Code in the box.
I don't see why should nintendo be blamed for providing more options. if anythng you should blame the publishers for chosing "Code in the box" (looking at you diablo) when GKC would do. or GKC when full cartridge would do.
> Game keycards keep the appearance of physical ownership without delivering what people expect from a cartridge.
How's that? Can't you buy & resell them on the used market? That seems like the only thing a physical cartridge gets you, and not shipping the outdated-on-day-one bits on the cart saves some money, too. Seems like win-win?
I think the point is that X years from now, when the servers are turned off, you don’t actually have the game.
I actually find great satisfaction and closure in knowing it is an ephemeral experience.
Experience the game, move on.
Of course, just my own preference, not saying others need to follow it.
I liked buying used games as a poor teenager and even poorer young adult, the only way I could afford it (and selling them once I was done).
I believe that is largely true even if they shipped a game on the cart. Many games ship broken, and they also change many times over the course of their life. I don't think official media can be considered any part of a future accessibility strategy for at least a decade now. Game keycards don't change that fact in any way.
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That's true, but Nintendo has been good about this. You can still download your digital purchases from the Wii, Wii U and 3DS stores just fine.
- You can't download the game without internet, including re-downloading because you had to free up space
- You can't download the game after they have retired their servers (or if their servers are down / having issues)
- The game ends up taking a lot more storage space as updates are usually tiny when compared to the base game. For reference, the Switch 1 version of Zelda Tears Of the Kingdom takes 16 GB while the latest update takes only 500 MB.
I think most of that is true for games shipped on cart, too. Games often ship broken or missing features which are patched in at launch. Official physical media has not been a reliable method for future accessibility for at least a decade now. It's way past time to start using other methods of preservation.
I do agree, in the world of day one patches its not a given having the full, actually playable game on the cart itself isn't a given. We're already largely at the point where game discs and carts are really just license keys, this is just saving some money on the storage.
But it sure was nice when you had the whole game sitting there, without having to rely on some download server still being around. I'm able to go grab a used GameBoy game off the shelf at the used game store, stick it in an old GameBoy, and outside of some games with batteries in them (repairable fwiw) it just works. This has been great for my little kids, as I trust them a lot more with a cheap GBA SP than I do the Switch when going out places. Way more pocketable, way less fragile, and the replacement cost (and repairability) is a lot better.
If I grabbed an old Switch off the shelf in 30 years, popped in a game key card, would I actually be able to play anything? Probably not. There's a good chance most of this Switch 2 will be useless in 30 years time.
The Nintendo cartridges contain the full playable version of the game.
Third party publishers often just put the key on it. So blame them for that
Well then the cost of physical has to go up. We can guess what your opinion on that is.
I mean the GKC is a compromise considering the high cost of larger storage capacities for carts, driven especially by AI. They're just upfront about it. Sony and MS have been doing "game key discs" for years now but didn't provide a clear label for it.