Nintendo says it has no plans to ditch physical games, knows how much fans like it
14 hours ago by Sundray to c/nintendo
“Historically, we’ve been very agnostic, right? We go off what the consumer prefers, and take that into account very heavily. We also have a platform that was just launched. We’re barely just over a year into NS2. It’s got both digital and physical – that capability. There’s no plans to ditch physical. We know how much the fans like it as well, so our position has been to be agnostic.”
Supposedly S2 carts only come in 64GB, no smaller, and that's allegedly the reason why smaller games don't want to eat the full manufacturing cost of that compared to a much cheaper GKC.
Nintendo has already abandoned physical games with it's game key card nonsense. If we still have to connect to the internet to download the game it's not a physical game.
A game key card is not as good as a full game on the cart, but it is better than a digital purchase. I can lend, gift, or resell a game license tied to a key card. Once I have a game installed, I can play it entirely offline and never check licencing servers.
You will still eventually run out of ability to download it. Key cards will eventually kill the used market. You can still buy OG NES carts and play them. SNES, N64, GC, Wii, WiiU. I can trust buying a game on any those from a retro game store will allow me to play the game. The switch starts to get questionable as many of those games have updates so while you can play it, it won’t be the final version. The switch 2 retro market will die the day Nintendo decides that it does.
The gamekey-card concept is interesting on its own and would be a problem if publishers would only use those. The idea on them is to keep the price down for indie developers but still be able to sell, trade and borrow them. It is your decision if you buy a key card or not. I hope that indie devs use them. I hope AAA games do NOT use them. A good example is Cyberpunk. I got the card because I want it offline and also keep the internal storage free (60GB). But something like silksong, shantae and ShuffleKnight would be nice as a keycard, so I could put them on a shelf. “Why keycard and not entirely physical for indies!!?” Cost, it all comes down to cost for indie devs who could not afford to put a 0,1-5GB game on a 64GB card. This are indie devs and not tripple A studios.
https://nintendoeverything.com/...
Example, Resident Evil Requiem. I would like it 100% physical. Same with all or most Ubisoft games. Don’t hate on Nintendo, hate on the publishers that use a solution that is designed for indies to cut cost and keep control over their games.
Nintendo, known for being one of the most anti-consumer companies in the gaming world, says they won't do something anti-consumer right after they presented a product that does exactly what they claim they won't do (game keycards).
Yeah... I'm not gonna believe you.
Game keycards aren't entirely the same as the digital model, as you can actually lend them or sell them at least (for a limited amount of years of course).
They're not good, but they're definitely a step better than all others do, including Steam (excluding GoG)
Gkc's have the worst of both worlds in a single piece of plastic. The only single good things of them is that they partly share the freedom of a physical media while the key is valid.
The key can be revoked anytime. The servers can be closed anytime. And on top of that, you still have to put it in your console to play the game, taking space and making you switch cards on every game you play.
Actually, it's who controls the server, not the key. The reason they're called game key cards if because they're literally a key. You own the key.
The issue is, they own the servers, and again, once those are down, you can't download the game anymore. The card is just used to download the game tho, and verify that digital copy is valid with your key, so whoever lasts uses it once they go down are the final owners of the digital game. Unlike a physical game, where it doesn't matter if the company itself goes bankrupt.
Like I said, they're a step up in that they're this weird hybrid of the standard digital game front and a physical item you can at least lend and sell for some time. But they're not as good as a physical copy or a drm free digital copy.
Thank goodness for https://www.doesitplay.org/
Well that's a lot of corporate bullshit, especially since they released games using the game-key cards. That's still all-digital games there buddy if I have to rely on the generosity of a closed eco-system that routinely gets closed by Nintendo after the console is no longer profitable.
While you're absolutely right and I largely agree.
I think there is a couple of important points to caveat here.
- You're right these stores get closed down, but you can still download your games from the old eshop on any of Nintendos closed stores via your purchase history.
- You're not getting all the negatives of Sonys decision, personally I'm indifferent about game key cards, it's not a biggie to me if I need to download it before playing it. (obviously i'd prefer the option of them on the cart). I just need to be able to buy it from another shop, share with friends, swap with buddies, sell them on. I need an open market.
When the Xbox One was announced with always online DRM and was getting massive backlash, Sony famously responded with a short video which essentially won them the console generation:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Then, a generation and a half later, Sony announced that they will be completely discontinuing the production of all physical games.
Here, Nintendo is using even weaker phrasing, saying there are "no plans" to ditch physical media, when, starting this console generation, they already started selling "Game Key Cards," which do not contain any game data, and the prices of storage are only getting higher due to the AI bubble.
Nintendo is just a publicly traded corporation trying to make more of a profit next quarter than they did last quarter. When push comes to shove, those profits will take priority.
We like sales too.
Until people arent paying attention.
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@lemmy.world
A community for everything Nintendo. Games, news, discussions, stories etc.
Rules:
- Stay on topic.
- No NSFW content.
- No hate speech or personal attacks.
- No ads / spamming / trolling / self-promotion / low effort posts / memes etc.
- No linking to, or sharing information about, hacks, ROMs or any illegal content. And no piracy talk. (Linking to emulators, or general mention / discussion of emulation topics is fine.)
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| Metroid Ravenous [S2] | Jan 28 |
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Yet. They'll let Sony take the heat for going first, but we know this is what all three console manufacturers want sooner or later.
It's obvious that Game Key Cards are a step towards a gradual phase-out. Cartridges are a lot more expensive to manufacture than disks, and probably getting worse due to datacenters driving up the price of flash memory. It's not a question of if they'll ditch cartridges, but when.
I expect we'll continue to see carts for the remainder of the Switch 2's lifespan, but we may see a point at which they only do GKCs for late gen titles. And then after that, the Switch 3 will be all digital.
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