Remember when you use to buy a Switch game and the game would atleast partially before updates, be on the cartridge?
Well imagine buying a key cart for your Switch2 and, you have to download the game from their servers from scratch. The game doesn’t download itself to the cartridge, but onto your Switch 2 consoles internal memory.
Now imagine getting a bad update and trying to delete some data including the update, just to play with the original games version.
physical Key cart games are treated just like they are digital which means you can’t revert the update.
Even if the game is saved onto your Switch’s internal you cannot legally play a key cart game, without the key carts inserted in your switch.
The game data is not stored on the key cartridge but on your switch’s internal memory.
$80 $70 Nintendo Switch 2 carts
The opposite can also be said. People have always been complaining you can’t trade digital games.
Now you can. It’s a digital game that’s not attached to your account, but to the physical card, it can easily be sold again.
While certainly not as good as a true physical game, it’s way better than the alternative: a full digital catalogue tied to your account.
Is it really that much worse? Think about it long and hard.
Ewaste is a bigger problem than the inability to resell or trade digital games (in my opinion, at least). One can be solved fully digitally, while the other cannot.
Besides, Steam did it properly with Family Sharing when it was a thing.
This to me feels like Nintendo wants a stronger grip on digital key redistributions by adding a physical element into it to screw over key and account resellers. People are much less likely to sell a physical item when compared to a fully digital one.
Sending something physical is more time consuming and just more costly in general. I could always share a code via a message or an image to a friend, whereas with game cards I’d have to mail it over.
Now, only time will tell if game key cards will affect digital key sales (and their overall existence), but knowing Nintendo, it probably will.
And also - the whole point of “having a game catalog tied to your account fully digitally” is moot anyways if the game itself has to be downloaded anyway.
It still is? My wife and I have our shared libraries merged, works beautifully