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Game preservationists say Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are ‘disheartening’ but inevitable
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Remember when people lost their shit over an Xbox console being all digital distribution and no ability to sell used games like 10 years ago maybe?
https://kotaku.com/that-xbox-one-reveal-sure-was-a-disaster-huh-509192266
Nintendo fans are fucking masochists.
Nintendo sucks and all, but Xbox wanted the One to not work at all unless it was online.
People also lost their shit over the PSP Go being digital distro only in a physical handheld console, and lost their shit so hard that Sony of all people walked it back with the Vita and built cartridges back into the spec. (And it became retroactively excusable once it was discovered how easily the PSP/Go could be hacked, and suddenly the Go was the desirable model for emulation and, er, backups. But that's neither here nor there. Under its intended use, within its original lifespan, it was a stupid idea.)
If you ask me the entire point of a game console is to be a dedicated platform that you stick games in and it always works. If I wanted to fuck around with downloadable only content, games that are only keycodes, patches, day 1 DLC, always-online DRM, and the inevitable day the servers all go dark I'd just game on PC. Which, come to think of it, in these modern times is exactly what I do anyway. I have game systems dating all the way back to the Atari VCS which I can to this very day if I feel like it slap a cartridge or disk in and they play. To me, there is immense value in that. Without that, there's really no need for the "real hardware experience" for me. I can just emulate if any title comes out that I truly give enough of a shit about that I must play it. Anything else is just selling you a rental, but at full price. I find that immensely distasteful.
So I have zero interest in the Switch 2, and thus it will be the first Nintendo console in history I don't own, or aim to own (I do not have a Virtual Boy, much to my shame and embarrassment.) I imagine I'm not the only one. Nintendo's been trying very hard to lose the plot, which for a company as profitable and famous as they are takes a real concerted effort. Congratulations to them, then, if that's the goal -- What we are witnessing here is very possibly the beginning of the end for big N.
Yes, but you do own the best console for playing Virtual Boy games, the 3DS. Red Viper is really good now.
And I also have a VR headset and VirtualBoyGo if I really feel like giving myself an authentic headache.
Not to defend Nintendo much here, but the situation with game-key-cards is at least better than that. You can freely trade, give away, resell them like any physical cart.
It's a step up from digital in terms of freedom, but a step down in convenience (cart has to be in the system).
Compared to real, physical, data-on-the-cart media though, these are a definite downgrade.
Someday we’ll find out that all the Switch 2s actually peer together and create a blockchain to track ownership
I think the Nintendo game key cards are tied to the physical game cards so they can be sold or transferred to new owners.
Yet.
They've advertised Virtual Game Cards as a value-added feature to let your friends borrow games, but I'd bet good money they built out that infrastructure to comply with the potential for the EU to require used sales on digital.
Couple things there.
There are Virtual Game Cards, purchased and downloaded digitally from the eShop. These can now be traded, sold, gifted, loaned, etc. to other friends, which was not previously possible. (This could possibly require an NSO subscription, but I’m not clear if that’s true at all.)
There are physical game cartridges, which contain the actual game on them, and (from what I’ve heard) most games will be distributed this way.
Then, there are also physical carts that contain only the virtual game license file, thus that you have to possess the physical cart in order to download or play the game. Apparently, there are Switch 1 games like this already, but they are rare.
With the introduction of Virtual Game Cards, it is no longer possible (even on Switch 1) to play more than one copy of a game online at the same time, even with a min NSO Family subscription.
But it does allow you to transfer/sell games purchased from the eShop. That seems good to me, no?