Forum > Gaming Discussion > The ALL DIGITAL FUTURE: Switch 2 is ushering in game key cards with no data on them
The ALL DIGITAL FUTURE: Switch 2 is ushering in game key cards with no data on them
More Positives:
Unifying your whole collection on one system. Lazy Netflix style accessing your library.
For me this is more enticing on a handheld, the feeling of always having all your games with you, on hand. I kinda have this already, but having a cart case and mutiple sds it's not quite the Digital dream.
- Recover your collection should your system or games be stolen or damaged.
With your account you can log back in and redownload your games.
If my physical games get stolen or damaged they are gone forever.
PLUS side for Physical
- you don't eat up precious HDD space, although games usually require a hefty download anyway.
If they could make larger physical carts with room to download updates onto the cart itself that would fix the problem. Don't know if it's technically or financially feasible.
Unifying your whole collection on one system. Lazy Netflix style accessing your library.
For me this is more enticing on a handheld, the feeling of always having all your games with you, on hand. I kinda have this already, but having a cart case and mutiple sds it's not quite the Digital dream.
- Recover your collection should your system or games be stolen or damaged.
With your account you can log back in and redownload your games.
If my physical games get stolen or damaged they are gone forever.
PLUS side for Physical
- you don't eat up precious HDD space, although games usually require a hefty download anyway.
If they could make larger physical carts with room to download updates onto the cart itself that would fix the problem. Don't know if it's technically or financially feasible.
Downside to digital
- Let's say in the future Nintendo, Sony or whatever die or shut down the eshops
If your sd card gets corrupted you lose dozens of games. Rather than losing one physical disc and having the rest survive.
Sure you can back up digital games but the cost of HDD space makes this unfeasible at times.
- DOWNSIDE, Digital games can be tied to the particular system you own. In the distant future when your device craps out and can't be repaired you lose your games (Wii virtual console)
Edited: Fri, 14 Feb 2025 18:01:10
I'm all digital except for Nintendo. That's because Nintendo is one of the only companies that still ship playable games on physical media. What's the point of buying a PS5 disk if half the game must be downloaded from a server anyway?
Ravenprose said:I'm all digital except for Nintendo. That's because Nintendo is one of the only companies that still ship playable games on physical media. What's the point of buying a PS5 disk if half the game must be downloaded from a server anyway?
On Switch im mostly physical with Nintendo first party.
Digital with virtually everything else with the odd exception, as the prices drop so low.
I'd probably go digital with Nintendo games too if the price went as low as third party.
You have a point about physical games with a huge download.
Edited: Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:59:13
Necro bump.
My thoughts incoming...
Okay so this sucks. But on the other hand isn't massively terrible?
For me most of my physical games are Nintendo 1st party and those games will still be physically loaded onto the cart.
The number of digital games I have dwarves my physical collection.
So if I repeat the pattern on Switch 2 things won't be radically different.
Game codes in a box have been a thing for a while now and at least the key card carts give you more rights and flexibility to resell and lend them out.
Nintendo is introducing this scheme where you can even lend out your all digital games that seems to cover past purchases too. So they are making some forward strides in this area.
Where this sucks is storage space. Sometimes I will buy a physical game cart so that it doesn't eat up my storage space. But now maybe no choice?
I only really buy big 3rd party games on savage sales, I'll probably do similar here but the size of games is so big now. If you clean out the fridge there is no guarantee that in the future the server will be there to replay it.
Storage costs with the new SD express sucks, the largest card so far is 1tb at a much higher price than a regular 1tb sd card.
Given my experience with Switch I will be waiting on a 2tb max size card but the price will be eye watering.
One thing I've slowly realised is that despite having a huge collection of N64, Dreamcast and games.from other systems,.I never play them. Because even though I own them in theory because of SDtvs being phased out it's too expensive and too convoluted to replay them. It's a catalogue that sits on a shelf to be looked at and not played.
Also like Raven said, a physical game may still be unplayable in the future if you can't re-download the update from a dead server.
My thoughts incoming...
Okay so this sucks. But on the other hand isn't massively terrible?
For me most of my physical games are Nintendo 1st party and those games will still be physically loaded onto the cart.
The number of digital games I have dwarves my physical collection.
So if I repeat the pattern on Switch 2 things won't be radically different.
Game codes in a box have been a thing for a while now and at least the key card carts give you more rights and flexibility to resell and lend them out.
Nintendo is introducing this scheme where you can even lend out your all digital games that seems to cover past purchases too. So they are making some forward strides in this area.
Where this sucks is storage space. Sometimes I will buy a physical game cart so that it doesn't eat up my storage space. But now maybe no choice?
I only really buy big 3rd party games on savage sales, I'll probably do similar here but the size of games is so big now. If you clean out the fridge there is no guarantee that in the future the server will be there to replay it.
Storage costs with the new SD express sucks, the largest card so far is 1tb at a much higher price than a regular 1tb sd card.
Given my experience with Switch I will be waiting on a 2tb max size card but the price will be eye watering.
One thing I've slowly realised is that despite having a huge collection of N64, Dreamcast and games.from other systems,.I never play them. Because even though I own them in theory because of SDtvs being phased out it's too expensive and too convoluted to replay them. It's a catalogue that sits on a shelf to be looked at and not played.
Also like Raven said, a physical game may still be unplayable in the future if you can't re-download the update from a dead server.
Edited: Fri, 25 Apr 2025 16:45:48
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Recently Spotted:
*crickets*
I'm sure you already know, instead of codes in boxes the game key cards is like having a car key to start the car.
It's a physical cart with a licence code embedded. You have to then download the game. But you can resell and lend it out unlike normal digital download games.
Problem is that 3rd parties seem to be going this cheap ass route, with a few exceptions. Most if not all of the already announced 3rd party games in Japan are game key cards.
The good news? Nintendo seems to not be using them. Thoughts?
Original thread post below:
I'm flip flopping right now, but I'm slowly leaning heavily in favour of all digital.
So I have games stored digitally across multiple sd cards on switch.
When a game is stored on a card not currently installed, I never really play it.
Because I'm on a FPS kick I have my secondary card in switch for Wolfenstein.
But that card has other games on it I haven't played in ages. So I opened the folder to see all the games on it and on a whim I clicked and started playing RE6 and Crysis 2.
And I realised the only way I could do this, play on a whim, was because it was stored and instantly accessible.
And it reminded me of what a pain it is to remove and replace sd cards, let alone cartridges.
Now the load times off an sd card for those games was hilariously long. But that made me anticipate having a micro sd express card for Switch 2. And loading these games 9x faster. It's highly tempting and I'm glad I held off buying a slower 1tb card now.
So the disadvantages, extra HDD space costs money, more so for tiny micro sds, not solid bad for external SSDs for other systems.
So for me, at the moment there are no 2tb micro sd express cards out. And they'd likely cost £240 or something ridiculous.
The cost advantage is that you can get massive savings on digital games, Doom for £5.99, Call of Juarez for £2 etc.