[DF] Switch 2 Physical Media - Cart Situation Is Too Confusing & Messy

the biggest issue are the Switch 2 Edition games, that use the same cart colors and Switch 2 cases, but indeed also work on Switch 1, and even the fineprint on the cover is not 100% clear about them working on Switch 1.

they should have differentiated them by using a different cart color, and maybe add the Switch 1 logo next to the Switch 2 logo.
 
kevboard said:
the biggest issue are the Switch 2 Edition games, that use the same cart colors and Switch 2 cases, but indeed also work on Switch 1, and even the fineprint on the cover is not 100% clear about them working on Switch 1.

they should have differentiated them by using a different cart color, and maybe add the Switch 1 logo next to the Switch 2 logo.
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Nothing new, this one was an og Game Boy game

iu
 
Seems a bit overblown to me.

If there's a "Game Key Card" warning on the box you avoid it.

If the box says it just includes a download code you throw it and all remaining copies at the store into the trash.

If none of the above you're good to go.
 
The sd cards must be very expensive to make for retail. It might improve in a few years when they get cheaper. They should just charge less for the digital version.
 
Anything new will confuse people. I do think allowing publishers to continue selling a code in a box ((THPS3+4)) is a misstep though.
 
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Thank god someone agree.
The only thing I heard from fanboys is that its the best thing ever and it was made to fix the "loopholes", whatever that means.
 
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kevboard said:
the biggest issue are the Switch 2 Edition games, that use the same cart colors and Switch 2 cases, but indeed also work on Switch 1, and even the fineprint on the cover is not 100% clear about them working on Switch 1.

they should have differentiated them by using a different cart color, and maybe add the Switch 1 logo next to the Switch 2 logo.
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Red carts for switch 2 games would've been dope
 
LEts see Switch had day one or games very early on that required half the game to be downloaded. A lot of physical Switch games as time went on were just codes in a box.

But yet now we're supposed to be confused by the similar situation on S2?

Typical nothing burger engagement farming.
 
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Key cards is the biggest turn off for me with Switch 2. I loved collecting physical games on Switch but now that the majority of Switch 2 games ship on key cards I just don't know if I even want it anymore. I hope things improve. At least Nintendos first party games are on the cart.
 
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Baemono said:
Nothing new, this one was an og Game Boy game

iu
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yeah, but GameBoy Color Only games had an "Only for GameBoy Color" badge and a completely different looking cart design.
also the Game Boy Color logo background on the left was holographic on GBC only games

1b8OMQv.jpeg
 
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Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D getting the Game Key Card treatment is a sign of things to come for physical collectors. Get ready to embrace a digital library on the Switch 2.
 
The fact that Nintendo are themselves competing against Switch 2, with most third party games being on the cart on Switch 1 but not on Switch 2, is a great testimony of how much they shat the bed with these dumb Game Key Cards. This is going to backfire.
 
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near said:
Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D getting the Game Key Card treatment is a sign of things to come for physical collectors. Get ready to embrace a digital library on the Switch 2.
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Personally I am going to just avoid it. I will probably get Switch 2 at some point but don't expect to buy nearly the same amount of titles.
 
nordique said:
Is it really that confusing??

It seems straight forward to me.
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Why would you take this stance? You know most people who buy things are not fully informed about the products and you know very well that for decades when people bought cartridges they included the game. But sure it is not confusing to the masses because you grasp this shitty concept.

Here is a question, do you think that with Switch being portable that there will be cases where parents buy kids these key carts and let the kid put it in the system in the car or at a relative's house only to then discover that they need internet to download and play and that this will at the very least be an annoyance.

Honestly I am confused as to what the value is here to the consumer. You buy a dongle that is then needed to play a digital game. Sure you can share it or sell it, but this is a digital came on a tiny piece of plastic with some metal and a bit of silicon that can be lost. Most gamers seem to be upset by it. I think Nintendo won't even use them for their own games too signaling that they dislike them as part of their actual products.
 
near said:
Yup. At least it is getting a physical release on PS5, Switch 1, and Xbox Series X... XBOX?! :messenger_tears_of_joy:

dPO29eN.jpeg
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That the Switch 2 version of DQ I & II HD-2D comes on a game key card when the Switch 1 version manages to get the whole game on a card is just Square Enix being fucking assholes.
 
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StereoVsn said:
Personally I am going to just avoid it. I will probably get Switch 2 at some point but don't expect to buy nearly the same amount of titles.
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I bet most people will do like you. Buying a Switch 2 like a Switch 1 Pro. The performance improvements are really nice in some of the games. But too bad the screen is really shit in motion, exactly the stuff I hate. PSP level. Ugh.
 
KungFucius said:
Why would you take this stance? You know most people who buy things are not fully informed about the products and you know very well that for decades when people bought cartridges they included the game. But sure it is not confusing to the masses because you grasp this shitty concept.

Here is a question, do you think that with Switch being portable that there will be cases where parents buy kids these key carts and let the kid put it in the system in the car or at a relative's house only to then discover that they need internet to download and play and that this will at the very least be an annoyance.

Honestly I am confused as to what the value is here to the consumer. You buy a dongle that is then needed to play a digital game. Sure you can share it or sell it, but this is a digital came on a tiny piece of plastic with some metal and a bit of silicon that can be lost. Most gamers seem to be upset by it. I think Nintendo won't even use them for their own games too signaling that they dislike them as part of their actual products.
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The value to the consumer is that he will be slowly - and without him knowing in some cases - conditioned to the requirement of a digital download, even if he buys a game on a physical medium. That will make him less upset when physical media are dropped.
 
Remember when Digital Downloads were advertised as a cheaper alternative?
No packaging, no shippping over seas, etc.

Pepperidge farm remembers.


All nintendo consoles do well on release. Even the WII U.
After a couple of months they have a trend of petering off.
I genuenlly hope this console dies a quick death.
Everything about it is a red flag to what I don't want game companies to do.
If you had asked me ten years ago out of all the big three, who would be pulling this crap? Nintendo would have been my last choice.
 
KungFucius said:
Why would you take this stance? You know most people who buy things are not fully informed about the products and you know very well that for decades when people bought cartridges they included the game. But sure it is not confusing to the masses because you grasp this shitty concept.

Here is a question, do you think that with Switch being portable that there will be cases where parents buy kids these key carts and let the kid put it in the system in the car or at a relative's house only to then discover that they need internet to download and play and that this will at the very least be an annoyance.

Honestly I am confused as to what the value is here to the consumer. You buy a dongle that is then needed to play a digital game. Sure you can share it or sell it, but this is a digital came on a tiny piece of plastic with some metal and a bit of silicon that can be lost. Most gamers seem to be upset by it. I think Nintendo won't even use them for their own games too signaling that they dislike them as part of their actual products.
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you are right that online there's a lot of negativity towards them. I just think the level or degree to which the negativity can get to is over the top. Myself I would prefer they are physical games with data entirely on the card. You make a good point in your second paragraph. That specific scenario would suck, but like you said be annoyance. Not a big deal.

You don't have to agree with my view but I think that stance Nintendo has taken with game key cards is not really going to affect the masses outside of those who cannot connect to the internet. Disc based games forcing internet based downloads and updates day 1 have started becoming more common as well in effect doing that same thing. So imo it's very straight forward - it's either the full game on the cart or there isn't a full game on the cart but you can trade it in or give it to someone else and "treat it" like a physical game.

Nintendo has chosen a newer technology for switch 2 games in a certain physical shape as switch 1 games but only have one size available to fit moderns games for mass market production right now, and they would have either had to raise their game prices at retail across the board or come up with an imperfect solution. They care about software sales from a business pov.

Regarding your confusion about value to the consumer, I also initially felt this way, but look at the prices on the game key card games vs the games fully on the 64gb cart. At least where I live there's a $20-30 difference in retail price for the retail launch lineup. It's a reasonable middle ground in terms of managing the issue of forcing pubs to put everything on the only available cart size they have and increase costs, naturally saving on costs where they can is something publishers are happy about, and may give smaller pubs a chance at retail presence where they previously couldn't.

Vote with your wallet and if you firmly believe against it as a shitty concept: dont support it and don't buy a single game key card game. Some people are going to take that stance and all the power to them if it shows publishers it's not worth cheaping out.

However If a game key card sells millions of copies then it should show that the average consumer doesn't care to the same degree it's being made out online in all these echo chambers, the same way the average consumer didn't care how call of duty has been doing this same thing on discs for years.
 
Hudo said:
That the Switch 2 version of DQ I & II HD-2D comes on a game key card when the Switch 1 version manages to get the whole game on a card is just Square Enix being fucking assholes.
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did you watched the video ? like John said "its seens like there only one giant size of card available that's probably expensive and a lot of publishers obliviously don't wanna SHILL out for that so they got the stupid game key thing thats cheaper" the problem isnt the publisher, the publisher wants to profit like Nintendo, the problem is that Nintendo still using expensive tech to store their games and publisher wont fall for it., they are not fans that are up for anything Nintendo does, if you want to be mad at someone be mad at Nintendo.
 
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Lokaum D+ said:
did you watched the video ? like John said "its seens like there only one giant size of card available that's probably expensive and a lot of publishers obliviously don't wanna SHILL out for that so they got the stupid game key thing thats cheaper" the problem isnt the publisher, the problem is that Nintendo still using expensive tech to store their games and publisher wont fall for it., they are not fans that are up for anything Nintendo does.
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To be fair to Nintendo, any fast storage that is a game card format is going to be expensive as hell. Nothing that they can really switch to.
 
Hudo said:
That the Switch 2 version of DQ I & II HD-2D comes on a game key card when the Switch 1 version manages to get the whole game on a card is just Square Enix being fucking assholes.
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Key card probably isn't supported on Switch 1, hence why the Switch 1 version has to be on a cart.

As I've been saying, the reason physical is sticking around is because they want to keep retailers interested.
 
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Zathalus said:
To be fair to Nintendo, any fast storage that is a game card format is going to be expensive as hell. Nothing that they can really switch to.
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To be fair to the publishers, its way cheaper to sell digital than have your profits eaten by Nintendo expensive tech, its a Lose Lose situation.
 
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Never getting any 'key card' games. Only full games on carts like Cyberpunk and 1st party games. Otherwise I'll just get smaller indie games digitally. Not filling the storage up with 50 gb downloads. That alone is a huge chunk of storage with such small storage capacity.
 
Switch 1 was even more confusing. You had games that had SEVERAL versions of the same game, like Nickelodeon All Star Brawl that had both a code in a box and then quietly released a physical version later. Then you had games that had only 15% of the game on the actual card, Like almost every game from Activision.


If Anything the Switch 2 is LESS confusing as there's only 3 options; Physical, Key-Card, and the cursed code-in-a-box. Also, the concept of downloading/installing the game from a cart/disc is nothing new as every console now requires this.

This is nothing more than DF putting out their tired weekly anti-Switch video for clickbait
 
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I've got 4 Switch 2 physical games, but only one is fully on the card. It's not really that complicated. It's not ideal, but it's not complicated.
 
As someone who doesn't buy Nintendo products anymore, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm an outsider.

But I'm genuinely curious: What do you all expect here? Should Nintendo have used a different media format for their games that's less expensive so publishers would be more likely to put the full game on the media? If so, what media would that be? 100GB Blu-rays? And if it's not on Nintendo, then you're expecting third party publishers to just eat the cost of putting the full game on a more expensive card to satisfy the less than 20% of people who are passionate about physical media?

I'm not saying you're wrong for wanting the full playable game on the physical copy you purchase. I get that's important to you. But it seems a bit unreasonable to expect to have that for all or almost all games given the trends in technology and behavior of the vast majority of the audience. I guess I'm just wondering how self aware the people who are raging about these game key cards are?
 
Lmao it's always gamers acting like physical media is sacred. Nobody's outraged they have to download or stream their favorite new album or movie. But a Switch game needs a download and suddenly it's the downfall of society.

I don't believe it's about ownership anymore for a lot of you, I think it's about having something to put on a shelf (to collect dust) and pretend it matters. Don't worry, you'll still get your overpriced plastic rectangle with a pretty picture on it to flex to God knows who.
 
"It's a mess! It's confusing!"

Read the fucking box and it will tell you exactly what the card will let you do.

You might not like it, and I agree, but it's also pretty clear. You don't need a flowchart, John.
 
asdasdasdbb said:
Most third parties don't want to pay the cart costs.
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so why can CDPR do it, but other publishers can't? I realize there are extra added costs for these high speed carts, but CDPR decided it was worth it. Did Nintendo pay for the cart for them or something? I'm just trying to make sense of it, since Cyberpunk is an exception here.
 
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