As PlayStation and Xbox move toward a more digital future, Nintendo could become the last major platform where physical games still truly matter.
Yeah right. Nintendo was the one who came up with “virtual game key cards.”
Xbox and Playstation were already making discs that purely just triggered a download long before Nintendo. Nintendo just made this explicit, which is at least commendable.
Yeah but their physical games taste like shit.
I was hoping the red S2 carts would be cherry-flavored…
Like Nintendo hasn’t been pushing their codes-in-boxes since before the switch 2 release.
What first party game was ever code-in-box?
Depends if you count Pokopia. But Pokemon is in that weird “sort of a Nintendo IP, sort of not” state.
Nintendo was not the publisher of Pokopia in Japan, and Gamefreak is an indie developer. But Nintendo did publish Pokopia worldwide and still chose not to put the game on cart, so not sure where the decision for that rests.
@[email protected] said “before the Switch 2 release”. And while I don’t like Game Key Cards, they are just barely above code-in-box because you can still trade/resell them.
It’s a special case, but the Switch 2 Mario Kart launch bundle came preloaded with Mario Kart World digital. All previous versions of Nintendo consoles with a bundle came with physical media.
But you could absolutely purchase a non bundle Switch 2 and a physical Mario Kart World (for $20 more).
And you’re right that so far every first party game has had both a physical release and a digital release.
All previous versions of Nintendo consoles with a bundle came with physical media.
Not true. If anything I’m trying to remember the last one that came with the physical game. The MK8 Wii U bundle was digital. As were the ALBW 3DS bundles. There’s probably a few though, between the 2/3DS and Switch there have been quite a few collectors’ editions. Some with game, some without.
Oh interesting! So there must have been different bundles because my Wii U Mario Kart bundle came with a physical copy of the game and a special red Mario controller + plastic wheel.
But looking online I do see the digital only bundle existed.
My Switch 1 didn’t come with anything bundled and I brought a physical copy of Breath of the Wild.
But when I bought my Switch 2 I saw Mario Kart was digital and Legends ZA was digital, so I assumed this was a new change over starting with this generation.
So there must have been different bundles because my Wii U Mario Kart bundle came with a physical copy of the game and a special red Mario controller + plastic wheel.
There’s been a LOT of bundles. Either way, we both learned something today. I’d call that a win.
This is why I love Lemmy lmao
People really really latched onto the key card narrative despite it all being 3rd party publishers making use of it. The lone exception as far as I know is Pokopia, which as a Pokémon title comes with all the usual fucky bullshit that comes along with TPC and GameFreaks… but it was published in the west by Nintendo themselves.
It may be the only one, but people have convinced themselves that it’s everything and no amount of facts will sway them otherwise.
Physical media is not the real issue here. I’m puzzled why it is the focus of attention, and I don’t know if the explanation is just stupidity or intentional detraction.
If console games could be downloaded, stored on to media you own, then installed again from that media, this wouldn’t be a problem. That’s the real issue here.
It’s been a good while since games bought as physical media, don’t come with significant day 1 patches. So, doing away with physical copies of the games have absolutely zero impact. What does, and has been an issue for years, is that you cannot archive games you have bought, with the changes you can expect as part of that purchase.
What’s the solution? Closest I can think of is GOG.
What’s the solution?
The only real solution for presenvation is 🦜🏴☠️⚔️… I mean… Asking companies gently to re-release their games on their updated digital stores :)
It is a compromise because all the other options are worse.
A lot of studios want some form of DRM, so a GOG model won’t work for them. For various reasons, an offline DRM scheme is considered to be superior to an online DRM scheme.
Microslop just announced the overview of a program where you can digitize your physical collection. Just shitting in the wind here, but I have heard that, for a while now, Xbox discs have had unique identifiers. So, they’ll take that disc license and lock it to your account so you can play your disc games digitally without need for the disc in the drive. Whether it downloads the data or installs from the disc, I don’t know. Plans also state sharing will be included where you send the license(?) to a friend. Details are vague at the moment.
This still has the same problems as digital though if it’s tied to an account. If your account is hacked or banned for any reason, your games are gone. If it gets tied to your account, no resale or lending. This is a band-aid solution to a problem they are currently creating. Maybe they figure something out for lending, but it’s still a shitty solution for a problem that doesn’t need to exist.
The switch 2 will be the last Nintendo console with physical games. That’s just the direction things are headed in.
how i see it, switch 2 will be the last with options, the next sucessor is probably going to be game key carts only because of the eventual game size cost(so itll appease the resell crowd but not the game preservation crowd)
Nintendo doesn’t care about appeasing the resell crowd though. The only reason game key cards exist is because Nintendo still gets a lot of retail sales. But 5-6 years from now I doubt there will be much of a retail market anymore. Places like GameStop will probably be out of business by then, people will be more accustomed to purchasing digitally, and the people still buying physical will be a small percentage of the overall market. At that point, Nintendo makes the same decision that Sony did. Even Iwata knew back in 2009, he predicted it will take about 20 years to fully transition to digital sales.
I’m not surprised it’s Nintendo who will stand alone. I am surprised Sony officially announced it before Microslop, though. Although the Xbox has been slowly transitioning to digital, they haven’t made any definitive statements on it yet.
The only reason Nintendo is still doing physical is because of their stance (read: stubbornness) to adapt what others in the gaming industry are doing, which can be a double-edged sword. In this case, it works out.
I thought it was the fact that Switch 1 & 2 are portable devices, and thus internet access is less likely to be available.
Switch and Switch 2 have digital download options of most games including most of the indie market which is exclusively digital
I never said it didn’t. I said I thought the cartridges were made for when you can’t download a game on the go.
I mean you can download a game before you go. Or all your games. Micro SD cards go up to like 1TB these days, and the vast majority of my downloaded switch games are <1GB. The main exceptions being Smash Bros and Pokemon.
If Xbox was smart, they would now announce they are sticking to physical media for the next generation, and back to console exclusives.
That would deflate the PS6 completely.
Ha! Microsoft is literally the reason software is licensed and not sold, and why you don’t actually own the vast majority of the software you use. They also already announced the opposite thing, allowing you to turn your physical games into digital ones. They want to kill physical media just as much as Sony.
MS literally just decimated the entire Xbox + gaming studios front in favour of AI fuckwit hiring, we’re lucky if there’s a next Xbox console physical release, let alone games…
Except that has never been Microsoft’s gaming strategy. The Xbox was developed to give PC gaming a toehold in the console market so that games in one market class could be easily ported over to the other.
As app stores became a major money maker for OS’s, the Xbox game store became a backdoor way to get an established app store on PC to eat Valve’s lunch and pull in a new revenue stream.
Physical media doesn’t work with Microsoft’s gaming strategy.
First party games are Physical, but most third party are not. Game key cards are not physical for me. I play a few nintendo games, but i play far more games from different publisher, not really one company that has a majority. So this doesn’t really matter much for me. Switch 2 started for me the dead of physical games, not as drastic as sony, but it was the beginning. I read a lot people say nintendo ist the only one left, well maybe kind of, but i really don’t care much about this only one left. I will buy Fire emblem games physical as long as Nintendo support it and ocationally another game, so maybe 1-2 games a year from maybe 15 i buy over a year. So i don’t see much of this home.
A console that uses cheap USB sticks would be cool.
We can dream…
Sadly, with the chip shortage, USB sticks aren’t even that cheap anymore. MSoft and Sony would adopt the latest (most expensive) usb version for the transfer speed. You wouldn’t want the cheap chips/sticks anyway, lest your $90 game stick randomly corrupt itself.
Then you have to protect the stick while it’s plugged in so it doesn’t get bumped and break the connector/port; so then it’s back to proprietary sockets that only certain sticks fit into, flip-top covers, or something “under” the console. I remember folks throwing a fit when Apple put the power button on the bottom of the Mac mini 😂
MSoft and Sony would adopt the latest (most expensive) usb version for the transfer speed.
Nintendo opted for SD Express (a spec that has existed for years) in the Switch 2 and people pitched a fit over the “proprietary” format.
The Switch 1 is the last great collectors console, at least the majority of games there are actually on the cart.
For how long? This isn’t mask ROM, the cartridges will lose their data.
Watching console gamers care about this is wild.
I haven’t had a disc drive for a decade.
Nintendo’s wanton litigation has harmed the games industry far more than these imaginary rug pulls.
Aside from the physical feel of owning disk drives or cartridges, there’s benefits like reselling, giving it to friends to play. And in cases of older consoles, it may even be the only viable way to play the game without homebrew since the stores get shut down (ex. Wii, 3DS, Xbox live, etc.)
console gamers
Physical feel
Never change
Do you have a point to make? If so, please use your words.
*Key cards
Doesn’t really count when the thing you buy is just a download code.
