Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.

Pay a premium for a physical copy of your game, and the cartridge may not contain the actual game. Only on Nintendo Switch 2.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] emb@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago (20 children)

Seems so. Notably, Switch 1 already has games with a similar warning on the box.

They're just giving a name to it.

On one hand, I'm glad they're up front about it (and I'd rather see an even uglier, larger warning on the cover for game key cards). On the other, I hope this isn't a sign that they're legitimizing it or that it'll be more common.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 3 points 5 days ago (19 children)

Yep. The slight difference is that those Switch games typically included a chunk of the game in the cart and sometimes were partially playable. Short of requiring a smaller download, though, it was the same practical function.

I still don't like it, but those carts get prohibitively expensive at high sizes.

[–] BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (18 children)

As someone with two kids who play games on the switch, physical carts keep me from having to buy every game two or three times.

So losing the ability to buy a game and share it between three switches will severely increase the costs of games for me.

load more comments (16 replies)