There is a video version of this post available but you can stay and read this if you like too.
You’ve no doubt noticed that the Nintendo Switch 2 hate train is going full speed. There’s less than 3 weeks left until the Switch 2 is out so the Switch 2 lovers don’t have much to post about. Meanwhile the haters are whipping themselves up into a frenzy. Sometimes it’s over genuine problems, sometimes it’s over made up stuff with no confirmation, sometimes it’s over lies, but this time it’s over something real but they only care about it now because the Switch 2 is doing it?
You probably heard about the Keycards. Some physical game cartridges on the Switch 2 will effectively be a digital key. You’ll pop the card into the system and download the game to your system. There of course has been some misinformation spread because of this. The first bit is that people are thinking that you’ll need to be constantly connected to the internet in order to be able to use these keycards. I ask that you use your highly evolved human brain to think critically of this. Your ancestors switched to meat to make their brains grow, don’t let those dead cows go to waste by not thinking.
The Switch 2 is a portable system, they made it with the intent for you to take it where ever you go. It doesn’t have a sim card so it can’t access 5g internet. So there isn’t a way for you to use the internet on the Switch when on the go. Would they really require a constant internet connection for a system that will spend much of its life not connected to a router? These keycards will require you to connect to the net once, download the game, then you can access it without connecting.
The second bit of misinformation being spread is that all games will be on keycards. The big concern people have with this is that physical cards are going to be more expensive than digital games, so they don’t want to buy something that will need to be downloaded. The point of physical media is that all the data is on the cart and you don’t need to fill up your limited system memory with digital games. I get that and I’m very much on your side about this. But the lie being told here is that all the physical games will be keycards and that’s not the case. First party titles will continue to be on physical cartridges. See, the Switch cart is special, it’s not a widely used form of media so it’s expensive to make them since they’re only used for the Switch. This means when a developer buys cards to put games on they have to pay Nintendo a licensing fee to use their tech. Sony does this, Microsoft does it, but it’s cheaper since those are commonly used formats, they’re normal discs.
Now Nintendo sells these carts in multiple sizes based on the amount of data the card can hold. The less data the cheaper the license. So companies will buy the carts with the size that fits their game if they want the full game on the cart. If for some reason that cart is too expensive the publisher, not Nintendo, may decide that they want the smaller card. This would save them more money and thus make them more money. So they make the card have a small amount of data on them and have you download the rest of the game from the relevant store front. This isn’t the case for Nintendo, they own the carts and their license already. So Nintendo can put whatever they want on the carts and it doesn’t cut into their profits nearly as much as it would if they were licensing the carts from someone else. All gaming companies do this. Even steam gets a cut of digital games sold because they’re being paid to let you host their game with them. It’s just cheaper for companies like Sony and Microsoft because they use the more widely adopted disc format. But even then that doesn’t stop publishers from doing the same thing with Sony and Xbox.
This keycard is the same system as buying the smallest card and expecting people to download the rest. But like I said, this isn’t anything new. This goes all the way back to the Switch 1, the first game to do this was Lego City Undercover. The publisher didn’t want to pay for a larger cartridge so they had you download the game. But this system goes back even further. It goes all the way back to the Xbox 360. So for the past 20 years, yes 20, you’re old. This has been a common practice, so why are you only now giving a damn? Your bias is showing. This isn’t about hating keycards, they’ve existed for decades. This is about hating Nintendo. I get it, I dislike a lot of what they do too. But Nintendo does enough actual wrong that is totally valid to hate them for. But if you’re only hating on Nintendo for this practice then you’re being biased. Which is fine, be biased but admit your bias. Just stop lying and pretending that the keycards are the issue when in actuality you are keeping a mental list of minor issues to hate Nintendo for when there are already plenty of real legitimate reasons to.
All Nintendo is doing is doing the same thing every other console developer does, giving the developers options. While yes major companies will abuse the keycard system, Nintendo plans to not do that. Anyone who values the customer and their experience will continue to put the full game on the card. If a game comes out as a keycard, don’t buy it. This is a problem to be treated on the individual basis. If civilization 7 is on a keycard, don’t buy it. They make more than enough money, they can afford a bigger card, they just hate the user and don’t care about delivering a quality experience. Keycards aren’t Nintendo telling you how they feel about you, it’s the individual publishers telling on themselves. Nintendo just gave you a very easy way to tell what publishers think of their customers.
The third bit of, well, this isn’t misinformation. This is people just being upset. Physical games will cost more than digital. I think we are framing our thought process a little wrong about this. It’s not so much that physical is more expensive than digital, it’s digital is cheaper than physical. This is how it should have been from the very beginning. Remember what I said about physical media licensing? Well if a game is digital the licensing fee is severely reduced. It’s much cheaper for the publisher to list a digital only version of a game. So if they’re saving a lot of money with the digital version those savings should be passed onto us, the consumers. Why should I have to pay the same price for a digital version when they don’t have to worry about things like paying for cases, paying for card sizes, paying for box art, paying for card art, and paying for shipping? If digital is so much cheaper why should I be paying the same price as physical? See what I mean? Physical isn’t more expensive, digital is cheaper and that’s how it should be. This isn’t something to be upset about, all companies should be charging less for digital because it costs them less to make it.
My fourth point is that for most people this won’t matter. Most people use digital nowadays and while many of us older folks are moving away from this. The younger generations generally don’t care if their game is physical because life has always been like this for them. Younger Gen Z, outside of the 3ds, probably doesn’t have many memories using physical media. Of course physical media is better, and it’s closer to true ownership. But the reality is, Millennials are getting old and times are changing and priorities are changing. Gen Z typically doesn’t like to wait for stuff, they want it the moment they buy it and this is reflected in consumer reports. Gen z for example use malls more than Millennials because Gen Z doesn’t want to wait for 2 days shipping. It absolutely reeks that physical media is being treated like this and might die but let’s stop pretending that Nintendo is the only company that does this. They’re just following the trends of consumer spending, if you want this to change you need a cultural shift. Maybe explain to gen z and younger that it’s actually faster to go to the store and buy it physical especially if it’s not a keycard because the game is already on there. In the time it takes to download more than 30gb you can probably go to the walled mart and back.
That’s really all I have to say on this one. I’m operating at a disadvantage here because I am trying to only tell you what’s confirmed. I’m not going to make stuff up or speculate a ton when the system isn’t even out yet. I’m just tired of living in this generation where people get off on making other people miserable and being negative or spreading misinformation for the sake of clicks. Byeee
