The Switch 2 might be setting sales records, but all is not well in the House of Mario. Since the release of the portable console, fans have grumbled about the ubiquity of game key cards that require downloads of titles they’ve physically purchased. Though the box might contain a cartridge, there’s no actual game in there — only a “key” that authenticates the purchase and allows players to download the game onto their systems. Switch 2 physical releases where the game is actually on the cartridge are becoming enough of a rarity that publishers announce that they’re eschewing key cards. But there’s a reason all of this is happening, argues Final Fantasy Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi, and it’s one that players need to understand.
The shift toward digital-first video games has been a long time coming, and the issue goes well beyond Nintendo. The PS5 Pro doesn’t have a disc drive. Spending on physical games is a fraction of what it was just a few years ago. Many modern games never release on physical media at all. So why are some Switch 2 fans so prickly about game key cards?
On a practical level, key cards necessitate more storage as players have to fit entire games onto their consoles. The Switch 2’s internal memory is 256GB, but modern games are constantly ballooning in size. You’ll have to shell out for increasingly bigger SD cards when triple-A games routinely slip into hundreds of gigabytes per title. The more annoying alternative is to constantly pick and delete games to make room for new ones.
Another consideration is preservation and ownership. Fans worry about the long-term prospects of games that require internet connections: will you still be able to play them when Nintendo moves on from the Switch 2? Can physical games released as game key cards really hold much long-term value?
Arguably, game key cards are the worst of both worlds. You only need an internet connection the first time you play the game, but after that the actual cartridge needs to be inserted in order to enjoy the game offline. So you don’t fully get the benefit of having a digital game when you still need a physical component to play it.
Grousing about all of this has been constant, to the degree that Nintendo is gauging player reactions to the practice. Developers, meanwhile, have expressed frustration that their only two options are putting games on 64GB cartridges or offering the title via game key card. Nintendo itself maintains that game key cards are a more economical option for developers, but consumers don’t really benefit from that. Switch 2 games are more expensive to buy than Switch 2 games, after all.
All of this context is necessary to understand recent remarks by Naoki Hamaguchi on game key cards. “I can see the things that they are maybe annoyed with, maybe why they don’t like it, and I get that, I really do,” Hamaguchi said in an interview with JP Games (via VGC).
But from a developer’s point of view, game key cards are simply easier to work with, Hamaguchi said. Developers don’t have to worry about memory restrictions inherent to the 64GB cartridges. Game key card experiences also load faster than cartridges do, because they can rely on the Switch 2’s speedier SSD.
“This is just my personal thoughts about this, but I’d kind of like, if possible, maybe Nintendo fans to understand the Game-Key cards and maybe come to accept them as part of the culture of gaming on Switch, because it allows more opportunities,” Hamaguchi says.
“I really get where people are coming from in terms of their negativity towards it, and there are good reasons and debates to have there,” he added. “But if people come to accept it more, I think there are advantages too, and from a developer’s perspective, it does let us do things that maybe we wouldn’t otherwise.”
While I’m sure players are sympathetic to the challenges developers face when making games for the Switch 2, a system that is less capable than its cohorts, two things can be true. Game key cards can be better for development, and they can suck for the consumer who is stuck with them.