Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s co-director has defended the Nintendo Switch 2’s unpopular game-key cards, saying they offer developers tools that they might not have access to in other formats.
Speaking to JP Games, Naoki Hamaguchi says that he can “understand” where unhappy players are coming from, but that issues such as memory restrictions are “not something that we can ignore.” The standard cartridges, he points out, have a smaller memory, but “perhaps the biggest issue for developers, certainly for people like us who make high-end HD games, is the loading speed.”
Comparing the standard cards to the solid-state drives and related loading speeds that most players are now used to, Hamaguchi says traditional cartridges are “going to be inferior to that.” When it comes to “making high-end games for the Switch 2,” he suggests that game-key cards’ “semi-download” offers smoother loading, which is important for developers to take advantage of.
He goes on to say that he’d like “Nintendo fans to understand the key cards and maybe come to accept it as part of the gaming culture on Switch, because it allows more opportunities.” The cards are an option that not every dev will need to take advantage of, he points out, but “from a developer’s perspective, it allows us to bring more high-end experiences to Switch players, and I think that’s a good thing.”
Hamaguchi ends by saying that “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.” But he reiterates the advantages, saying that “from a developer’s perspective, it does let us do things that maybe we wouldn’t otherwise.”
While the cards have been one of the community’s least-desired parts of the Switch 2’s first few months, they do seem likely to stick around, especially given the number of large RPGs previously released on more powerful consoles like the PS5 – including the FF7 remake and games like Elden Ring – that are heading to Switch 2. It’s a hit to preservation, for sure, but it does seem an awkward hurdle to overcome given Nintendo’s obvious desires for its most recent console’s catalogue.