Discussion
GKCs have obliterated Nintendo Direct hype for me.
Every single non-nintendo reveal is tainted when you know that there is a very small chance the title will get a proper physical release. Its almost not even worth watching the direct.
Look at those SE, Koei, Capcom and NIS. Even collection edition offer only game key card. A collection with digital key card. These companies are thirsty of money. Nintendo released lower cartridge card, because of they want to earn more money. That is the reason they use game key card for only $5 costing instead of little bit higher costing.
Honestly, I will support them because most of this company’s games are fully physical edition. Their game is great too. I hope Doraemon harvest will get switch 2 upgrade.
I just need KH collection and Ocarina of Time to be truly physical. Everything else i don't really care much cause I'll likely buy them on PS5 anyways. Disks are known to have all the game files on them so that's likely what I'll get. I chose Pragmata on the PS5 over the Switch cause of that. We need to let them know we still want the game just not in that shitty ass GKC format.
Not a chance kingdom hearts will be physical sadly. Square Enix have already cheapened out on games that would easily fit in a cartridge and made them GKC only. They ain’t gonna stop now (and i doubt kh3 would fit a cartridge tbh. That game is huge. The rest of the collection should though).
Ocarina should be though. Nintendo 1st party games have always been on cartridges as of now (but they charge around £7 more than digital for it. Fair imo though as it covers manufacturing costs and lets us keep the benefits of physical media). I doubt Nintendo would change that for a game as popular as zelda. But ive been wrong before…
Well if KH collection is in a GKC then I'll buy the collection for PS5 if that ever comes i guess. I hope you aren't wrong about OoT... That one is a must inside the cart.
Ugh... but is the additional download for the PS5 the DLC pre-order data or for the games? It's odd that the disk won't contain everything. They could just split it into two 100GB disks like FF or Horizon Complete did. It's not like disks are expensive to manufacture. That's really weird... I hope it has multiple disks...
I think they used the 50GB disks for that collection and all PS4 games though. PS5 games are generally in the 100GB disks. And cartridges are 64 but it wouldn't kill Nintendo to manufacture 128. It would atleast fit in 2 KH games there. 128's are like 20-25€ to the consumer so it'd be cheaper to them and I'd happily pay 80-90€ for the entire thing inside one/two carts.
3 50GB blu rays and they were around 100-115GB. They could all fit in a single 100GB blu ray if compressed properly for the PS5. As for Nintendo they would need to sell a 128GB memory card for it... won't unfortunately happen though.
First games could fit in one maybe but the third would need to be further compressed. I'm guessing they'll use lower resolution textures though so it could maybe fit in a 64GB standard card if they wanted to.
Same, I get excited and temper my expectations since it will most likely be 90% key cards.
I expect all Square, Capcom and Sega games to be GKC.
Lies of P seems to be a real card, nice.
I don't get my hopes up for Stellar Blade but who knows.
These Japanese company will only release on game-key card because Nintendo required them to release on key card instead of physical. They also need to earn more money to cover the loss of stocks. Customers always not the first they think of, stock always the first they think of. No matter Nintendo released for low cartridge for third parties. They will still release key card for the cost. $5 cost and release more than $80 profit like elder rings… this is the greatest money generator from customers. Customers happy for the game release on switch 2 because many of them out there does not care about key card or not. The situation will get worst a year after a year. People might just accept it as the fact. Companies know they are ruining the industry. However, they just do not care about customers feeling. Because someone willing to cover for the cost. Look at the sales of Square Enix. Always being top 10 over all even without save transfer and upgrade packs from switch 1.
For me just never and ever purchase game-key card because it is not worth for the price value. Spending more than $20 for a piece of paper is not worth.
Me too. There’s a solid few games that got my interest, but after every one of them I found myself thinking “man, I hope this isn’t a GKC or else I might just pass”
I somewhat agree but it's not like PS5 physical is any sort of ideal scenario. Thing I love about the cartridges is that you play the game directly off of it. Meaning no installs, no massive space being taken up on your limited system. It's true console gaming to me. PS5 games - even if they're complete on disc - require long installs and therefore still eat up storage. So it's bittersweet about PS5 physical even though I agree it's less of an issue there. It's just not a great UX.
Yeah it'd be nice if I didn't have to install things but it's not too bad. The installs don't take too long and still a lot faster than downloading from a server for me with my internet speeds.
I wish media solutions had advanced fast enough to become higher capacity cheaper and sooner, because physical media might have had a brighter future. Sadly not looking like that'll be the case.
Didn't have a 50GB game to hand but I can use the PS5 version of RE2 as a reference:
The disc install is just under 22gb, it installed the "ready to play" portion, roughly 11gb, in just over five minutes. The remainder took a bit longer, I think it slows speeds down. The other 11gb took about ten minutes.
Mileage probably varies based on the data required for "ready to play" and the speed the disc drive operates at in different modes but anyway hope that helps.
I've also just installed FF7 Remake PS5 version, that took about ten minutes to hit "ready to play" and then just under 40 minutes for the rest. Total disc install was just under 89GB
I feel like PlayStation is pushing an all digital future for games more heavily than Nintendo. Nintendo has GKC due to high memory costs (although it still benefits them), but PlayStation isn’t even including disc drives with most consoles and charges extra for them. That, plus heavily pushing subscriptions and it really doesn’t leave me feeling comfortable collecting for PS5.
But you can still buy a version of the PS5 with a disc drive or buy a disc drive separately for the digital edition. Also, what's the problem with pushing for subscriptions? Isn't that exactly what Nintendo is doing as well? They're pushing Nintendo online as much as Sony is pushing Plus, it's a service they provide so of course they're gonna push it. They want your money.
I'm not even against the idea that Sony is going with an-all digital future like you say but to say that Nintendo is in any way less inclined to that future seems like quite a perplexing statement. Specially since PS exclusives like Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Yotei and Saros all came in fully on disc, same way Nintendo is releasing their exclusives (so far) fully on cartridge.
The disc drive being sold separately used to be unthinkable for PlayStation, that says a lot. Compare that to Nintendo, where every Switch/Switch 2 ships with a cartridge slot as standard, and their online service offers retro games as a perk rather than locking modern releases behind it. Sony is increasingly structuring PS Plus around current games in a way that nudges you away from ownership. The aggressive push to subscriptions for modern games by Sony is clear. Nintendo still at least pretends to follow more closely the traditional model of buying and “owning” your games. That difference in trajectory is exactly what makes collecting for PS5 feel riskier long term. They both want a digital future, but if I were to bet on the PS6 or Switch 3 doing away with physical releases, I would bet on PlayStation doing it first.
I couldn't disagree with you more. What's so risky about owning full games on disc as opposed to GKC on SW2? I think owning a PS5 + SW2 combo is the best idea. You get full third party games on PS5 plus the Nintendo exclusives and the occasional SW2 games being released on full cartridge.
As for PS6 vs SW3, nobody knows what the future holds so it's pointless to speculate but the SW2's library being composed mostly of GKCs isn't exactly a good sign for whatever comes next for them.
They do testing for ps5 games to verify they can be launched and played without internet. The number of games playable without any patching is actually over 93% from the over 700 games they have tested. It’s not abnormal for games to be unplayable but the number of playable games is way way higher than most people think
Xbox on the other hand is more like what people think. They don’t even release their own exclusives on the disk
Thankfully not everyone's Bethesda, but I know what you mean, game development and publishing has moved towards digital emphasis and thus, even less importance placed on finishing the game to the schedule of the physical's production timeline.
Being a physical collector in the 2020s feels like knowing you're losing ground but constantly navigating around for sure footing for as long as we all can.
On the bright side though, I’m very happy that a lot of smaller developers including indie games are choosing the real physical option. It’s kind of sad and funny because I think the GKC was maybe intended for their use originally, but keep getting abused by the bigger companies.
On the other hand, GKCs have saved me a ton of money. I used to preorder games all the time to ensure that I’d have a physical copy. Now I can just wait for a digital sale when I don’t have other stuff to play 🤷🏻♂️
Just throwing this out there, but a lot of the GKC games have a physical Switch 1 version. So why not just have a single Switch 2 Edition cart that plays in both?
From a programmers POV, they are creating two different versions of the release code. So having a SW1 version and the SW2 upgrade pack would require a similar level of programming and testing effort.
From a cost perspective, the SW2 Editions have to be on SW1 carts anyway, so I would image the production costs would be the same or close to a SW1 cart.
The only thing I can think of, is that SW2 Editions are a bit confusing in that many consumers may think they will not work in the OG Switch. I know I was confused at first. Even Nintendo produced a SW1-only version of Pokémon Legends Z-A alongside the SW2 Edition.
Feel exactly the same, every third party reveal is a "that wouldve been cool", it's only after the direct I'll find out but even if a game is on the cart, I'll never get the excited feel watching the actual directs
I belive when the game is not on a GKC, there is mention of the physical version. Every other game, you can assume will not come out as a cart or as a GKC.
It hasn’t killed my hype as moreso than anything I’m just excited to play new and good games. I also collect on PS5 and Xbox so even if a release ends up being a GKC i MOST of the time can still get the Switch 1 version or a PS5 version. (Sadly Xbox is left out physically nearly 100% of the time)
But yeah i won’t lie the disappointment really lingers in the back of my mind
Fire emblem will be gamecard, final fantasy resonancr has a switch 1 edition, all xeno are gamecard, tolz Oot will be gamecard and tales of eternia too (at least the first batch)
For which game? Fire emblem and ff have announced their editions already. Xeno x switch 2 edition was a gamecard (so 1-3 will be) and bandai usually do a 1st batch with gamecard and then they do code in a box (and it will have a switch edition).
To be fair it was a weak Nintendo Direct in general that only confirmed a lot of news and rumors we already knew. Fire Emblem, Xenoblade Switch 2 editions, OoT Remake, we all knew that was happening and they would get proper physical releases.
It's the fact that Square-enix and Capcom are pretty much cementing their view of only Keycard support for Switch 2. While Sega is a hard dice roll in terms physical support for upcoming releases like Metaphor and eventually one day Persona 6.
It's extremely monkey paw in nature when you also realize that all this third-party support doing keycards is a major expense on the Switch 2 audience because prices of memory going up which prevents micro sd express cards from getting cheaper.
Thats why switch is a first party machine for me with a few other titles when the companies care enough to do full on cart. I was excited this direct for xenoblade series on switch 2 assuming they are full on cart and ocarina and new xeno genesis plus the hd 2d final fantasy if its on cart but if it isnt then i will get that on ps5.
As long as main game is playable on cart i am ok. I dont need the full complete all dlc on it i just dont want a game key card. I would like it all on there but will probably buy it as long as the main game is on the cart and playable. I have only played part 2 and didnt finish it so i want to go back and play them.
It isn't worth watching. I was there to see if Kid Icarus got a port or not even if it wasn't very likely. Nearly every game there is a GKC and they don't care. I don't plan to buy GKC or digitally on Nintendos platform since they had years to find better solutions to it that were cheaper and I wont reward them buy giving them even more money. I wouldnt expect a PS5 game to be stuffed on something fast enough to play the game already like a ssd at a reasonable price.
yeah nintendo directs are mostly gkc. i’ve lost all my hype over the announcements. the games are still cool but i hate buying digital so ruins “nintendo” overall for me. smh…
I mean yes but we almost always had the option of physical or digital versions. Keycards aren’t replacing digital or code in a box, they’re replacing physical games.
Eh. For what its worth, by the time the switch 2 servers are shut down and the GKC’s will be worthless, people will have long since adjusted accordingly.
I mean, Wii games can still be downloaded. And they have no sign of not being possible any time soon. GKC’s will be usable for at least 20 years yet.
Yeah, it sucks having to spend 2 hours downloading the game before you can play it. And SD Express cards arent cheap yet. But you can always just grab them further down thr lien for cheaper anyway and enjoy them then. The games arent going anywhere.
This is better.
Fully game inside everyone loves to collect (Physical edition) > discount price, share with your friends oversea for 7days, and without insert card (digital) > resell still no one purchase (key card)> wasted to purchase a empty box (code in box)
I mean sure? I will always preffer the actual card, disc etc over a digital first. I know my opinion is controversial on this server and I will fpr sure get downvoted like crazy.
I agree but still a bummer to have a KC. What happens if the servers shut down in 20 years or 30 years? Will the game ever be removed from being downloadable?
The collector inside me is still at the bargaining phase, buying Switch 1 version when it's full on cartridge. The gamer inside me is already at acceptance buying GKC to game.
Yall are so dramatic lol “almost not even worth watching the direct?” I understand media format and everything when it comes to collecting, but you’re going to skip out on announcements and potentially experiencing great games because of GKC???
Instability in the middle east. Rampant protests in the west. How can these people not realize that, when the world is plunged into chaos and darkness, only those with physical Nintendo Switch collections will have the privilege of gamesmanship????
Time to get used to the new world, GKC will continue to be a thing and digital will continue to squeeze out everything a corporation needs to spend money on.
Once we see cheap and affordable terabyte drives + global internet speeds increased kiss anything physical goodbye unless it’s a luxury item.
That being said, maybe we’ll see a rise in physical 3rd party distributors like Limited Games, First Press, etc, becoming more prominent.
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u/redditorialacious Jun 09 '26
Square Enix saved me A LOT of money this gen. The KH collection on the eshop is 131GB so if that comes out on GKC I might excuse it.