Consumers have been frustrated over Nintendo's new Game-Key Cards for the Switch 2 ever since they were revealed. These physical cartridges that lack game data on them and act more as a digital unlock function have sparked controversy over preservation concerns and desiring full physical retail releases. The endless debates spurred a former Capcom employee to take to social media and attempt to reason why Nintendo is doing this. Masakazu Sugimori, known for composing soundtracks for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick, and Viewtiful Joe, says that Nintendo's methods are significant in reducing piracy.

“It’s unfair that something you bought becomes unplayable when the service ends.” As a player myself, I can understand this perspective, and I sometimes feel the same way. But, well… Do physical items outside of digital products last forever? Most of the time, they don’t, right? Physical things always have a lifespan and will eventually break. Digital products, on the other hand, generally don’t have a lifespan.

According to him, Nintendo's choices in raising game prices allows other publishers, who might be struggling with development costs and inflation to follow Nintendo's lead. By ending support for older games, it provides more jobs in order to port those games to current hardware. Sugimori says that it might be an idealistic viewpoint, but he believes that Nintendo has enough money to be successful regardless of these changes, and that they're doing these things to protect the industry as a whole.

・Keycards 　→ Measures against illegal copying, reducing the risk of holding inventory
・Raising game prices 　→ Waving the flag so that game companies, struggling with recent inflation, can raise prices
・Terminating online services for older hardware 　→ Setting a “lifespan.” This makes it easier for companies to re-release games on new hardware. To put it further, it creates the job of “porting.”

Source

 

[MariArch]

‘We like screwing the consumer’

 

[JeffRuLz]

If the industry can only survive by screwing over its customers then let it burn.

 

[skx7]

Look at the bright side, more incentive to hack the shit out of the switch2... did digital or physical mean any change in preservation?

 

[kingaz]

“It’s unfair that something you bought becomes unplayable when the service ends.” As a player myself, I can understand this perspective, and I sometimes feel the same way. But, well… Do physical items outside of digital products last forever? Most of the time, they don’t, right? Physical things always have a lifespan and will eventually break. Digital products, on the other hand, generally don’t have a lifespan.

He's partially correct, but this answer is incomplete and misleading. Sure, a digital service could continue to deliver a game's files past the expected lifespan of a physical game. But they have a lifespan of a different kind: they depend on the company providing the service to keep the servers running and available to customers. I'd go so far as to say that gamers who prefer physical media will overwhelmingly choose the lifespan imposed by physics over the lifespan imposed by the whims of corporations, especially given the incentives put forth by Sugimori himself:

By ending support for older games, it provides more jobs in order to port those games to current hardware.

Terminating online services for older hardware 　→ Setting a “lifespan.” This makes it easier for companies to re-release games on new hardware. To put it further, it creates the job of “porting.”

No. Absolutely not. If people's jobs depend on misleading the public to take away the games they bought outright so they can sell them again and again in the future, those people can go ahead and find other jobs. Even assuming that games always get ported (which they don't) and even assuming that those ports are always polished, feature complete and actively preserve the original games on top of any extras they add (which they aren't), those ports should not be premised on deleting the original copies of a game that were fairly sold just so that they can sell more.

This is the most insane and tone-deaf defense of game key cards anyone could make. Even the best pitch of "digital games you can lend and resell" is anemic at best. But this? This is *hostile.*

 

[Dark_Ansem]

and that they're doing these things to protect the industry as a whole.

oh GFY

 

[ASSASSIN-Z]

Look at the bright side, more incentive to hack the shit out of the switch2... did digital or physical mean any change in preservation?

Ttue. People will just backup the game roms from the internal storage.

 

[NotUsingAnAltAccount]

Ah yes, I heard that somewhere before. You will own nothing and you will be happy about it.

On top of that, this is pure corpo talk. If you are naive, you will believe it.

 

[BlusterBong]

Look at the bright side, more incentive to hack the shit out of the switch2... did digital or physical mean any change in preservation?

You're saying this as if Nintnedo didn't already beef up the Switch 2's securtiy by a significant amount and will take a long time for a successful hack to even happen.

 

[emmauss]

Worst take ever.

Physical media from the 70s still survive in the year 2025 with little to no issue at all.

But look how many digital games have been removed/revoked or had their live service ended: this will happen with keycards too.

Regardless, digital games get dumped just as easily as physical media.

They’re chatting absolute shit because they have to.

Is it guaranteed that modern flash memory tech can even last 10 years on their own, even with regular repowering? Even on a regularly power on system like a laptop, eMMC and most modern flash storage have just a few years to a decade of expected life. Even carts from the 3ds are having faults.

 

[raxadian]

Honesty if you are gonna sell Digital Games just sell Digital Games; don't scam people like this.

 

[Lumpofcoal]

This pretty much puts paid to what many of us have suspected all along vis a vis the main motive of game key cards. It was never about convenience for the customer.

I also strongly disagree with his point on prices.

I doubt ninty is raising prices for the sake of leading the charge for other companies to do the same. This reason is also untenable because many companies are unable to even come close to matching ninty's level of quality. Ninty's first party titles have an argument to make for raising prices.......but can the same argument honestly be made for most of the AAA slop out there? From the likes of EA/Acitvision/Ubisoft ? Unless he wants to make the argument that those companies have comparable quality.

It also ignores the very real possibility of overbudgeting for a game. Those AAA companies spend so much, yet many of the games they produce are worse than indie titles on much smaller budgets. As such, I don't really buy the inflation argument for larger companies. Hubris, greed, inefficiency and poor planning are more likely factors. There is something to be said when a game like Silksong can achieve such massive success on a much smaller budget and is a only asking for a twenty.

His argument shows a lack of understanding as to why gamers dislike the price increases. He only sees it from the corporate point of view and he doesn't show any introspection as to why such big budget games keep failing one after another despite the already high prices (including the myriad of dlcs/microtransactions) they are demanding. Mate, you can charge 200 bucks for your game, but if the game doesn't measure up to its price, you are still going to suffer a loss at the end of the day. And if you are going to continue to blame "inflation" and raise prices, you will continue to fail into irrelevancy and eventually, bankruptcy.

 

[yankii]

Honesty if you are gonna sell Digital Games just sell Digital Games; don't scam people like this.

You can't expect corpos to not want to milk unsuspecting buyers/collectors.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I thought bout this for while, but never commented on it in public.

I can see why they came up with "Key cards" but obviously it's not considered consumer friendly. The video game preservation foundation even deem it unworthy of archiving. The whole point is just buying a card that "Grants user permission to download game from server."

To this extent. It only benefit the developers & publisher who prioritize cutting cost, not the consumer who still has to pay the premium with less sense of "ownership".

It's just the middle ground of going to store to buy a game only to receive a ONE TIME USE code permanently added to your account. Vs a physical tangible game card that does virtually the same thing. But without it being permanently tied to account since it's resellable. also giving publishers "cheaper" alternatives to not having the full game on the card and taxing the cost extra $10 or so. (Do people still say "Switch Tax"?)

So this works by publishers not needing to spend tons of money for expensive storage medium, but consumers "owning" less of the products they purchase. So publishers would defend this if it means saving money as priority, over consumers disliking this or the video game foundation deeming it not appropriate for archiving.

I'm not making excuses for them. Of course, personally, I don't think every publisher has the same sentiment about key cards. So they would if they can, try to avoid using them but knowing it's a option, will just mean the elephant is always in everyone's room.

We all know people would love nothing more than to just buy a game with all the data on the cart/disc. That's why limited run (Ignoring their faults) or strictly limited and other publishers exist.

But would you really be better going to the store and buying
a code that ties the game to your account so you can't resell after use? Or
a cart that isn't tied to your account and can be resold, traded or borrowed?

It's not that much different than your playstation or xbox disc installing data and still needing the disc to play the game. (assuming all the data needed to play full game is on disc and don't need server patch updates to function or finish content... tony hawk 5)

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The difference is that physical items can be repaired, so they can theoretically last forever as long as you can get parts. Nobody is ripping the product out of your hands. Usually, you replace products because they get outdated, not because they break. Video games usually don't get outdated, and so they shouldn't need to be replaced.

Of course, companies don't want us repairing our stuff either, because repairing your stuff instead of being forced to buy a new one when they break is bad for the companies' bottom line.

They're sugarcoating greed, plain and simple. Admitting to planned obsolescence and trying to pass it off like a good thing is so completely tonedeaf to the reasons people are angry.
I'm sure shutting down online services does make it easier for you to port games, but do we really need more ports? You're already porting generation old games that we could still play perfectly fine on on the original hardware, while doing very little to improve the game, just increasing the resolution or target framerate and charging full price for it.
Remasters/remakes of 15+ year old games, those are warranted because they allow your games to reach a new generation of gamers, and people with nostalgia for the original also appreciate them. Regardless of the status of online services on the original console, there is a market for those.
Ports just aren't exciting and you're not going to convince anyone that game key cards are actually good by using "more ports" as reasoning. Ports are just lazy cash grabs. As a consumer I'd much rather you make more new games, not more ports.

 

[yankii]

It's not that much different than your playstation or xbox disc installing data and still needing the disc to play the game.

It's very different, actually.

PS5 discs almost always have a playable build on disc which you can use to install and play game without ever connecting to Sony's servers. And no one who cares about physical media is buying Xbox.

GKCs, on the other hand, are worth less than the box they came in without servers.

 

[shadow1w2]

How much he get paid to say that?
None of that sounds genuine.

 

[yakuku]

What a crock of shit. Funny how he never states about "allowing the game you own you purchased" because there is none. It's never about the customers with these kinds of people. Especially Capcom.

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

I suspect that if it wasn't for game key cards they would all just be CiaB.

Yeah the strongest assumption we have is a major 3rd party publisher (most likely Capcom as they have a history with bartering with Nintendo) that basically told Nintendo to make changes or they wouldnt support their platform. They did this exact thing with the Switch 1.

 

[yankii]

Yeah the strongest assumption we have is a major 3rd party publisher (most likely Capcom as they have a history with bartering with Nintendo) that basically told Nintendo to make changes or they wouldnt support their platform. They did this exact thing with the Switch 1.

How do they have that much sway over Nintendo? They don't even make good games...

 

[NostalgicMillennial]

Look at the bright side, more incentive to hack the shit out of the switch2... did digital or physical mean any change in preservation?

Let's wait a few years when the switch 2 has actual noteworthy exclusives