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

 

[Clydefrosch]

well... to be fair, a gamekeycard that was leaked 4 weeks early is not gonna lead to everyone having played the latest pokemon game way early.

 

[Ambers_Crimson_8K]

There is a reason, he's a former employee!

 

[Formoball]

I miss the days of big physical boxes, PC games had awesome physical boxes.

 

[TomSwitch]

it RUINS the industry. What its done is MADE me NOT buy a switch 2.
If I want to play switch 2 games I'll wait for the emulator to come out.
Fuck them. They lost me for good.
My nintendo membership is due next week. I'm not going to pay it. Fuck that.
They lost ALL my money. Its YUZU, SUZU, EDEN, and the other one. LOL.
Have you seen eden on the Legion Go? damn its so good and I havent even tweaked it yet.
Kicks absolute ass over the switch itself.
I havent turned on the switch since I got the Legion Go. The emulator plays all the games I own better than the actual console. And I can backup and transfer my saves and put them wherever I want.
NintenDOH have done it all wrong and keep failing.
THEIR LOSS.

Sorry that you did not buy Switch LL, it has a bigger screen and larger joycon which is good if you like LL version in general. Loading time is greatly improved and a much appreciated feature. Finally those 3D games runs much better on it.

 

[Kingofknights]

Yeah, I hack pretty much any and all consoles I own. What do you do... BUY games?

Yes, I'm also a dev (in different field) so I'd rather not taking another dev's hard work without paying for it on currently available consoles now that I have the means to support them. I still pirate stuffs that are not available like old games though.

 

[previous_member]

My Atari 2600 works and so do my cartridges and I OWN them. It's something special to have a cartridge of your favorite game. I remember when PS1 had a lot of RPGs come out that would be bundled with a map, posters, beautiful manual. Those were good days. Yes there was some piracy back then, but those who bought the game were rewarded with these wonderful treasures. This is what the industry should do again and stop worrying about a handful of pirates. Why let a small minority ruin things for everyone else?

What's a 'room of doom' gonna look like in 50 years from now? "Well, this is a printout of an online receipt for the purchase of a license to play this game.. that's all that's left of it." "Those are some keycards for some games I once downloaded. I've forgotten what games they were." "Oh that light spot on the wall was where I had a poster from a Mario game, but I could only lease the poster and some dudes from Nintendo came and took it."

 

[DJ-Yoshiman]

…because it’s highly unlikely that he’s the only one? I mean, you think this one guy sent an email to Nintendo that spawned the nonsense that is game key cards? Come on, man.

So where are the other posts referencing this same rhetoric?

 

[AverageHorse]

We really need a clown emoji reaction here.

 

[pinbi7]

IN OTHER NEWS!

tobacco manufacturers praises cigarettes health benefits

 

[console]

If someone would knock off electric nuclear power plants would affect all internet, online, servers, any video games with DRM, etc to go off then no way to download games, etc anymore, RIP to all. Game-Key Cards are same to digital know as worst ever period! All game companies would go to shut down forever.

Most physical video games are best ever than digital.

Boo Boo to Game-Key Cards and digital to death!

 

[emmauss]

If someone would knock off electric nuclear power plants would affect all internet, online, servers, any video games with DRM, etc to go off then no way to download games, etc anymore, RIP to all. Game-Key Cards are same to digital know as worst ever period! All game companies would go to shut down forever.

Most physical video games are best ever than digital.

Boo Boo to Game-Key Cards and digital to death!

And your switch battery won't last a week.

 

[MasterJ360]

Anti piracy? These carts would be great if Blockbuster was revived, because they're rentals. You don't get the full game even if it'd cost you $70+.

Post automatically merged: Sep 15, 2025

Switch 2 is running really dry. People are tired of MKW's stupidity and DKB isn't the type of game to bring up sales.

NS2 isn't the next Wii U, but it may not do as well as Nintendo hoped.

Well yeah thats the point of their existence. They are carts you don't own and cannot dump. These empty pieces of plastic are just a cheap version of DRM in its physical form. At least that how I look at them, I was just waiting for a dev to come out and say it.

 

[N7Kopper]

Yeah, it protects the industry.
Protects the industry from capitalism, that is.

 

[Chrisssj2]

Digital things do have a lifespan. What crack is this guy on? And physical can last a lifetime if you are lucky.

 

[ertaboy356b]

Both physical and digital have a lifespan. As for Nintendo's digital games, the lifespan has still not ended (DS and WII servers are still up). However, we don't know if it'll be up indefinitely as long as Nintendo stays in business or will they eventually cut it from their expenses and move on.

Old cartridges from the DS down to the NES era are virtually indestructible but the new ones are basically on a time limit due to the nature of the NAND. It makes sense when he says that physical has a lifespan in this context. I've seen a lot of 3DS cartridges crapped out after being tuck away for a long time (I'm looking at your FE Fates > > ). As for the console, they can die too and handhelds are typically susceptible to high humidity.

As for the Game Key Cards, depending on how they are built (pre-3ds tech or nand), they can last for a long time. The e-shop will probably last for as long as Nintendo stays in business so unless an apocalyptic event happens, you will be able to always download your games from your game key.

 

[SMNFXCN]

I'd argue a lot of things these companies are doing aren't protecting the industry

 

[ertaboy356b]

I miss the days of big physical boxes, PC games had awesome physical boxes.

Steam killed your chances of having physical boxes, have a good day.

 

[SMNFXCN]

Steam killed your chances of having physical boxes, have a good day.

Ngl if collectors/special editions had a steam option with a steam key in them I'd go for them. PC never gets anything like that

 

[lwiz]

Ngl if collectors/special editions had a steam option with a steam key in them I'd go for them. PC never gets anything like that

Relatively recent, I just wish there were more - especially now when Nintendo has gone mostly digital too

https://gbatemp.net/threads/things-you-recently-bought-or-got.347639/post-9514408

Shame it's been so far one off from Bamco Otherwise - shut up and take my money already...

//EDIT Actully preordered the game blind due having the PC special edition available

 

[Xmortal]

I still don't understand the criticism of Game Key Cards, since other companies already used the same thing for special editions. STOP BEING HYPOCRITE.