Nintendo Switch 2: The Current State of Physical Releases

[VmprHntrD]

I didn't either. I'm more and more checking out on stuff because of how things are so polarized, and I don't just mean politically as it's wasting the free time I have. I've cut out most consoles (hybrid Switch 2 is it now) and have my PC already which could fill the gap if I find something interesting. Otherwise, I just use the old stuff, it's reliable, it's robust, it doesn't bitch and whine at me on the range of multiplayer loser social media dogwater to demanding more money for the full parts of the game. Just over it, never saw this garbage happening either, wish it never did, so I've mostly just bowed out and better for it.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Added the following full releases:
- Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game
- Elder Scrolls IV, The: Oblivion Remastered

Added the following game key card releases:
- EA Sports FC 27
- EA Sports Madden NFL 27
- Hasbro Games Junior Collection
- Witch's Bakery, The

Added the following download code releases:
- Elder Scrolls V, The: Skyrim: Anniversary Edition

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Added the following game key card releases:
- Minecraft


Side note, the packaging image says that a 3 GB download is required for the game... There's no reason why this couldn't be a full fledged physical release, if this is anything to go by.

 

[Marc_LFD]

It's nice to see NS2 authentic full game cart releases growing. Nintendo has something really good here that customers want, don't throw it away like Sony and M$ have done.

 

[emmauss]

Added the following game key card releases:
- Minecraft


Side note, the packaging image says that a 3 GB download is required for the game... There's no reason why this couldn't be a full fledged physical release, if this is anything to go by.

Well, the game gets content updates every 3 months. Your full physical release is gonna be useless after a season. There's even a requirement to connect to Xbox live for full bedrock features

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Well, the game gets content updates every 3 months. Your full physical release is gonna be useless after a season. There's even a requirement to connect to Xbox live for full bedrock features

That is beside the point. Pretty much every game on a cartridge gets an update, which contains bug fixes, or a combination of that with additional contents. DLC is a thing as well. The point of physical media here is to make it possible to access the game period, with or without internet, regardless of the inevitable end of the digital store front, etc.. Game updates obviously are their own issue, but access to a game in any capacity is better than no access at all. The only other alternative is piracy, and that's not an option for everyone out there. The full physical releases may not always be updated with the latest contents, but they don't need to necessarily be for physical media to matter. Of course, It would always be better and way more ideal if the latest / last versions were crammed into a cartridge (some physical releases are actually handled this way, acting as revision releases), but something is better than nothing. You can still play Minecraft in this case offline, without using a Nintendo and Microsoft account, and no online membership needed. The only loss is the lack of multiplayer, but that's Nintendo's fault, not Microsoft's in this case. Achievements, the marketplace, and realms, are not necessary in my opinion, you can play singleplayer just fine without those three things. I can buy the Nintendo Switch version of the same game, and be able to play whatever version it shipped with. Is it the latest build? Probably not. If the internet goes down, the store front dies, and I'm unable to hack the model of Switch without directly modifying the hardware, just to play a pirated version, then the physical cartridge shipped with whatever version is ideal. It is still some form of the experience, even if it's not the latest bleeding version. If this is your angle to defend digital software, then I hope you realize that even the latest version of that isn't persistent, unless you had purchased the software, accessing it prior to the shutdowns. Which means if you didn't, your access is restricted to solely piracy. You have no choice but to hack a system, or emulate.

 

[VmprHntrD]

Just out of curiosity, but can you share the image of the actual box art that proves this? Maybe duckduck sucks but I can not find one good link that proves it's a game key card vs a game card. I mean either way, the point was already made, at the pace the games update anyway it's kind of almost irrelevant. But I get it, this thread is about splitting hairs on which you get, and personally for a game like this, I couldn't give a damn if it's a game key card due to how the content is handled.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Just out of curiosity, but can you share the image of the actual box art that proves this? Maybe duckduck sucks but I can not find one good link that proves it's a game key card vs a game card. I mean either way, the point was already made, at the pace the games update anyway it's kind of almost irrelevant. But I get it, this thread is about splitting hairs on which you get, and personally for a game like this, I couldn't give a damn if it's a game key card due to how the content is handled.

Every entry listed in the main post has an image link appended to the game text (minus a couple). Simply click on the title to see a picture of the box art (kind of surprised you didn't see that lol). Majority of the images I link to are from Amazon (primarily because they have high resolution images), I just transcoded them and centralized them into an album of images. Amazon generally lists the box art for things like pre-orders and such. While a very small select are not final product images, most of them absolutely are final. Generally it's required to mention if box art or an image is not final, otherwise that's a legal battle waiting to happen for misleading advertisement on these platforms (listing images change often when actual product updates are pushed, although some listings do slip sometimes). I manually hunt down the images needed for each game release, and have even updated some of the entries as better product images surface and or change.

It matters to me because they still print Minecraft for the Nintendo Switch, fully on the cartridge. They updated the box art as well in 2024. Even if the absolute latest version isn't supplied on the cartridge, a version is still better than no version. It's a slap in the face for Nintendo Switch 2 owners, who may have half expected the game to remain fully on the cartridge for the new platform. It's listed as being 3 GB in size for the digital download. Nobody can make the excuse of "well the game is too big to fit."

Side note, 3 GB is actually realistic in this case. Minecraft Bedrock on mobile is only ~1.3 GB. On the desktop, the x64 version is ~1.2 GB in size. For size comparisons, going as far back as a version from 2025 (take 1.21.144 for example), the x64 version was around ~886 MB. So the game is extremely small even with the latest update. It isn't ballooning so aggressively as some might be thinking or have thought at one point.