Nintendo Switch 2: The Current State of Physical Releases

Nakamichi · 2026-06-24T14:55:04+0100

@VmprHntrD im mostly not a fan cause the game data i paid for should be on the fucking cart so i dont have to spend insane amounts on express-storage when thats not my responsibility but theirs.
But we all know what nintendo is like.
Cheap and greedy and petty and pathetic.
Which is why hacking Nintendo-systems is always morally justified and at least i can sell my fake cartridges whenever the first hack comes out and then i wont have to deal with them ever again.

Marc_LFD · 2026-06-24T14:59:07+0100

Nakamichi said:
@VmprHntrD im mostly not a fan cause the game data i paid for should be on the fucking cart so i dont have to spend insane amounts on express-storage when thats not my responsibility but theirs.
But we all know what nintendo is like.
Cheap and greedy and petty and pathetic.
Which is why hacking Nintendo-systems ia always morally justified and at least i can sell my fake cartridges whenever the first hack comes out and then i wont have to deal with them ever again.

They're all sadly ditching physical media. Pokopia should've been a real physical copy, yet it wasn't.

GTA VI... https://www.ign.com/articles/grand-...t-include-a-disc-will-just-be-a-code-in-a-box

Nakamichi · 2026-06-24T15:01:37+0100

Marc_LFD said:
They're all sadly ditching physical media. Pokopia should've been a real physical copy, yet it wasn't.

GTA VI... https://www.ign.com/articles/grand-...t-include-a-disc-will-just-be-a-code-in-a-box

When its free i honestly dont mind. Thats what i get for not paying, but when someone actually asks me to give them my money they should provide somewhat better service than piracy. If what they offer is so piss-poor and pathetic can you really blame people for ditching that entire system the first moment theres an alternative?

VmprHntrD · 2026-06-24T19:49:28+0100

Nakamichi said:
@VmprHntrD im mostly not a fan cause the game data i paid for should be on the fucking cart so i dont have to spend insane amounts on express-storage when thats not my responsibility but theirs.
But we all know what nintendo is like.
Cheap and greedy and petty and pathetic.
Which is why hacking Nintendo-systems is always morally justified and at least i can sell my fake cartridges whenever the first hack comes out and then i wont have to deal with them ever again.

Look neither am I, we agree there.

Basically I just see a gray area on this that's kind of unavoidable but otherwise I'd be ideally black and white on it too.

The keycards as of months ago earlier in this year were only 64GB and cost the developer $15 a card for an order of games which is a bite for sure, and when the game was using like 5GB or 30GB it was a huge waste of space, and often those were not $60-70 but budget titles in the $40-50 space, it left little room for making money worthwhile over digital or evil paper in a box. That made sense, and into this year to a lessening degree as more projects start with smaller choices gets leaner. If we see more games that aren't small on 16 and 32s by the end of the year, it's the sheer will of greed and DRM control freak behavior.

The other going forward are the two fair answers, a game too big (over 64GB) that can't be compressed to fit because a 96GB card if it existed would be over $20 a pop and price games where most non-avid gamers wouldn't buy it so it makes sense. The other are games where the media whether a game card or an optical disc can't shove enough data through memory fast enough that it causes bottleneck issues which only downgrading the game or having multiple load screens all over would mitigate and that's not great either. I can agree on those points for certain, and the earlier one up to this point now but that dies as the months go along.

Hacking a Nintendo system isn't morally justified, that's just copium for piracy, same with Sony and MS systems too. Just admit you don't want to pay for it and that's that. That's just being a hater of one company over another or all if you're more into computer gaming whoever that 'you' is.

Nakamichi · 2026-06-24T20:23:57+0100

@VmprHntrD lets agree to disagree

ChibiMofo · 2026-06-24T20:26:21+0100

Nakamichi said:
@VmprHntrD lets agree to disagree

Except for the part about simply admitting that you are a thief. Trying to justify your theft because the other side wants to make as much money as possible is pathetic.

Just

fly the flag

proudly like the rest of us.

Renos44 · 2026-06-24T20:42:12+0100

Captain_N said:
Do you have a source that says that cart data is compressed? Has anyone even decrypted cart data? I know the SoC has it, but is it actually being used to decompress cart data. Also, you cant tell me that marconix or whatever company manufactures the nand chips cant make a 128gb cart? Must be to expensive?

I get that AI is raising the demand, but there does not seem to be a manufacturing issue with switch 1 nand. Unless its already manufactured 3 years ago.

Nintendo should also let a publisher use a switch 1 cart for a switch 2 game if that game does not need the speed of the new carts. no way every game needs that read speed.

VmprHntrD said:
I've never heard about this compressed data thing either.

But it's also not fair to say all of them enough under 64GB being used for key cards are just cucks. Production of a game takes months, sometimes well over a year (or 2+ based on size of project) and at some point earlier on it would have been set in fairly decent stone the needs of the game. Up until earlier this year Nintendo was zipped lips (which was shit to do) about there being a 16 and 32GB option in the works for production, R-Type happened with ININ's pressuring to be the first announced. So there would be a run up of games created in 2025 and 2026 that would never know of those until development was deep or nearly done and would have missed the pressing of those smaller media. Some are DRM nazis and cheapskates for sure, but some just got hung out to dry. As we move deeper into 2026 and into 2027 those using key cards better have a good reason as hiding being an ass out of it would be indefensible.

The Switch 2 SoC has a dedicated file decompression block. Devs can use it to handle a bit of on the fly file decompression and fetching from the game data instead of eating up CPU cycles to do it. I believe Cyberpunk and star wars outlaws are the 2 notable examples of it being used.

Its not their to necessarily reduce file sizes but more free up the CPU from having to do the work and focus more on the game code.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 8:52 PM

Nakamichi said:
When its free i honestly dont mind. Thats what i get for not paying, but when someone actually asks me to give them my money they should provide somewhat better service than piracy. If what they offer is so piss-poor and pathetic can you really blame people for ditching that entire system the first moment theres an alternative?

I do find it funny when people in a physical media argument post the Gabe quote out of context in favor of physical media.
When Steam is the one of the biggest reasons physical media on PC has been dead for almost 20 years now and steam itself is DRM. Granted its an out of your way and easy to remove DRM but its still DRM.

Nakamichi · 2026-06-24T21:00:04+0100

ChibiMofo said:
Except for the part about simply admitting that you are a thief. Trying to justify your theft because the other side wants to make as much money as possible is pathetic.

Just fly the flag proudly like the rest of us.

yes, very nice. 5 out of 10 points. Good attempt, lacks conviction.

Captain_N · 2026-06-25T00:22:32+0100

Renos44 said:
The Switch 2 SoC has a dedicated file decompression block. Devs can use it to handle a bit of on the fly file decompression and fetching from the game data instead of eating up CPU cycles to do it. I believe Cyberpunk and star wars outlaws are the 2 notable examples of it being used.

Its not their to necessarily reduce file sizes but more free up the CPU from having to do the work and focus more on the game code.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 8:52 PM

I do find it funny when people in a physical media argument post the Gabe quote out of context in favor of physical media.
When Steam is the one of the biggest reasons physical media on PC has been dead for almost 20 years now and steam itself is DRM. Granted its an out of your way and easy to remove DRM but its still DRM.

Its DRM on an open platform which is even worse. A console you know the game is gonna be locked to it. Thats a given. But the fact that all your games are locked behind an account and you have to have the steam client installed and usually need an internet connection. Your account gets banned and you have nothing.

In many ways i feel this is worse then a disc copy with safedisk as drm. Im free to use that disc on multiple pcs. The user had most of the control not the company. Only thing that the companies could really control was online play. You had to have a legit serial for that. and most pc games had lan mode. Steam versions of those games have the lan mode removed.
To this day, i have never installed steam or used steam. Or any other digital service like steam. The only digital pc game service id buy from is GoG. they are boss. no drm. you have full control after you buy it.

ChibiMofo · 2026-06-25T02:04:41+0100

Captain_N said:
[Steam is] DRM on an open platform which is even worse... The only digital pc game service id buy from is GoG. they are boss. no drm. you have full control after you buy it.

Too bad GoG has no AAA titles and most of the catalog is from 1997 or before.

But sure, I hate Steam too and its CPU-stealing malware executable does not run on bootup on my PC.

Fitgirl and a bunch of crackers have the best digital PC game service ever.

Captain_N · 2026-06-25T02:50:10+0100

ChibiMofo said:
Too bad GoG has no AAA titles and most of the catalog is from 1997 or before.

But sure, I hate Steam too and its CPU-stealing malware executable does not run on bootup on my PC. Fitgirl and a bunch of crackers have the best digital PC game service ever.

lol oh yeah that girl is very Fit

VmprHntrD · 2026-06-25T18:06:22+0100

ChibiMofo said:
Just fly the flag proudly like the rest of us.

I was trying to be more diplomatic about it avoiding that subject but it was the first thing to that came to mind. Justifying piracy, which in this age of what the game industry keeps shoveling shit wise on people I feel is utterly justified in a lot of cases. My respect was lost when a company like Square-Enix in the PS3 era would openly shit talk fans of Tomb Raider blaming them for the bad sales when it only sold 4million copies (because those assholes dug such a financial pit it still didn't break being profitable at that point in time which is a disgrace.)

Renos44 said:
The Switch 2 SoC has a dedicated file decompression block. Devs can use it to handle a bit of on the fly file decompression and fetching from the game data instead of eating up CPU cycles to do it. I believe Cyberpunk and star wars outlaws are the 2 notable examples of it being used.

Its not their to necessarily reduce file sizes but more free up the CPU from having to do the work and focus more on the game code.

See now that was a useful answer that makes sense and it would be a relief for game makers to have that pad to pull off a little more. I did have outlaws for awhile, but again, I've siad in the GTA6 thread about being digital only, I'm spent on sandbox. RDR1 got me deep because of the genre, and Star Wars didn't rescue it much once that planetside area opened up to all the randomness in the wilds and I just put it down, erased it, and sold it as it was draining. But from what I could see, it was pulling a good bit of weight as it never seemed to suffer for all it did in the places I did check out inside and out in the open world. Cyberpunk I never considered as it just wasn't something I knew I could ever commit to but watched a bit and it is impressive.

Nintendo Switch 2: The Current State of Physical Releases

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